DEAN CAN win. Republicans think the former governor of mighty Vermont is a joke; Democratic party leaders think he is a disaster waiting to happen. The name of Michael Dukakis has been invoked with such shuddering fear that one would think Dean is going to present about as much of a challenge to the incumbent president as Bob Dole. He's a liberal ideologue, some say. He approved civil unions for homosexuals! Not only will he lose, but he'll drive half the party over to the GOP.
Those would be good arguments, if any of them were true.
Let's start by analyzing that favorite perception that Howard Dean is a leftist hippie. He's not. Examine the facts: "Over 11 years, he restrained spending growth to turn a large budget deficit into a surplus, cut taxes, forced many on welfare to go to work, abandoned a sweeping approach to health-care reform in favor of more incremental measures, antagonized environmentalists, won the top rating from the National Rifle Association and consistently embraced business interests" ("Defying Labels Left or Right, Dean's '04 Run Makes Gains", NYTimes.com, July 25). Furthermore, according to his own official Web site (www.deanforamerica.com), the good doctor supports the death penalty in extreme cases and is by all measures moderate if not conservative when it comes to fiscal matters.
So if Dean isn't liberal at all, why has he garnered such broad support among the leftist wing of the Democratic party, and where has this conception of Dean as an ideologue come from? Primarily, it stems from his blunt, no-holds-barred, stick-it-to-'em style, something refreshing and exciting for the masses that have been silently -- or vocally -- seething under three years of reason-defying rule. Dean is not afraid to take on Bush with fire and brimstone, and that is the key to his amazing grassroots following.
In 2003, it is perfectly clear what it means to be conservative. It means you follow the clarion call of a crusading president who makes no excuses about his values and his black-and-white worldview. The identity of conservatism has not been this strong since the Reagan years. How, then, are the liberals to respond without an equally polarized figure at their head? It is into this role that Howard Dean has fallen.
Faced with the dichotomy of a moderate candidate propped up as champion of the liberals, the question remains: Is he a viable contender for the presidency? Unequivocally, the answer is yes. In the primary phase of the election cycle, candidates locate the sectors of their party that will get them the nomination and adjust their personas to pander to them. Dean has embraced his role as liberal, proclaiming proudly the slogan coined by the late and popular liberal Sen. Paul Wellstone: "I represent the democratic wing of the Democratic party!" To be perfectly frank, at this point in the process, people care far more about perceptions and catch phrases than the actual issues.
All of that changes -- though perhaps not as much as it should -- when the nominations have been doled out and a two-candidate race emerges. That is when America (and the 75 percent of it that can't tell you who Howard Dean is) gets to meet the real Dr. Dean, and to the horror of some leftists, the picture that will emerge in the debates is one of an intelligent moderate whose policies just make sense.
Who is the real Howard Dean? He is a man who wants to pump money into the public school system, not abandon it. He is a man who wants to repeal the ridiculous Bush tax cuts and work towards a balanced budget. He is a man who thinks gun control should be the bailiwick of the states. He is a man who wants universal health care. On the issues, it's hard to imagine a scenario where Dean would alienate large chunks of the Democratic party.
But, Dean detractors might say, there's still the matter of civil unions. While it is true that Dean signed that legislation into law in Vermont, he only did so after he was forced to be the Vermont Supreme Court. Further, the signing ceremony was a quiet, private affair, a fact that enraged gay activists in the state.
Dean has done some amazing things in his campaign. He came out of nowhere to become the frontrunner faster than any insurgent candidate in history. More than that, however, Howard Dean has managed to convince America that he is liberal. That fact might just win him the nomination. But let there be no mistake: Once it's Dean vs. Bush, the facade will disappear -- and Dean will win.
(Elliot Haspel is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.)
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