Coastal
Post Online
December,
2003
Why I'm for Dean
By William Greider
The Nation
First, the rivals saw him as a McGovernite
lefty from the 1960s. When that didn't take, they decided to depict him as a
right-wing clone of Newt Gingrich who wants to dismantle Medicare and Social
Security. Finally, opponents sold political reporters on the story of Mr.
Malaprop, an oddball from tiny, liberal Vermont so insensitive to the nuances
of American politics his mouth will destroy him. Howard Dean surged ahead
through all this. The other candidates and writing collaborators in the press
got him wrong every time.
Howard Dean is an odd duck, certainly, in the milieu of the contemporary
Democratic Party. He is, I surmise, a tough and savvy politician of the old
school--a shrewd, intuitive pol who develops his own sense of where the people
are and where events are likely to take public opinion, then has the guts to
act on his perceptions. That approach--leading, it's called--seems dangerously
unscientific in this era of high-quality polling and focus groups, the data
interpreted for politicians by expensive consultants. The press corps has not
had much experience with Democrats of this type, so reporters read Dean's style
as emotional, possibly a character flaw. He reminds me of olden days when Democrats
were a more contentious bunch, always fighting noisily among themselves and
often with creative results.
The ubiquitous "party sources" have explained that Dean merely
caught a lucky break by declaring early and forcefully against the war on Iraq
at a time when Americans were overwhelmingly prowar. Who knew things might
change? The doctor knew.
A more
pertinent question is, Why didn't other leading candidates see this tragedy
coming? Their reticence was symptomatic of the inert Washington insiders,
exceedingly cautious, indifferent to whatever roils the party's rank and file,
and always a few steps behind the curve. The explanation that Washington
candidates voted for the war on principle or were misled by Bush doesn't help
them. Their blindness to the potential consequences (now unfolding) is another
reason to be for Dean. He, meanwhile, speaks plainly to the error of US
imperialism. "America is not Rome. We do not dream of empire. We dream of
liberty for all."
The man
also stands his ground in a fight. When someone jabs him, he jabs back. Pundits
describe this quality as dangerous, and no doubt it gets him into trouble
occasionally, but what a refreshing departure from the rope-a-dope calculations
of the Clinton era. This trait is what I like about him most. In my experience,
it's more revealing than a politician's positions on issues. With issues, Dean
is pretty much what he says: a middle-of-the-road moderate, neither left nor
right, though middle in Vermont is liberal ground. As governor, he was skilled
at maneuvering through contending forces, sometimes angering both sides in the
process.
I first observed these
qualities during Dean's second-to-last term as governor. Vermonters were
inflamed--everyone was coming after him--when he and Democratic legislators
enacted the infamous Act 60, a school-financing-equalization law that compelled
the "gold towns" to share their property-tax revenues with poorer
townships. Faced with general outrage, Dean barked back at the storm. The remark
I remember reading in the Rutland Herald went something like this: "I know
why people are angry at me. They've been getting away with low tax rates and
well-financed schools. They're not going to be able to do that anymore."
Wow, I thought. This is a
different kind of politician--no ducking the blame, no cute obfuscation. The
law isn't perfect, Dean added. We will fix it later if we have to. (They did.)
Vermont progressives were upset, too, because Dean had refused to consider
raising income taxes to finance the schools. His logic, however, was more
liberal than it appeared. Raising income taxes would put all the burden on
Vermonters, many of whom are poor. Raising property taxes--with a generous
homestead exemption for full-time residents--put the big hit on the
out-of-state people who own so many lovely vacation homes there. Dean did not
explain this to the "flatlanders," but we figured it out.
The governor has shown flashes of the same
bluntness in his prime-time campaigning. Last summer, he told a revealing story
on himself--a conversation with Robert Rubin, the former Treasury Secretary and
Wall Street's main money guy for Democrats. Rubin had warned that unless Dean
stopped attacking NAFTA and the multinationals for the migration of US jobs, he
couldn't raise contributions for him from the financial sector. As Dean told
it, "I said, 'Bob, tell me what your solution is.' He said, 'I'll have to
get back to you.' I haven't heard from him." What I like so much about the
story is that powerful, influential Bob Rubin pokes Dean in the chest, and he
pokes him back. Then Dean discloses the exchange to the Washington Post.
In the higher realms of politics, this is
not done. But he is not one of them. And this is no longer the era for
"triangulation" between the business-financial money patrons and the
party's main constituencies. That new spirit, more than any single issue, is
what has drawn together Dean's vibrant and growing base, buoying his candidacy
with millions in small contributions. Dean is opening the possibility of
transforming politics--shaking up the tired, timid old order, inviting
plain-wrapper citizens back into an active role--and that's why so many people,
myself included, are for him. Full disclosure: I am among the throngs who have
been invited to contribute "forward-looking ideas" to his campaign (I
was flattered to be asked and pleased to oblige, with no naive expectations).
Dean, I suspect, learned in the
up-close-and-personal politics of Vermont that you don't win elections by
keeping the people at a safe distance. You can't do it in that state, even if
you try. He governed with strong, well-organized progressives and
environmentalists on one flank, conservative business interests on the other
and a mass of native working-class Vermonters who don't much care for either.
Dean collected a lot of lumps and resentments, many compromises and setbacks,
in ten years as governor. Insiders remember him as shifty and unreliable. But
he also learned how to stand his ground in a fight.
All that helps explain why the party
establishment had a hard time understanding the man and is so upset by the
thought that he might be the nominee. Corny as it sounds, he might actually
bring voters back into the story. Washington's smugness was shattered in the past
few weeks as Dean picked up pathbreaking endorsements from Representative Jesse
Jackson Jr. and SEIU and AFSCME, the two largest unions and heads-up,
aggressive organizations. Dean continues to up the ante for his rivals--calling
for reregulation of key industries and confronting the concentrated power of
corporations and wealth. These are solid liberal ideas others are afraid to
express so directly. The guy is a better politician than the insiders imagined,
indeed better attuned to this season than they are.
It's still early and Dean will be
field-tested in the next few months, but so will they. If the party
establishment succeeds in derailing him or declines to rally around him as the
nominee, Democratic status as the minority party may turn out to be a very long
Vermont winter.