The Four Corner Offense

I just learned a new term today and I wish I hadn't. While reading the new ARG poll numbers from New Hampshire, I found a comment about some older undecided voters getting called and told they couldn’t vote in the primary, because they hadn’t registered. But when the voters said they were Dean supporters they were told they could vote. Obviously a dirty trick on somebody's part. The new term I learned was "push polling," used in one of the comments on the blog entry. Being a newcomer to politics, I was unfamiliar with the term; fortunately, one of the other partners in this weblog who happens to be very smart (a chip off the old block, as they say) explained to me what the term meant. It turns out that it’s just a variation of what Donald Segretti use to do for Nixon. For those few of our readers who don't know it is pretending to be a pollster to a voter and then dissing one of the candidates in the guise of doing polling. This appears to be occurring in N.H. in some form, and, based on what was posted on the web site it appears to be accruing to the benefit of Dean.

At this time it is premature to assume that Dean is doing it; another plausible explanation is that the Republicans are responsible, as they stand to gain the most from propping Dean up. It is clear to everyone that Clark is by far the biggest threat to a Bush victory; and Clark is clearly surging. It will be interesting to see where this leads -- if it leads to Dean, then I think it's the beginning of the end for him. If it can be traced to the Republicans, then it's just business as usual, as they have been messing with the Democratic campaign all along. [And the small-d democratic process in general, for years. -- Max] At least some of Dean's early funding came from Republicans trying to push Dean’s candidacy for obvious reasons discussed at length in this blog and elsewhere.

The other thing of interest today is the announcement that Dean may be thinking about a middle-class tax cut after all. Interesting, since he has been relentlessly bashing the other candidates who were in favor of this for the last several months. How are you going to sell this change of heart, Mr. Tell-it-like-it-is, straight-talking, never-flip-flopping Dean? We didn’t hear a word about this until Clark's plan came out and was widely hailed as a winner. It seems his campaign advisors won’t let him talk about taxes anymore until they make up their mind what he should say. If they had stifled him three weeks ago on all the issues they might have been better off. They should of gone into the four corner offense about a month ago. (Only those of you who are ACC basketball fans will know what I'm talking about. Dean Smith, the legendary basketball coach at North Carolina, years ago, used the four corner offense to run out the clock in games where they were ahead. It drove the rest of the ACC crazy but it was effective.) The average Democrats, it seems, are deserting Dean in droves because of his numerous gaffes, lousy temperament, and issues of electability, while the true believers continue to make excuses and threaten to abandon the party if he's not nominated. No votes have been counted, but if Dean loses, it was stolen from him by the establishment. {see Amy’s posting} Enough for today; my two fingers are getting tired.

Update on The Democratic Futures Market

Clark is now trading at $0.20, Dean at about $0.62. We've seen a lot of movement in the last few days.
Mark Kleiman has an interesting analysis of the market as of yesterday.

Arianna Huffington: Blinder by the Day

This is the text of a letter I sent to Salon about Arianna Huffington's latest column. I haven't heard from them whether they're planning to publish it, but I'm posting here anyway. I encourage other readers of Salon to write to them as well.

------

To The Editor:

I'm not a "Democratic Honcho" so it should be safe for me to do so, but I won't argue with Ms. Huffington about Howard Dean's electibility. ["Dean, Bobby and the ghost of landslides past" 1/7/04] I'll just suggest that she make an appointment with her opthamologist, because she seems to have a blind spot.

I'm under 30, I don't live inside the Beltway, and I'm angry. My candidate is not part of the Democratic establishment Ms. Huffington accuses of "spinelessness". My candidate was against the Iraq war, and he's got the experience and international credibility to get us honorably and safely out of it now that we're there. My candidate is running for President because thousands of ordinary citizens in a grassroots campaign urged him to do so. My candidate inspired my father, who's never been politically active before, to sign up to coordinate campaign efforts in his part of Florida, and inspired us both to start a political blog to support the campaign. My candidate said -- on C-SPAN, no less -- that he'd beat the shit out of people who tried to paint him as unpatriotic. He has dared the Republicans to accuse him of class warfare because he plans to raise taxes on the ultra-rich in addition to rolling back important parts of the Bush tax cuts. My candidate has a bright vision for America's future, a future where even intellectuals are allowed to be patriotic.

My candidate is not Howard Dean. He is General Wesley Clark, and now I'll say it: my candidate is more electable than Howard Dean, and he should be, because he's the best man for the job.

Deaniac Idiocy

The following comment from a Dean supporter was spotted on the WesleyClarkWeblog:

The Dean/Gore/Bradley wing is not going to mobilize for anyone but an anti-establishment figure. Any endorsement will be half-hearted at best, and few will contribute. This is about more than beating Bush. We need to change the corrupt forces within the party that sent us into Iraq.

Wow.

Once again I am amazed at the political immaturity of some Dean supporters. Of course, this person is only repeating what Dean's already said: we don't play well with others.

I am happy that Dean has mobilized people who haven't been in politics before to participate. Of course, so has Clark. But does he get any credit for it? No, it's "Clark's just a puppet of the DLC." Screw that. First of all, I like moderates. Moderates get stuff done. Second of all, Clark is clearly no one's puppet. Third of all, "anti-establishment"? What are you, thirteen? Let's just sweep "the establishment" away and start all over, fresh. The establishment is bad. Down with the establishment. Oh, and while we're at it, don't trust anyone over thirty.

Finally, yeah, maybe congressional dems didn't do enough to halt the war in Iraq. But that war is not their fault. Let's all remember whose decision it was to go to war: George W. Bush's. In the end, it is always the President's decision.

I trust Wes Clark to make those decisions.

Do Deaniacs really want to repeat the mistake of Nader voters in 2000? Will they insist on believing that no one but Dean is worth their vote, that giving their vote to someone who isn't quite what they wanted is worse than another four years of GWB? Do they not remember life before GWB?

Comments like that one make me happy we don't have a comments facility for our blog. I read plenty of idiotic things on other peoples' blogs, I don't want to have to read them on mine.

Democratic Family Values: My Vision

Okay, I never thought I'd say this, but Joe Lieberman has some excellent policy proposals.

I admit I never looked at Lieberman's policy papers because I never considered him seriously for the Dem Nomination. I still don't consider him seriously for the Dem Nomination, but The New Republic's editorial endorsement did get me thinking, especially about the whole 'family values' thing:

Liberals resent Lieberman's moralism. But what they see as sanctimony, many ordinary Americans see as overdue concern about the toxic influences that saturate their children's lives. Clinton acknowledged that concern with calculated micro-initiatives like the v-chip. But it is Lieberman, the more sincere New Democrat, who infuriated Hollywood--and thus denied himself a rich vein of campaign funds--by repeatedly insisting that the entertainment industry value the public good as well as the bottom line.

It's true, I do resent Lieberman's moralism. (I also resent TNR's implication that I somehow can't be both a liberal and an 'ordinary American'.) But I'm just as concerned as the next parent about the "toxic influences that saturate their children's lives". I hate the crap that comes out of Hollywood, I hate the crap they put on TV, I hate marketing aimed at children, the commercialization of every single sphere of public life including the public schools, and yeah, the gratuitious sex and violence of much of what passes for entertainment these days. I resent his moralism because it seems to assume that as a liberal agnostic, I'm not concerned about these things.

Nevertheless TNR did make me take a look at Joe's policy proposals, and I have to admit, I liked what I saw. He's covering ground no other candidate is talking about. For example, he has a great proposal to limit junk food marketing to children, especially in the public schools. He wants to offer paid parental leave to families, just like practically every other industrialized nation does. And he has a plan to help families better afford quality childcare. I like these plans because they go beyond just giving tax breaks to working famlies and really address specific areas of concern. I hope all the candidates look closely at Lieberman's proposals and tackle some of these issues themselves.

But there's room to go further. I'd like to see more programs targeted to stay-at-home parents who are doing important work without much recognition. It should be easier for stay-at-home parents to save money for retirement in their own names, so they don't have to rely on the retirement plans of their working partners. In addition, stay-at-home parents should have some way of earning social security credits for the unpaid work they are doing. As things now stand, parents who give up their own income to raise their kids are far more likely to end up in poverty in old age than those who don't. This is unfair. I realize that candidates may want to stay away from policy proposals that can be used against them to accuse them of pushing outdated models of the single-income family, so maybe it's too much to ask. But the reality is that there are plenty of single-income families with an at-home parent, and lots of things can be done to make life easier for them without pretending that all families want, need, or are able to have the same configuration.

In addition to promoting programs, not just tax breaks, for families with children, candidates need to remember that not everyone has kids. A lot of single people and non-reproducing partnered people feel ignored. As I've said before, I love Clark's new "Families First" tax proposal, but there have been some rumblings to the effect that it screws single people and other non-reproducing families. As Calpundit -- otherwise supportive of the plan -- says "My sister will hate it. She's constantly kvetching --� and reasonably so--� that politicians are forever pandering to families but never offer anything to single people. Clark's plan follows in that rich tradition."

True, true. Although I recently crossed the breeder divide (our son is 9 months old), I still remember the perplexity with which I approached the concerns of people with children before I had any myself. I'd argue that people without kids should still care about helping out families, because those other peoples' kids will be the ones who grow up to be their doctors, their home health aides, or their muggers. There's no escaping the consequences of raising kids, even if you're not doing the raising. Childless people are unlikely to find that a convincing argument, however, so candidates should start listening to their needs too. Supporting civil unions is one important way to support families without children. I'm sure there are others.

Finally, a crucial aspect of supporting families is providing people the tools they need so they don't have children before they're ready. This means access to truthful information about reproductive health, providing sex education that is actually proven to work, not just proven to appeal to the religious right, supporting the right to choose abortion, and working to improve access to birth control and emergency contraception so that fewer people confront that choice.

So that's my vision of what democratic family values are all about. Lieberman addresses some, but not all, of my concerns. That doesn't make him my pick for president or anything, but it does make me glad he ran. I'd like to see General Clark adopt some of Senator Lieberman's positions on family stuff. Then, when Lieberman drops out of the race, he can feel good about endorsing Clark, and he can work on getting Palm Beach County for the dems.

Excellent Clark Endorsement from an Editor at The New Republic, and bizarre Lieberman endorsement from "The Editors"

here. Juicy bits below:

But all the talk about how Clark's biography makes him electable has overwhelmed the more important point: It would also make him a good president.

[ ... ]

More than just an asset for Clark's political campaign, this diplomatic and military experience provides the brains and the brawn behind a worldview that prioritizes threats to U.S. security without sacrificing humanitarian imperatives, that seeks to solve problems through negotiation but is bolstered with a proven willingness to use force. Unlike Democratic rivals who try to demonstrate their foreign policy bona fides by showcasing their Senate votes, the retired general has actually waged the "muscular multilateralism" that his opponents use as a catchphrase. For this reason, Clark is the best solution for a Democratic Party struggling to prove it can protect the United States from terrorists and weapons of mass destruction--not only because Americans will sleep better with a general, rather than a politician, in the Oval Office, but because they'll sleep safer.

[...]

Clark may also be able to persuade the antiwar left of the merits of a true muscular multilateralism--not least through his proposal for a New American Patriotism, which aims to restore the pride that Democrats, disaffected by the Bush administration's jingoism, feel toward the flag. In part, he plans to do this by encouraging the dissent on security issues that has been discouraged, implicitly and explicitly, by Republican leaders. On the stump, Clark of ten says, "There's nothing more American--nothing more patriotic--than speaking out, questioning authority, and holding your leaders accountable." Such declarations could ease the fears of an American public that, once bitten by the deception of the Iraq war, may be twice shy about future uses of military force. If the need arose, Americans would follow Wesley Clark into war. They should follow him to the White House first.

Strangly, "The Editors" (that strange multiheaded beast) at TNR have written a Lieberman endorsement. Huh? I thought at first, but then realized they were probably just using Lieberman to make a point. Turns out the good folks at TNR think Lieberman has important lessons for the rest of us Dems. But I'll have to cover that in another post, I have a screaming baby to feed.

IMF criticizes Bush fiscal policy

Today's NYT

With its rising budget deficit and ballooning trade imbalance, the United States is running up a foreign debt of such record-breaking proportions that it threatens the financial stability of the global economy, according to a report released Wednesday by the International Monetary Fund.

Prepared by a team of I.M.F. economists, the report sounded a loud alarm about the shaky fiscal foundation of the United States, questioning the wisdom of the Bush administration's tax cuts and warning that large budget deficits pose "significant risks" not just for the United States but for the rest of the world.

The report warns that the United States' net financial obligations to the rest of the world could be equal to 40 percent of its total economy within a few years — "an unprecedented level of external debt for a large industrial country," according to the fund, that could play havoc with the value of the dollar and international exchange rates.

'Nuff said.

Arianna Huffington Going Blind

Only explanation for her amazing refusal to address Wes Clark's candidacy in her most recent pro-Dean piece on Salon. Already sent off a letter to the editor about it. You, readers -- write one too.

Election Year Gimmicks and Other Comments From Clark, Via IRC

Our man Clark did an IRC interview with prominent bloggers this afternoon, once again proving that Dean doesn't have a lock on techno-campaigning. Below, I quote the two best parts:

First, maybe I'm not the only one with the "they're saving Osama Bin Laden till just before the election" irrational conspiracy fear:

LiberalOasis: You, and other Democrats, have regularly criticized George Bush for his failure, as of now, to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. However, the possibility exists that bin Laden will be captured or killed before ElectionDay.Should Democrats continue to criticize Bush on this point, because a freebin Laden is the only thing keeping the terrorist threat alive? Or is the threat greater than one man, and in turn, Dems should be making abroader critique on how Bush is waging the war on terror, in part to preventDems from being speechless if bin Laden is caught?
Clark: Agree with the thrust of your thoughts...it's a broader problem than OBL, but we do have to go after him....even if we take hime out, there's still a lot to do to make the world safer...Wes

I don't have any important comments on this. I'm just glad Wes is thinking about it.

And second:

wolff from IRC: Can the general comment on the immigration plan that Bush proposed today?
Clark: Let me tell you about my ideas...my ideas are to enable earned legalization, develop a guest workers program, and control our borders to promote homeland security. and for me it's what I believe in and will do, not an election year gimmick. Wes

We are going to see a lot more of this from the White House in coming months. As I've said before, I'm certainly capable of appreciating GWB's chocolate chip cookies, but that doesn't mean I'm not suspicious about why he chose to bake them now. Bake me some cookies some year you're not up for reelection, Mr. Bush, and maybe they won't seem so much like a bribe.

That said, I think we should loudly applaud all of Mr. Bush's baking efforts, however cynical they appear. First, because doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still better than doing the wrong thing. Second, because If we don't, we'll be accused of ingratitude and partisanship. And third, because I don't care how many cookies the man bakes in 2004, he's never gonna be the leader we need and deserve to have in the White House. Wes Clark is the leader we need and deserve, and he doesn't have to bake any cookies to prove it.

Good News!!

I’m sure most of our readers have seen the new poll numbers from CNN and New Hampshire. I would post the links but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet. You can get them from the Wes Clark web log. [Or go here and here -- Amy] The bottom line is that we are moving the numbers up. The CNN poll has Dean at 24% and Clark at 20% within the margin of error of the poll. The tracking poll in N.H. has Clark at 16% and Kerry at 13%. I think that the "tipping point" for the nation's tolerance for Dean has been reached. It took a long time, mostly because the media bought into the proposition fostered by his campaign that Dean’s gaffes were really just honest blunt statements of fact. His supporters certainly think that. In the last two weeks we have seen some in the media question that premise and raise the issue that we at this blog and many others have been pushing for a long time, that Dean because of his personality and temperament is unelectable. (Not to mention the hole in his resume, discussed in a previous post on this site.)

The shit is now going to hit the fan. Clark has been under the radar screen of the other candidates for a while now, and that’s going to change. Dean is already planning to use surrogates to go negative on Clark, and the other candidates will follow. So will the Republicans, who do not want to see a Clark candidacy. Look for dirty tricks to come from the Rove machine such as a move by Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary in states where they can. And those won’t be Clark votes! The Generals also will be trotted out for an encore, as will the old standby "he’s not a real Democrat." And my response to that is: you are damned right he’s not a Democrat, he’s an American with democratic ideas who appeals to a broad spectrum of the electorate. Thirty years ago he could have run as a Rockefeller Republican but, since they are essentially extinct, he is running as a Clintonian Democrat; and, believe me, that still has a lot of appeal in this country.

Our job is just beginning. Our numbers are up, the momentum is ours, but we have to keep working and keep moving in the right direction. Letters to the editor are important, as are volunteers to go to the primary states, We can’t let up. The next three weeks are critical. Let's all get out there and make this happen for the sake of our children and grandchildren, and for the sake of our country.

Mickey

David Brooks: Information Technology At Fault for Rise in Anti-Semitism, Conspiracy Theories

Brooks complains that "Improvements in information technology have not made public debate more realistic. On the contrary, anti-Semitism is resurgent. Conspiracy theories are prevalent. Partisanship has left many people unhinged."

I sent a letter to the editor about it, and I can't post it until they've definitely not published it, so I'll just give the short, less-polite version: maybe if the Bush Administration didn't simultaneously increase government secrecy and promulgate its own conspiracy theories for political reasons (Saddam was involved in 9/11, for example), the atmosphere would be a little less toxic and a little more realistic.

See my previous post on conspiracy theories.

Wes Clark the Centrist

An interesting thing happened to me today that makes a point I have been stressing on this blog. For several weeks now I have been trying to convince an old Republican friend of mine to support Clark. She listened carefully and agreed with a lot of what I had to say about what Bush has done to this country, but wasn't ready to commit to Clark. To be fair, she may in part have been humoring me; but at least she listened. I just got a call from her about another topic; in our conversation, she mentioned that she had run into one of her old friends from back home in West Virginia, who had been a diehard Republican forever, and who was now working on the Wes Clark campaign. She seemed amazed at this. She now had two close friends, one a longstanding Democrat and the other a lifelong Republican, both working for Clark. Clark is not a typical Democrat, I said, he bridges the divide between the two parties. He’s a moderate on social issues and strong on defense, The perfect combination to appeal to mainstream Americans. Not Republicans or Democrats but Americans.

As I have stressed before Wes Clark can be a healing figure in this country. He can bridge the political divide and appeal to all Americans. No more Blue states vs. Red states. That is not to say that the extremes of both parties won’t continue their warfare. but at least I and other Americans won’t have to take part in it. The majority of Americans want to be as safe as possible from terrorism and still have a moderate, truly compassionate president. That man is Wes Clark. The next six weeks will determine whether this is merely a pipe dream or the Democratic party can embrase someone outside the typical mold. I firmly believe that it is possible, that above all else they want to win and will come to the Clark camp on that basis alone. He clearly has the best shot at beating Bush, but in addition he also has the potential to be a great president and a healing figure for the American people.

Mickey

Thoughts on the new Clark "Families First" tax reform plan

Here's the speech he gave. Here's the policy paper.

Three things I love about the plan

1. The name. It's always driven me bonkers that the Republican leadership has trumpeted familiy values while doing nothing at all to help actual families. So I loved the part in Clark's speech where he said "The Republicans are always talking about family values. It's time in America that we started valuing families. It's time we put America's families first again."


2. Eliminating the need for most families to file a tax form at all. Is there a person in the world who is not an accountant for whom the very thought of tax forms does not make their skin crawl? People who have to fill out the forms should be people who can afford to hire accountants to do it for them. Just imagine the additional time in April that families will have together when parents no longer spend evenings anxiously adding line 62a to line 58b and writing the results on line 85e.


3. Increasing the tax rate on income over $1 million/year, and using that money to pay for tax credits for non-wealthy working families.

Anyway, the plan rocks. Now here's my not-very-rigorous and probably offensive explanation about why our tax code should be mildly progressive:

Many people think there is something inherently unfair about the government taking a greater percentage of rich peoples' income than of poor peoples' income. Many of the people who believe this are not themselves rich, but are convinced that any second now, they will be, at which time they won't want to pay a larger percent than those losers who didn't become rich like they did.

You know what? Those people are right. There is something inherently unfair about rich people having to pay a greater percentage than poor people. Just as there is something inherently unfair about being born rich or poor to begin with. But that unfairness is different, you might protest. It's natural, whereas a progressive tax code is government-imposed, and the government has a responsibility to be fair. True enough. But that's not the only responsibility the government has. The government also has a responsibility to perpetuate the conditions that make democracy possible, and massive and increasing financial inequality ain't good for democracy. Wealthier citizens must contribute more than their 'fair share' so that future rioting masses won't snatch more than their 'fair share' from the cold dead fingers of the wealthier citizens' inheritors.

Oh, but unfair taxes stifle peoples' initiative, you say? I don't know. If you make over a million dollars a year, you probably have more ambition than is good for you, and you'll probably keep working your ass off no matter how much additional money you make from it. In fact, you might want to consider chilling out a little, having a little bit less ambition, maybe checking in with your kids to see what they're snorting these days.

Final, tangential point of this post: Americans have to work too hard, for too many hours. This is not beneficial to families. Families thrive when they have time to spend together. Not quality time, just time. Dinner time. Vacation time. Holiday time. Weekend time. Postpartum time. Americans have less vacation time than the residents of most other industrialized nations. Want to strengthen families? Give everyone the month of August off. Hey, if President Bush doesn't have anything important to do during August, all that crap the rest of us do at work can wait too, right?

Apropos of secrecy

See this NYT article today about a terrorism case:

Much of the information available now comes from a series of articles in The Miami Daily Business Review, which learned about the case in March when it was pending before the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta. The clerk's office of the appeals court inadvertently and briefly listed the case on a public docket. Previously, not even the existence of the case had been made public.

A consortium of press agencies is arguing, appropriately, that "Although the right to access is not absolute, the right of the public to litigate its entitlement to access must be absolute if the public is to have means to effect its right of access."

Amen, brother.

Oh, and Clark really was excellent on Meet The Press

Though what was the point of trying to pin him down to a refusal to serve as Vice President. Just to be annoying? It's like all the interviewers are on a quest to be the one who got the candidate to say something they might have to retract later. Have they got a betting pool somewhere keeping track? Is this what their salary increases are based on? "Getting" candidates on their previous statements? Ick. Stop it, stupid interviewers. Ask some real questions for a change.

Some notes on conspiracy theories

I've been meaning to post on conspiracy theories, and then Orcinus brought them up in a recent post in the context of debunking the "Dean said the President was tipped off by the Saudis before 9/11" story. (I know many people will expect me to hew to an anti-Dean party line here, but in this case, Orcinus is right. Anyway, Dean, though not my pick for president, is not the anti-christ.)

Orcinus basically says, look, Dean is saying that when people don't trust the government, conspiracy theories abound, that such conspiracy theories are detrimental to democracy, and that the administration has a responsibility to model transparency so as to short-circuit the proliferation of conspiracy theories.

The current Administration may have nothing to hide, but it does not behave that way. Such behavior makes even the most non-conspiracy-minded observer anxious. Here I will admit to my two most completely unfounded conspiracy fears: Paul Wellstone's plane crash not an accident; Adminstration saving up Osama Bin Laden to capture during week before general election to assure Bush landslide.

Let me point out, though no doubt the point will be lost, that I do not believe these things to be true. They are irrational fears. But they feed on the uncertainty and mistrust that arise when the government appears not to trust citizens with the truth, and not to take finding out the truth seriously itself. (Yes yes, Bill Clinton lied. But my concern is with the current Administration, and two wrongs do not make a right.)

That the Bush Administration is secretive is no secret. U.S. News and World Report recently reported on the problem. Observers from across the political spectrum (see Public Citizen, Phyllis Schafly, Heritage Foundation, Steven Chapman, OMB Watch, Newspaper Association of America) have lamented the Bush administration's secrecy.

Why should we care? Here's another quote from Orcinus's exegesis on fascism:

What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

-- from They Thought They Were Free

Again I'd like to emphasize that I am not claiming the Bushies are Nazis.

I do think their secrecy is a big problem. I don't like it, and I don't think we should get used to it. I worry that lots of people in our society are not worried about it because they identify with Bush, they trust him, and his administration cultivates the image of him as a straight-talking, highly moral man, whose authority and leadership derive not from the people but from God. Hence, the administration feels it does not need to answer to the people, but only to God.

Bush is not some King David, to govern by divine right. It is not appropriate for the leader of a democratic republic to behave as though he does not have to answer to citizens of that republic.

I'm not really quite done with this post, as I need to justify my point that Bush governs as though by divine right. But that'll have to wait until tomorrow.

Our candidate shines

I just finished watching Wes Clark on Meet the Press. His growth as a candidate continues to be unbelievable. He is now a polished public speaker who looks like he has been doing this all his life. And he didn't say a single thing that he'll have to retract tomorrow. He didn't raise his voice, he didn't point his finger at anybody, and he didn't insult anybody except Bush. In other words, he looked, talked and acted presidential. He is everything that Dean and Bush are not. The Clark campaign is cleary gaining momentum, but we still have a long way to go; the outcome is not going to be decided quickly, so we all have to keep working.

I used to think that the outrageous things that Dean has been saying would come back to haunt him, but it now seems evident that Dean could do or say anything and most of his supporters wouldn't care. Their devotion is absolute and unshakeable. Dean's misstatements [and they are becomming legendary] have already doomed his candidacy in the general election should he get the nomination. This is another fact that his supporters refuse to acknowledge. Contrary to their opinion there is a significant portion of the American electorate that wants an inclusive president that governs from the middle. We have already seen what governing from the right does to this country and I don't think governing from the far left will be much better. Why someone would disparage one of the most successful presidents of the twentieth century [Clinton] is beyond me. I certainly did not condone Clinton's personal behavior, it made me mad as hell at the time, but Dean was not addressing personal behavior when he called the Democratic Leadership Council the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

I have said this previously but it bears repeating; Dean is the weakest candidate that the Democrats could run. He will get killed in the general election. He does not have the temperament, judgment or experience to be president. He does not have that core of likeability that we demand of our leaders. Nominating Dean means the end of the Democratic party for a generation, and, even worse, the packing of the Supreme Court with right-wing ideologues. The supporters of all the other candidates realize this, so let's hope the field is reduced quickly to Dean and someone else before it is too late. I think that someone else will be Clark, but if it isn't I will support whoever it is.

Mickey