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Commentary: Howard Dean - A Desperate Choice For A Desperate Party?

By Lee Cullum, KERA 90.1 commentator

Dallas, TX –

Clearly the Democratic Party would rather be right-or rather left-than president. The 447 members of the Democratic National Committee shunned all efforts to block Howard Dean as chairman, ignoring far better choices such as former Congressman Martin Frost of Dallas which would have been a move toward political, geographical sanity. It is the South where Democrats must take a stand if they ever are to have any hope of winning back the White House.

But does Howard Dean understand that? No. He has said forcefully that the party should not go for a Southern candidate. Apparently he wants to stick to the blue states only with no regard for the mathematics of the Electoral College. A nominee may not emerge from the South, but the possibility cannot be foreclosed.

There is something tragic about Howard Dean, who was so impressive when I first met him in late 2003. He was soft-spoken, reasonable, and had built a moderately left-of-center record as governor of Vermont with a good program for health care and respect for fiscal discipline.

Then he got Joe Trippi to run his race for president, and a dot-com miracle was born. Joe Trippi took a campaign kitty of $100,000 and turned it into a $50 million bonanza, almost all of it gleaned from the Internet in donations of $100 or less. He also raised an army of 600,000 true-believers, willing to march to the ends of the earth for Howard Dean.

But dot.com miracles rarely last. Joe Trippi was replaced as campaign director after the debacle in New Hampshire, and curiously, he did not support Dean for DNC chairman, though he writes generously about him in his book, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," pointing out that Dr. Dean was never a hot-headed candidate of dubious stability, but serious, sincere and hard working.

The problem is that all those good qualities have gotten lost in Howard Dean's stance as an anti-war activist. This is not the answer to winning elections in a country gravely concerned about security.

Howard Dean has grown into a comic rendition of his former self. As chairman, he will become the face of the party in a way that would be hard for the Democratic ticket to overcome in 2008. Before that, in the midterm elections two years from now, he will be a godsend for Republicans all over the country. What better target could they have? Dean may be great on the Internet, but Marshall McLuhan would say that he's too hot for television, a medium that prefers its people cool. He may be good with 527 money groups such as Move On.Org, but legislation may well put them out of business and they hardly delivered for John Kerry.

It's too late now for Dr. Dean to scamper back to the center, where Democrats must run if they expect to win. In the beginning, they had two excellent choices for chairman from Dallas-Frost and former Mayor Ron Kirk, both equally effective. But that's all over now, and Democrats, apparently in love with losing dramatically, have chosen the wrong leader for a desperate party in a desperate moment.

 

Lee Cullum is a contributor to the Dallas Morning News and to KERA. If you have opinions or rebuttals about this commentary, call (214) 740-9338 or email us.