MoveOn.org has announced the results of its online primary. MoveOn.org had pledged to throw its support--its membership, and several million dollars' worth of proven fundraising potential; these are not small new potatoes mashed with rosemary and garlic--behind a Democratic candidate who took more than 50% of the votes in the primary. Given that there are still nine declared candidates, it seemed unlikely any candidate would win this round. I am happy to announce, however, that my man Howard Dean came close, with 43.87%! Given some more time and outreach and such, I feel a nice warm glowy confidence that Dean can capture MoveOn's support in the next round of voting. These results also show, by the way, that the wingnuts of FreeRepublic.com weren't able to bugger the voting. So ha.
You may ask yourself (where is that large automobile?) why an old-fashioned Old Labour socialist like myself would be so keen on Dean, when it is readily apparent, despite the bizarre counterfactual spins the American media like to put on things, that Dean is not remotely left-wing. He's firmly centrist, by any reasonable standard. He's pro-gun, anti-spending, in favour of the death penalty in certain cases, opposed to big defense cutbacks, essentially pro-business...Whereas I am, well, a socialist. I like nationalised utilities. Is that so wrong? And I like Canada's health care system. I like the decriminalisation of cannabis, and safe-injection sites for intravenous drug users. I like a nice rousing rendition of William Blake's 'Jerusalem'. Ideologically, I'm much closer to Kucinich than I am to Dean. Why, then, am I a Dean partisan?
Politics is the art of the possible, as someone once said.
Democracy is about compromise. There are a lot of ideologies out there, and only one president (at a time, at least). If you stick strictly to your ideological framework in every particular, you will wind up with either all of the pie, or, far more likely, none of the pie. Not even those little crumbly bits of crust people leave behind on their plates. Kucinich is, unfortunately, a no-pie sort of candidate. There are too many conservative voters in this country to make a real leftist candidate viable. Even if he were elected, the sort of policies he and I like, like socialised medicine, simply won't be passed. The health care industry wouldn't allow it. I can't have all the pie, no matter what. So I have to settle for one piece of the pie, instead. Preferably with ice cream on top. Howard Dean is willing to give me some pie. He's flexible. He's willing to change his mind. But he isn't willing to bend over. He's also willing to fight. You've probably noticed that already. Dean can motivate and impassion people; look at the grassroots support he's conjured up. He isn't a tool.
Fundamentally, I think the country would be a lot better off with Howard Dean as its president than it is now. I think a Dean presidency would defend my interests and foster an acceptably congenial national atmosphere. I think Dean would be good for civil rights, and I don't think he'd push intrusive Big Brotherly measures like TIA and PATRIOT. I think he'd be good for diplomacy; his America would be less of a bull in a china shop. And he wouldn't pursue a scorched-earth economic policy to raze Social Security and the few other bastions of socialism left in America. Admittedly, a lot of these are negatives, things he wouldn't do; Kerry or even Gephard (who I think is a tool) or most of the other Dems would also not do these things. I'd happily vote for Kerry, or somewhat less happily but still pretty darned happily vote for any other Dem, even, although here I wouldn't be very happy at all, Lieberman. But I think Dean has the most potential. Dean could make things happen. He's got the verve, the oomph, the thingy. Kerry, my second choice, has been low on thingy lately. Kucinich, alas, has no thingy at all: he favours things I like, but he couldn't make them happen. I think he could be a lot more productive staying in Congress, though I want him to stay in the presidential campaign to get his views heard and add a genuine spark of leftism.
Also, Kucinich looks like Paul Simon. If he could find a VP candidate who looked like Art Garfunkel...Well, then I'd be sold.
But until Art (who has an MA in maths from Columbia University, by the way) enters the fray, I'm sticking with Howard Dean.
I'm hungry, and Dean has the thingy to get me some pie.
Posted by aloysius at June 27, 2003 01:43 PM | TrackBack |
