Tuesday, January 20, 2004
My Analysis of the Iowa Caucus Results
Howard Dean's concession speech includes references to Nuevo Mexico and leading a chant in Spanish which translates as "yes we can." Reminded me of when Howard Dean was at a 1998 "victory party" for Puerto Rico statehood, reportedly chanting "51! 51!" (Statehood lost, BTW.)
Kerry showed himself a formidable challenger tonight in a way that underscored Dean's weaknesses. Kerry's lengthy victory speech contained two pointed anti-Dean items: (1) Kerry introduced his wife to the crowd and then laid an Al Gore kiss on her. Contrast to the missing Mrs. Dean. (2) Keery introduced former Senator Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam. Looked like a preview of his August acceptance speech at the Democratic nominating convention. Message: I can take on Bush on national security.
Did Dean make a mistake by acting like the party nominee six months early? Possibly so. The parade of endorsements from folks like Jimmy Carter (not well liked in Iowa because of his embargo of grain sales to the Soviet Union) were more appropriate for convention week, not the first vote on Democratic nomination.
During his too-early victory lap, Dean also morphed from an insurgent fighting for ideas into a typical politician seeking to know the views of the electorate so he could adopt them. Case in point: On December 22, 2003, the New Republic called Dean too secular to win. Sample:
Howard Dean is one of the most secular candidates to run for president in modern history.
Dean himself is frank on this point, perhaps too frank. "[I] don't go to church very often," the Episcopalian-turned-Congregationalist remarked in a debate last month. "My religion doesn't inform my public policy." When Dean talks about organized religion, it is often in a negative context. "I don't want to listen to the fundamentalist preachers anymore," he shouted at the California Democratic Convention in March. . . .
As Dean has described it in recent months, the dispute over the bike path caused him to break with the Episcopal Church and become a Congregationalist. . . .
[Dean's] moment of truth has nothing to do with God or theology or personal faith; rather, it's about local politics. It's hard to imagine this story will resonate with religious voters, because very few people would untether themselves from their spiritual home over a bike path. Indeed, when Dean first explained his denominational switch on ABC's "This Week," George Stephanopoulos was incredulous: "Over the bike path?" Most people respond that way, even Dean's friends and family.
Soon, Dean was talking about his personal religious faith in a way which struck the New Republic on January 19th as not credible:
Dean provided a fine glimpse of his personal scale. "I'm still learning a lot about faith and the South and how important it is," he told reporters, cheerfully admitting to an attitude of perfect expediency about the meaning of life. (The first evidence of this spiritual casualness came in the conversion to Congregationalism for the bike path.) Then he began to expound, piously and shallowly, upon the Book of Job, which he attributed to the wrong (excuse me, to the other) Testament. Not long afterward he remembered a visit to the Galilee this way: "If you know much about the Bible--which I do ... ." But when he was asked to identify his favorite passage in the Bible, the ardent scripturalist said only, "Anything in the Gospels," which, like Bush's famous retort that his favorite philosopher is "Christ," was really a way of not answering the question, . . .
Dean should have had the refreshing integrity to agree that he is not a pious man, and to insist that piety is not a qualification for the presidency. There was no shame in Dean's secularism, until he shamed it with his pandering religiosity.
Dean was selling himself as a conviction politiician, so demonstrating how mallable his views actually were on something as basic as religion actually undermined his campaign theme. One is reminded of Bob Dole in 1996 saying 'I can be another Ronald Reagan if that's what you want," proving by that statement he was not and could never be another Ronald Reagan.
Political candidates are always free not to take a stand on something. But once that stand is taken, they do well not to look like that stand is based on nothing more than the expediency of the moment.
One other caucus thought. This is the second time I thought Iowa would go for Presidential nominee much like the state's own Senator Tom Harkin, an aggressive liberal by almost anyone's definition. I predicted Paul Simon in 1988 and Dean this time. Wrong both times.
I forgot that any delegate selection process that requires people to do more than show up at the polls and vote will attract a disproportionate share of folks who are "party regulars." You know, the folks who faithfully attend every event put on by their political party and for whom attending their national party convention is a major big deal no matter who the actual nominee happens to be that year.
These folks don't take fliers on insurgent candidates. They prefer to back likely winners. They know the McGoverns and the Reagans are rare exceptions in politics. Kerry was the safe choice, especially with Dean demonstrating his extraordinary volatility.
|posted by Jim on 1:54 AM|
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