Burnt Orange Report

My Concerns About Dean

By Byron LaMasters

I did surprise a couple of people with this post where I wrote that while I am still "leaning Dean, [...] my support is much softer than before". I got a few emails over it. Basically, this story from the Washington Post basically echos my feelings about Dean:

Peter Lehmen and his wife, Theresa, of Keene, N.H., attended Clark's town hall meeting late Friday. Lehmen has given money to Dean and credits the scrappy Vermonter with having the courage to take on Bush and start a dialogue among the Democrats that has shaped both the tone and the substance of the debate. "He was talking about things that other people were afraid to talk about," Lehmen said.

Lately, however, both Lehmens have begun to question whether Dean is the best Democrat to beat Bush. Peter said he finds Dean inconsistent in some of his views. Theresa said Dean is "coming across as a little more abrasive" and appears to let his ego get in his way. Clark, she said, impressed her as someone who could successfully negotiate with foreign leaders. "He certainly presented himself in a very diplomatic but forceful way that I would call presidential," she said.

I hate Bush. I HATE him. I hate everything about him. There's lots of people that I can disagree with, but respect. I highly respect a lot of Republicans like John McCain, Bill Ratliff, Ron Paul, Colin Powell and Carole Keyton Strayhorn. I even respect conservatives like Tom McClintock and some others (there's a good number of them out there) because they're honest about what they believe in, and they don't play games. Bush isn't one of them. Why do we hate Bush? This piece summarizes a lot of the reasons. That Bush hatred is what led us to Howard Dean. When everyone else was being a wimp, Howard Dean was firing back. Now that Bush is less popular, Howard Dean has emerged as the frontrunner because he was critical of Bush when it wasn't popular. But I do think that there are serious issues about Dean's ego, about his abrasiveness, about his issue positions, about his ideas for Iraq that his harecore supporters would like to ignore (or just pretend that it's DLC propaganda). Can Dean win the nomination? Yes. Can he be elected President? Yes. But he still has a lot of maturing as a candidate to do (although you could say the same about any of the other candidates, especially Wesley Clark). Back to Bush. I don't just want to beat him, I want to beat him bad. I don't want it to be close enough for their to be any doubt. And I want to bring a Democratic Congress in with our Democratic president. I'll support the candidate in which I think could best do that. If after a few months, it become clear that Wesley Clark is in the best position to bring us that victory, then I'll endorse him. If Howard Dean remains that candidate, then I'll stick with him. We'll see.