Dean for the DNC, please God no

I still find it hard that many smart bloggers (Atrios for one) think Dean would make a great DNC chair. Being chairman of the party is not a position usually kept for the inspirational yet failed former presidential candidate. It is for the organized, trusted and forward-thinking party stalwart. Dean built his fame on bashing the other Democrats in the primary race as much as for his red meat Bush-bashing. (Remember his spoiled sport sneering last February? - "Oh, please, not a President Kerry, ugh, give me a break") The DNC chairman should have the trust and faith of the party leaders - county chairs, state chairs and the like. That's what counts. And many of these people are in conservative areas or red states, where Dean is practically toxic.

One thing many left-wing bloggers pumping up dean for DNC chair will never accept is that the country has grown more conservative. To anyone with half a political brain, the shift in the country's politics over the years to a more conservative slant is unmistakable. The party of Roosevelt is no longer and the Clinton re-invention worked for Clinton but so far hasn't worked for anyone else. Many will say that the conservative rise to power was due to Republican leaders like Newt Gingrich and the Christian Coalition who pushed the GOP to the right and were outspoken on social issues. However, what is missing from this analysis, is the neccessity for the modern Republican to at least "appear" as a moderate. Bush's whole key to success was the "wink, wink, nod" approach to the hard-right, while dressing up as a "compassionate conservative." Previously, Republicans like Dole, Bush senior and Ronald Reagan had no qualms about party platforms which called for aboloshing the department of education or making abortion illegal. Now, Republicans who seek national office are forced to play down those things, and to sound more progressive when discussing domestic policy as opposed to being strictly anti-big government (think: Bush's medicare and education initiatives, as hollow as they are).

Dean appeals to a sliver of the Democratic base, and is horrible at "dressing-up" as a moderate. If he really appealed to a large chunk of the base he would have won more primaries and would currently have a higher level of public opinion support. He doesn't. His efforts to appear moderate on fiscal policy and health care were dropped in favor of his brash, red meat rhetoric and his assault on Democratic party leaders (and four term Democratic Senators) was shocking.

Dean and the liberal bloggers aren't about "wink, wink, nod" they're about the loud affirmation of their own ideals, something that unfortunately doesn't win on the national level - as the long list of failed hard-right presidential candidates should prove (Buchanan, Keyes, Bauer, Hatch, etc). While they will never accept that, it is quite plainly the reality. Political realities are never as you want them to be, they are about compromises and a successful politician always knows how to play the game. It's simply not enough to be honest to your fans or to yourself, you must know how to wheel and deal and spin. While Dean should get credit for being true to his own ideals, as caught up as he was in his own ego, he gets zero credit for playing the game - which he lost worse than anyone could have imagined.