Of Tinfoil Hats, Rovian Trojan Horses And Bears, Oh My!

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Here's roughly how the theory goes:

July 4, 2003. Karl says "That's who we want," as a group of Dean supporters walk by. Boom! The media mobilizes. Covers on national magazines, talking heads talking up Dean, RW focus groups trumpet Dean as the leading Democratic contender, the evil DLC denounces him, while secretly praying that their perceived disfavor will fool the activist base into supporting him. And on it goes.

My problem with this theory is that Dean was drawing the largest crowds long before July and, more notably, long before he had any national exposure. Is he getting attention because people identify with him or do people identify with him because he's getting attention? I think it's the former but I'd be very interested to hear the full logic of this theory.

If you can make the case, I'll drop Dean as my candidate.

Dean started attacking the other Dem candidates, then the media started calling him the liberal, antiwar candidate. The $$$ from the left came in.

Dean is NOT liberal, and he was not even antiwar, as noted in his support for the Biden-Lugar version of the Iraq resolution.

Kucinich IS antiwar and a real liberal.

Dean did not speak at any of the antiwar rallies but received the attention from the media as a staunch opponent of the war. The $$$ from the left increased.

Kucinich spoke at the antiwar rallies as a presidential candidate and received NO attention from the press. He submitted legal papers to stop the war, but NO press. Dean still described by the press as Bush's fiercest antiwar opponent, but declined to join Kucinich's legal action. The $$$$$$ are rolling in.

As far as the DLC goes, they are sitting pretty. They have a huge group of lefties who just months ago fervently loathed the DLC's centrist ways, now defending Dean's compromising with the GOP in Vermont and his centrism as "brilliant strategy" and "pragmatism." I'm sure they're enjoying a few laughs.

I don't care if this doesn't convince you, I have no gift for writing, but there are a good number who watched this all go down over the last 8 months with the same observations even though we are in different camps.

Dean's position was quite clear and the activists supporting him are not idiots. They realized early on that Dean was not an ultra-liberal the media initially portrayed him as. They realized he was a pragmatic poltician who had the highest possibility of being elected of all the candidates who couldn't be tied to the Iraq War. Plain and simple. Do you think Jeanine Garafalo just said "Oh, I'll support Dean because he said the Iraq War shouldn't have happened?" without every looking into Dean's record?

Dean's grassroots campaigning was already energizing people and his fundraising efforts made him newsworthy. Whether he maintains the momentum and the media attention will rest on whether or not he has something to say.

from January through May. Most people believed he was a liberal. If you called him a centrist you were accused of smearing him. Now they defend his centrism.

I don't care if anyone supports centrist politicians, that's their politics. But, my position of seeing a bunch of liberals projecting progressive Democratic values on Dean is a valid one, and even guys like Ted Rall see it closer to my position than yours.

Was DK speaking in front of 2,000 people back then. (or now , for that matter)? There's no doubt that DK has been marginalized by the press. No argument there.

I would argue that Dean IS Liberal. Voting for some "conservative" policies does not a conservative make. If we're talking paleo-cons here, they aren't wrong on everything, imho. Balanced budgets, states rights, to name a few. One could consider the Patriot Act a neo-con philosophy; does that make the Dems who supported it neo-cons? I think we both agree that that's BS.

As for "watch(ing) this all go down," I would submit that one must consider the prism through which one viewed it. As a Kucinich supporter, one would be thinking "But DK is the real anti-war candidate. How could they?" As a Kerry supporter, one would be thinking "Jeez, considering the long list of accomplishments of my candidate, all this media attention seems misappropriated." As a Dean supporter, one would be thinking "Activating at the grassroots is extremely effective." As a Boooosh supporter, one wouldn't be thinking at all.


Perception. And perspective.




edit: punc

A lot of the arguments here are based on perception and perspective. Kerry supporters feel Dean is getting too much positive press while Dean supporters feel like they are constantly trying to set the record straight as the press pushes out bad information (he's too liberal, too conservative, etc.)

That is why posts that are about very subjective things are pointless.

the early perception that he was a liberal. In fact he was quite reticent about it until the DLC dog and pony show.

If you think that everyone here was quite clear that Dean was not a liberal, then I'll just request that you take a long trip through the archives here and focus on the Dean posts from January to May. Most there would argue that I was smearing him by calling him a centrist. And most most would say he was a proud liberal like Wellstone, and that all the other candidates were too close to Bush, unlike Dean, while actually Dean governed closer to Bush and supported Bush's positions on some major issues.

For a long time. I don't know anyone who supported Dean and then suddenly switched because they discovered his record in Vermont. Most people heard his anti-war stance, investigated him, and said, "eh, he isn't my ideal candidate but he is a proven politician who is taking a clear stand against the war when the rest of my party seems to be caving into Bush left and right."

I dislike the word "most." Give me the numbers. The number of people who were saying he was an ultra-liberal did not outnumber the people who knew his record. Most, is an overstatement.

January thru May.

and your 'most' is still incorrect.

As I said, I've been following the Dean threads since they started to appear. There has been a maturation of the support, but the support hasn't dramatically shifted.

of many of those declarations that he was a liberal, maybe my perception is skewed to thinking there were many more, but, I somehow doubt that I imagined it.

The point of the thread was that it was Dean who was receiving the media attention over the others which led many to perceive him as the "only one speaking out against Bush." Hence the build up of his early support before the meetups. Why the media focused only on Dean early while reinforcing the perception that he was the liberal antiwar candidate is the question.

Who cares?

Who cares if the people supported him when one label was being applied to him and still support him when another label is being applied. Over all this time, with all the posts trying to turn people against Dean, don't you think people realize his record?

At the end of the day, people may not be supporting specific postions but the man himself. Call it wrong or 'the way things are' but that is what is going to happen. Period. Only the primaries are going to truly select the candidate since no candidate in his or her right mind will drop out before then.

So what is the point of the Dean bashing?

posts information about Dean that suggests he's a tad more conservative or a tad less honest than his fans want to think, they simply *don't* think, but respond "Who cares? I like this guy." When it's pointed out to them that he's received a suspiciously large amount of press attention and suspiciously favorable treatment from the media, Dean fans say "Who cares? I like this guy."

Make the connection, please. The other Dem who's gotten a suspiciously large amount of press and suspiciously favorable treatment from the media is Joe Lieberman. They are promoting Dean and Lieberman because both are acceptable to them. Both have some socially liberal positions but are fiscal conservatives who strongly support Israel and thus would support war against Israel's enemies.

Dean objected to the administration's not getting UN support for their preemptive strike against war, rather than objecting to the war itself. As soon as Bush* ordered the troops in, he stopped criticizing the war "to support the troops" and now he wants to send another 50,000 troops in to help with reconstruction. That's a Nixonian approach to "ending" a war.

A vote for Dean is like a vote for Lieberman -- both are votes for continuing to do things as they have been done, with a bit of social liberalism as cover. Neither would be substantially different from Bush* in policies but people are buying Dean's assertion that other Dems are BushLite. The implications is the he, Dean, is not BushLite but the label actually is more applicable to him than to several other Dems.

But you don't have to tell me what you're thinking ("Who cares? I like this guy.) Perhaps eventually you'll ask yourself why you keep thinking that.

I know and understand all of Dean's positions except a few that I am seeking further clarification on.

No one has given me information to doubt my support. Just because I'm willing to accept imperfections doesn't mean I haven't thought about why I support him.

I did the SelectSmart candidate selector thing recently and Kucinich came up as a 100% match with Dean second and Kerry third. Why don't I support Kucinich in the primary? Because I've done my own gut check and he doesn't appeal to me. That will always be a factor in why people support a candidate.

having to come out with the statement,"He ain't no 'Wellstone'!!" because everyone was under the impression that he was SOOOO liberal.

Now that the impression has been corrected,a lot of his support has melted away,and he has gained a lot from different quarters.The centrists seem to be supporting him, while ignoring things like his support for NAFTA, which definitely lost Vermont jobs.

But that wasn't newsworthy.

And obviously that doesn't mean anything to you, either. No matter what, Dean deserved the antiwar support $$$$ while dodging the real antiwar efforts.

Neither did the corporate media.

Play fair.

The antiwar rally he spoke at had over a million people, yet the press did NOT cover his speech at the same time they were promoting Dean as the liberal antiwar candidate. Dean WAS NOT the antiwar candidate and IS NOT liberal. That's the truth. The press chose a different story line and Dean BENEFITTED GREATLY from that storyline.

Have the guts to speak what you know is the truth.

First, how do you know Dennis spoke at a rally in front of a million people? Divine revelation? Or was it covered by the media?

Second, did the million people come to see DK or did they come to protest the policies of this administration and certain members of Congresss (whom we won't mention here)?

Third, you keep saying that Dean IS NOT Liberal. Well, you're right AND you're wrong. Does fiscal conservatism and an A rating from the NRA completely wash over civil unions, pro-affirmative action, an end to racial profiling, pro-choice, blah, blah, blah. I'm sure the point is made. Based on your reasoning JK IS NOT Liberal because he supported a few conservative ideas (PA, IWR, blah, blah, blah). Comprende?

Fourth, the point of this thread is to find out if there are people that really believe that Rove and the media are behind Dean's ascension. And if so, "show me the money."

Finally, as I admitted earlier many of the candidates are being marginalized, DK, CMB, AS, BG... The question is "why?" Is it Rovian machinations or is it ineffective campaign tactics? I'm suggesting that it is the latter. Show me otherwise and I'm willing to listen.

I'm ever upper class high society
God's gift to ballroom notoriety
I always fill my ballroom
The event is never small
The social pages say I've got
The biggest balls of all

And my balls are always bouncing
My ballroom always full
And everybody comes and comes again
If your name is on the guest list
No one can take you higher
Everybody says I've got
Great balls of fire

Some balls are held for charity
And some for fancy dress
But when they're held for pleasure
They're the balls that I like best
My balls are always bouncing
To the left and to the right
It's my belief that my big balls
Should be held every night

<>

during the Dem forum.

I think Joe Trippi has put together a great organization, and has helped make campaign politics fun again. I wouldn't necessarily say Dean "fooled" his supporters. I'd say he hooked them in with his nebulous opposition to the Iraq war, and his studied straight-talk style. He got them in the door, but his supporters are entirely responsible for compromising themselves to his centrism.

I don't think people are following a bandwagon, but I do think that the foundation of Dean's support was in the internet-driven anti-war movement. I must admit that I am disappointed that so many progressives favor style over substance, but I don't find the choice entirely illegitimate.

I wouldn't want to convince you to "drop" Dean. Others here obviously would. I would much rather make a convincing case for Kerry, whose policies and vision more clearly mirror my own. And I think he is a hell of a man. He may not be the guy you want to share a dorm with, but I think he'd make a great leader of the free world.

I doubt you will get a straight or honest answer from many more than 1 or 2. But it is a great question.

Ask for a plausible theory and all you get is this crap.