Gov. Howard Dean

[MAS117]

He says he was not, he says he had back problems? Do you believe him? I don't.

[jravnsbo]

NO!  he went in to the medical office with the military and brought them papers to get out of it.  he said so on "Hardball"

Plus being inthe military I can't believ ehe did that.  The military of today at least would laugh at you if you brought in documents like that.  Theyw ould still run you through all the tests.

[© tweed]

He is, and I don't have a problem with it.

[jravnsbo]

an article from washington times, esp note the end and Dean's lack of religion.

Dean's 'warning flag'
    "Talk to sensible Howard Dean supporters these days, and they'll tell you that the former governor's campaign to date has been a grand sleight of hand," Franklin Foer writes in the cover story for the latest issue of the New Republic.
    "Sure, it has harnessed Bush hatred and antiwar fervor. But the real Dean isn't a frothing lefty like his supporters; he's a closet centrist. Once he finishes exploiting the left's anger to seal the nomination, he will reveal his true self, elegantly pivoting to the middle. ...
    "After the primaries are over, Dean will be able to emphasize his commitment to fiscal discipline, his opposition to gun control, and even the hawkish streak in his foreign policy prior to 2002. (Dean was a rare Democratic supporter of the first Gulf war.) The problem is that, no matter how much he talks about these authentically centrist impulses, Dean will still have a hard time selling himself as a moderate," Mr. Foer said.
    "It's not just his opposition to the war — though that may pose more of a problem now that Saddam Hussein has been captured. No, the real reason Dean will not be able to escape a liberal caricature has little to do with policy and everything to do with a warning flag that will mark him as culturally alien to much of the country: 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. ' 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."

[Demrepdan]

Did anyone ever notice....Dean is named after some dairy products. (In the mid-west anyway, I don't know about other places. Although, I'm certain Dean is a national product.) But Dean Dairy Products makes Milk, Cottage Cheese, Sour Cream, etc.

Bob Dole has the same thing. He has DOLE bananas, DOLE apples, DOLE orange juice. Many fruit products made by DOLE.

On a side note, I'd like to point out that President Bush shares his name with a product as well. Bush's Baked Beans.

So I wonder if this is some kind of "sign", that MILK (Dean) will lose to BEANS (Bush)....just the way FRUIT (Dole) lost to No Product Placement (Clinton).

Oh boy...I have way too much time on my hands to think of this crap....

[jravnsbo]

hard to argue with your last sentence demrepdan

[MAS117]

a draft dodger is someone who purposely is misleading to avoid getting drafted into the armed services during wartime... or something like that

[jravnsbo]

Some one who purposefully avoided the draft and/or military service especially in the Vietnam era as that is when we last had the draft.

Dean admitted he was hoping to avoid the draft and took in papers signed by a fellow doctor ( conveneient for a rich young doctor with plenty of medical connections) to the military when he was called in for service.  I still laugh at that after being int he military, today they'd have laughed him out of the office if he brought in papers like that.

Then add in that he was unfit because of his back, but then goes skiing in Aspen.

What is a draft dodger?

[CHRISTOPHER MICHAE]

Did anyone ever notice....Dean is named after some dairy products. (In the mid-west anyway, I don't know about other places. Although, I'm certain Dean is a national product.) But Dean Dairy Products makes Milk, Cottage Cheese, Sour Cream, etc.

Bob Dole has the same thing. He has DOLE bananas, DOLE apples, DOLE orange juice. Many fruit products made by DOLE.

On a side note, I'd like to point out that President Bush shares his name with a product as well. Bush's Baked Beans.

So I wonder if this is some kind of "sign", that MILK (Dean) will lose to BEANS (Bush)....just the way FRUIT (Dole) lost to No Product Placement (Clinton).

Oh boy...I have way too much time on my hands to think of this crap....

yeah, you may have to much time on your hands, but you are funny. I've thought of that too.

[Nym90]

Good article by Mark Shields here...

WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- The emerging conventional wisdom in both press and Washington circles is clear. Because the stock market is up, Saddam is in custody, and President George W. Bush's poll numbers have improved, the Democrats, without any prospect of victory next November 2 had best begin working on their election-night concession speech.

Once again, the inside-the-Beltway political-press consensus is clear, straightforward and wrong.

Let's begin with the despondent Democrats of Washington who, at the end of 2003, can best be described as nervous Nellies with weak knees and cold feet.

Have they forgotten or do they not know that the last Democrat to challenge a sitting Republican president, on April 1 of the election year, had the support of just 25 percent of voters and trailed the incumbent by 20 points? That, of course, was Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, who, as late as June of 1992, had just 24-percent support and was running third behind both President George H.W. Bush and independent Ross Perot.

In November 1992, Bill Clinton won the White House with 43 percent of the national vote to George H.W. Bush's 37 percent. (All poll figures used are from national public surveys conducted by the respected Gallup Organization.)

Presidential polls 11 months before an election have all the permanence of figures written in wet sand at the ocean's edge, waiting for the next tide.

Just ask President Jimmy Carter or those who worked for his challenger, Ronald Reagan. In January 1980, Carter led Ronald Reagan by 62 percent to 33 percent. By early June, the "Gipper" had seen his share of the national vote "climb" all the way up to 32 percent. On Election Day, Reagan defeated Carter 51 percent to 41 percent.

Poll numbers can switch both ways: On July 24, 1988, Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis led his Republican opponent, George H. W. Bush, by 54 percent to 37 percent. Bush won in November by 53 percent to 46 percent.

The rush by many in the press corps to convict the current Democratic front-runner Howard Dean for a handful of minor verbal gaffes reminds me of former Minnesota senator and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, who insightfully observed that the national media behave like blackbirds on a telephone wire -- "when one flies away, all fly away."

It takes both the perspective of a fun-house mirror and a terminally faulty memory to think any Dean misstatement up to now even begins to compare with the goofs and bloopers of Candidate Reagan in 1980.

• Recall the volcanic Mount St. Helens in Washington state? Nominee Ronald Reagan stated that in only a few months this "one little mountain had probably released more sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere than has been released in the last 10 years of auto driving ... " By scientific measurement, Mount St. Helens produced between 500 to 2,000 tons of sulfur dioxide a day. Man-made sources were then responsible for at least 81,000 tons per day of sulfur dioxide.

• At a Dallas meeting of fundamentalists in August, Reagan spoke of his personal doubts about the theory of evolution and said it would be a good idea if schools taught creationism theory as well.

• After telling a Cleveland crowd that, if elected president, he hoped to "re-establish official relations between the United States government and the government of Taiwan" (which contradicted the Peking agreement that read "there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China"), Reagan was forced to send his running mate George Bush to China to try to repair relations.

• In Steubenville, Ohio, Reagan offered a classic, "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles." That produced the 1980 campaign's most humorous visual when, before a Reagan speech at Claremont College, a witty grad student hung the sign on a campus tree, "Cut me down before I kill again."

A week is a lifetime in American politics, and a month is an eternity. A presidential campaign is a referendum on the incumbent. The contest for the Democratic nomination is far from over, and the 2004 presidential campaign is still very much in the first act. Might we please have just a little historical perspective?

[jravnsbo]

The election is bush's to lose and unlike 1992, there is no Perot.  There may be a NAder though on left, but Dean keps surging left and Nader may stay out.

Plus in 1988 , no one could believe the polls, everone thought that Bush would win and he did.  remember that quite clearly.

And last brief point Dean is no Clinton.  Clinton was slicka nd polished and spoke well and with thought.  you may love or hate him, but he was slick.  Dean is not polished and talks off the cuff without thought and is running as a hard liberal unlike Clinton who ran as a Moderate member fo the DLC.

[Nym90]

True, obviously there are differences, as no two elections or candidates are ever truly alike.
I don't think that people were necessarily disbelieving the polls in 1988. When Dukakis was 17 points ahead, people were surprised, but I don't think anyone was saying that Bush was definitely going to come back and win. Certainly that lead wasn't going to be sustained since it occured right after the Dem convention, but at that point things did look bleak for Bush.
Likewise, in 2000 Bush had about a 17 point lead or so over Gore after the GOP convention. No one expected that large of a lead to be sustained, but I know conservatives were awfully giddy about Bush's prospects at that point. Then when Gore went to the left during his acceptance speech, the Republicans were sure they had it in the bag, they figured he had handed the political middle to Bush...until the polls came out showing Bush's lead was gone and it was now a dead heat. Gore's most impressive performance of the whole campaign was the acceptance speech, in which he let his true self out. Yes, he actually was and probably always has been more of a liberal masquerading as a moderate, but his attempts to make himself look centrist hurt his credibility since he wasn't a skilled enough politican to make it seem believeable. He came across as phony.
I think that a good case can be made for a parallel between Dean and Reagan. Yes, of course there are many differences, but Reagan also spoke off the cuff a lot and made many miscues in his speech. And, he also was considered way too conservative to win, and was running against an incumbent candidate of the party that also controlled Congress, and thus was seeming to become the clear cut majority party in the US, and started out way behind in the polls. For that matter, Bush, like Dean, also makes verbal gaffes, was not a very good student at Yale, and got out of the draft under circumstances of questionable legitimacy.
The claim that Perot was hurting Bush is also at least somewhat undercut by the fact that Clinton was running 3rd, behind Perot, when both were in the race in the spring, with Clinton getting only 25% in the polls, and then when Perot dropped out, Clinton surged into the lead in the polls.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

True, obviously there are differences, as no two elections or candidates are ever truly alike.
I don't think that people were necessarily disbelieving the polls in 1988. When Dukakis was 17 points ahead, people were surprised, but I don't think anyone was saying that Bush was definitely going to come back and win. Certainly that lead wasn't going to be sustained since it occured right after the Dem convention, but at that point things did look bleak for Bush.
Likewise, in 2000 Bush had about a 17 point lead or so over Gore after the GOP convention. No one expected that large of a lead to be sustained, but I know conservatives were awfully giddy about Bush's prospects at that point. Then when Gore went to the left during his acceptance speech, the Republicans were sure they had it in the bag, they figured he had handed the political middle to Bush...until the polls came out showing Bush's lead was gone and it was now a dead heat. Gore's most impressive performance of the whole campaign was the acceptance speech, in which he let his true self out. Yes, he actually was and probably always has been more of a liberal masquerading as a moderate, but his attempts to make himself look centrist hurt his credibility since he wasn't a skilled enough politican to make it seem believeable. He came across as phony.
I think that a good case can be made for a parallel between Dean and Reagan. Yes, of course there are many differences, but Reagan also spoke off the cuff a lot and made many miscues in his speech. And, he also was considered way too conservative to win, and was running against an incumbent candidate of the party that also controlled Congress, and thus was seeming to become the clear cut majority party in the US, and started out way behind in the polls. For that matter, Bush, like Dean, also makes verbal gaffes, was not a very good student at Yale, and got out of the draft under circumstances of questionable legitimacy.
The claim that Perot was hurting Bush is also at least somewhat undercut by the fact that Clinton was running 3rd, behind Perot, when both were in the race in the spring, with Clinton getting only 25% in the polls, and then when Perot dropped out, Clinton surged into the lead in the polls.

Very good analysis!

[agcatter]

Reagan was running against an incumbant President presiding over an economy that sported 8% unemployment, double digit inflation and interest rates at 14%.  Dean doesn't have that luxury.

Throw in the fact that by 67 - 22% Bush is trusted over Dean on matters of national security (ABC-Washington Post poll 5 or 6 days ago) well, you get my drift.

Frankly, I just can't believe Dems are going to do this, but it appears they very well may.

[jravnsbo]

Ok lets compare Reagan in 1980 vs 2004 and Dean.

1.  Reagan had made 2 previous runs at the White hOuse in 1968, 1976 and had high name ID.  Dean does not, have the experience of running a campaign and that is more obvious each day.

2.  Reagan embraced his party and was spurred on by helping Goldwater in 1964.  Dean is ATTACKING his party.  Just the last few days Dean attacked Terry McAulliffe for not stopping Dean's opponents from attacking him.  HELLO your in a primary.  Also Dean just threatened and paraphrasing "My supporters might not vote for anyone else if I'm not the nominee"  Talk about blackmail politics.

3.  Reagan was the governor fo a major state, California, where he had to deal witha  large economy, in the turbulant 60's whereas Dean was governor of a state with the economy half the size of the city of Miami.  

4.  Both are running against incumbant Presidents, true.  However, under Carter inflation was exorbinant and the interest rates were around 20%, there were gas lines and a grain embargo.  Comparatively while the economy has taken hits from 9/11 and the corporate scandals, neither are Bush's fault and plus he gave all taxpayers a tax cut which is boosting the economy and it will be strong come election time.

5.  Carter let Afghanistan be invaded by the Soviets.  Carter then boycotted the Olympics and filed a protest at the UN.  Also Carter poorly managed the Iranian hostage crisis.   Reagan was seen as a I'm not going to take that BS kind of candidate on protecting Aemrica.

Today Bush has ousted the Taliban from Afghanistan and is putting in a democracy, Bush has ousted the murderous thug, Saddam-ended his supporting of terrorism in Palestine and in allowing training bases and terrorists safe haven; and through a show of force he has shown he is willing to remove terrorists from power and thus brought Libya to the diplomatic tables to turn in there WMDS.

Dean - would not have gone into Iraq and thus would not have had the standing to pressure Libya to give up its WMDS.  He seems to be like Carter and would have rather filed a strong protest and talk the issue out at the UN ( ie Chamberlain style).

6.  Reagan was an optimist and so is Bush thinking America will get better and its best days are ahead.  Carter said we should settle for what we have and that our best days were behind us.  Dean is angry at everything and is trying to tell us how everything is bad.  Talk about a contrast.

True, obviously there are differences, as no two elections or candidates are ever truly alike.
I don't think that people were necessarily disbelieving the polls in 1988. When Dukakis was 17 points ahead, people were surprised, but I don't think anyone was saying that Bush was definitely going to come back and win. Certainly that lead wasn't going to be sustained since it occured right after the Dem convention, but at that point things did look bleak for Bush.
Likewise, in 2000 Bush had about a 17 point lead or so over Gore after the GOP convention. No one expected that large of a lead to be sustained, but I know conservatives were awfully giddy about Bush's prospects at that point. Then when Gore went to the left during his acceptance speech, the Republicans were sure they had it in the bag, they figured he had handed the political middle to Bush...until the polls came out showing Bush's lead was gone and it was now a dead heat. Gore's most impressive performance of the whole campaign was the acceptance speech, in which he let his true self out. Yes, he actually was and probably always has been more of a liberal masquerading as a moderate, but his attempts to make himself look centrist hurt his credibility since he wasn't a skilled enough politican to make it seem believeable. He came across as phony.
I think that a good case can be made for a parallel between Dean and Reagan. Yes, of course there are many differences, but Reagan also spoke off the cuff a lot and made many miscues in his speech. And, he also was considered way too conservative to win, and was running against an incumbent candidate of the party that also controlled Congress, and thus was seeming to become the clear cut majority party in the US, and started out way behind in the polls. For that matter, Bush, like Dean, also makes verbal gaffes, was not a very good student at Yale, and got out of the draft under circumstances of questionable legitimacy.
The claim that Perot was hurting Bush is also at least somewhat undercut by the fact that Clinton was running 3rd, behind Perot, when both were in the race in the spring, with Clinton getting only 25% in the polls, and then when Perot dropped out, Clinton surged into the lead in the polls.

[agcatter]

You absolutely nailed it.

[agcatter]

Won't matter who he picks.

[agcatter]

oops, wrong thread.

[jravnsbo]

-dean: "We are no safer than we were before 9/11"    Well here is the other side to that statement---


Safer now than we were a year ago

John C. Bersia

is on the editorial board of the Orlando Sentinel

Is the United States safer from nuclear attack on the eve of 2004 than it was a year ago?

Even critics of the Bush administration's handling of foreign policy would have to concede that the answer is yes.

Of course, global terrorists - who would not hesitate to use a nuclear weapon - pose a perennial, unconventional threat. Still, the United States has made impressive strides toward restricting conventional nuclear wannabes and, thus, their potential as suppliers to other countries and groups.

At the beginning of 2003, three nations with a history of notoriously bad behavior and nuclear-weapons yearnings - Iraq, Libya and North Korea - loomed as persistent problems.

Today, a U.S.-led intervention force has neutralized Iraq and has a free hand to locate and secure any remnants of Baghdad's weapons of mass

destruction. Libya, thanks to diplomatic pressure from Britain and the United States, has agreed to end its WMD programs. And North Korea has engaged in a historic series of meetings with the United States and others to address security concerns, including Pyongyang's nuclear weapons.

Some critics argue that the United States is only marginally safer as a result of those steps. Iraq, they insist, posed a greater threat a decade ago, which justified the first Persian Gulf war. However, they say, that war essentially took care of the danger and persuaded Baghdad to modify its ways, which helps explain the meager findings of U.S. inspectors searching for weapons of mass destruction.

My response?

Perhaps, but we really don't know at this point. It is equally possible that evidence of nuclear-weapons research and components remains hidden, as was Saddam Hussein until recently.

In Libya's case, the critics either minimize Tripoli's apparent change of heart, suggesting that it's consistent with earlier gestures by that country to improve its international standing, or offer the reminder that Libya has yet to prove its intentions.

My response?

The latest indications of Libya's willingness to act properly warrant a little more enthusiasm. Indeed, Tripoli has begun pressuring various neighboring countries to emulate its stance on weapons of mass destruction. As to verifying Libya's compliance with its new commitments, the United States and Britain have the incentive and the means to hold Tripoli to the highest standards and put it to the test.

And then there's North Korea. Naysayers feel déjÀ vu with today's diplomatic maneuvers, and suggest that it's 1994 all over again, only with Bush coddling the North Koreans instead of Clinton.

My response?

That's a pessimistic and unhelpful perspective, especially in light of the peninsula's volatility and concentration of firepower. Renewed war there could shut down northeast Asia and shake up the rest of the world. I would rather see the Bush administration attempt a dozen diplomatic approaches than prematurely resort to force.    Although the world gained two new nuclear-weapons states - India and Pakistan - in recent years, what strikes me as even more remarkable is that, a half-century into the nuclear age, only eight countries clearly possess such weapons.

By building on its anti-proliferation efforts, particularly with diplomatic initiatives, the Bush administration can aim to keep that number small and the nation safer.

[© tweed]

Why don't you have an avatar jravnsbo?

[jravnsbo]

do you meana  state pic?  if so Once again I'm in MN and will move to SD, i guess I could have one but then it will change and I'd just have to answer a number of questions again.  So I didn't bother yet.

Why don't you have an avatar jravnsbo?

[© tweed]

do you meana  state pic?  if so Once again I'm in MN and will move to SD, i guess I could have one but then it will change and I'd just have to answer a number of questions again.  So I didn't bother yet.

Why don't you have an avatar jravnsbo?

Okay.  But I expect it to be there soon!

[jravnsbo]

and if i went without one, what would it matter.

Can't I enter the arena of political ideas without being affiliated with a party?

[© tweed]

and if i went without one, what would it matter.

Can't I enter the arena of political ideas without being affiliated with a party?

But you're a republican, everybody knows that.

[jravnsbo]

Well I am a conservative first.  I like and would vote for some democrats, but they are adying breed int eh Democarat party, such as Zell Miller, and John Breuax

and if i went without one, what would it matter.

Can't I enter the arena of political ideas without being affiliated with a party?

But you're a republican, everybody knows that.