The New York Times has bestowed its ultimate blessing on a leftist Democrat political candidate: it has prepared a lengthy profile that carefully shows how the candidate is really just a misunderstood "moderate" and that "labels" don't apply. This time it's Howard Dean (or "Dr. Dean," as the NYT now likes to call him), who has earned the privilege by raising enough money to be a "serious" candidate. What a bunch of hokum.
We really are settling now into the familiar four-year cycle of media cliches and political campaign-by-proxy. It's as repetitive as sunspots or animal migration, and as ritualistic as kabuki theatre. The fact that we are at war makes no difference to those seeking to grasp the levers of power.
In the green, hilly quiet of Vermont, Dr. Dean, a stockbroker's son who grew up on Park Avenue in Manhattan and in Sag Harbor, N.Y., is viewed not as an idealistic maverick, but as a shrewd politician who always kept one ambitious eye on the next step. Even the civil unions bill, sure to cost him among conservatives nationally, was considered a cop-out by some gays and liberals at home who say he did only what was demanded by state courts and signed the bill "in the closet," without a public ceremony.Posted by Alan at July 30, 2003 06:29 AM"In the Vermont political spectrum, he was a moderate or a centrist," said Eric L. Davis, a professor of political science at Middlebury College in Vermont. "In the spectrum of Vermont, he was not someone who was a strong supporter of left or progressive causes."
The difference may be as much a matter of style as substance. In fact, much of Dr. Dean's presidential platform, particularly his plan for universal health insurance, is a outgrowth of his accomplishments in Vermont. He remains a fiscal conservative, he believes gun control should be left to the states and he favors the death penalty for some crimes.