Dean is not McGovern



As so often happens in Washington, especially among would-be Democratic wise-men, the experts all agree about the popular favorite for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Newsweek's Howard Fineman wrote that many party insiders “ see Dean, as a disaster in the making: George McGovern Reloaded.” Columnist Bruce Bartlett wrote that Dean “is the most left-wing candidate to seriously compete for the Democratic nomination since George McGovern in 1972. “ On the Meet The Press Thanksgiving show, host Tim Russert asked half a dozen Washington journalists to reflect on the Dean/McGovern comparison.

Here are the logical arguments against this facile formulation:

1.America in 2004 is not America 1972, it is thirty two years later. 1972 really was in the wake on the nineteen-sixties and there really was a culture war going on in the country .Guys with long hair were still beaten up in bars in many parts of the country ,and not just in what we now refer to as “red” states. The Roe v Wade decision had not yet occurred and while abortion rights were every bit as divisive as they are today, only a small minority supported them. The legal by-products of the civil rights movement were less than a decade old and the anger and dislocation of suburban white because of school bussing,open housing etc was far greater than it is today. Profanity in entertainment had just been legalized by the courts. Thus the Republican epithet that McGovern stood for “amnesty ,acid and abortion” although untrue, had some resonance.
Today a pure anti-abortion position is more of a political liability than an asset. Trent Lott was driven from Republican leadership what was de rigeur for southern politicians in 1972. And in the new century, George W. Bush trades one liners with Ozzy Osborne and Republicans and , yes , southerners, are as likely to enjoy “Bad Santa,” or dance to rock and roll or hip hop as northern liberals are.


2.Geo W. Bush is not as popular as Nixon was and has a far weaker base. In the 1968 election, prior to 1972, the anti-liberal candidates combined, Nixon and George Wallace, got almost 10% more votes than the Democrat, Hubert Humphrey. In the 2000 election the left of center candidates, Gore and Nader got around two points MORE than the conservative candidates ,Bush and Buchanan.

3.McGovern took the left wing position on every issue. Dean does not.(Contrary to Bartlett’s assertion, there have been numerous more left leaning “serious” candidates than Dean in recent years including Gary Hart, Tom Harkin and Jesse Jackson). Dean is a centrist on economics(McGovern advocated giving $1000 to every man woman and child) and on gun laws where is to the right of Clinton and Gore. Dean supported the war against Afghanistan and the first Gulf war. Pundits who try to equate Dean’s having signed a civil unions bill for gays with the controversies of the sixties are kidding themselves. A recent Public Opinion Watch poll showed that the Vermont approach is supported by 52% of Americans .This is not the stuff of Willie Horton commercials. Although all such comparisons are primitive, Dean has far more in common with Jimmy Carter in 1976 than he does with McGovern.

Those who compare Dean to McGovern do so because both candidates were against anti-war and because they were both opposed by party insiders. However a reading of history shows that these were not the reasons McGovern ran so badly. According historian Theodore S. White’s “Making of The President 1972,” which is considered the definitive account of the campaign, writes of McGovern “the problem in the public mind was simply his competence.” McGovern mis-managed his own convention to the point that his acceptance speech was broadcast at three in the morning Eastern time and seen by only 3.6 million homes compared to the more than 20 million who would see Nixon’s. Most disastrously , McGovern selected as his running mate Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton who was soon revealed to have had electric shock treatment for depression. McGovern first backed Eagleton “1000 %” and then rapidly turned on him. He then publicly offered the VP slot to several Democrats who turned him down before getting Sargent Shriver to accept. White writes that McGovern was never able to recover from the perception of instability in his leadership style created during that crucial ,high profile period at the peak of his visibility. McGovern also alienated the AFL-CIO because of a blunder on a Senate vote and was the first Democratic candidate in twenty years not to get the union’s endorsement. According to White, McGovern, already well known as an anti-war candidate, had narrowed the gap behind Nixon to a mere 5 points prior to the convention. After McGovern’s fumbling of the Eagleton matter, the gap was 23 points.

So much for logic. Former Clinton aide Dick Morris got more to the emotional core of the Dean-is-McGovern crowd when he wrote :” Dean is to the Democratic Party what the Christian Right is to the Republicans - a force moving the party into territory which offends the values and views of the mainstream of America's voters. He threatens to make the Democratic primaries a killing ground where any candidate who can win nationally is eradicated.

This IS the view of many Democrats who believe that excessive passion is dangerous and unmajoritarian—a candidate who will drive “swing voters” away from the party. Dean is painted as the product of self-destructive lefties in the Democratic party who care more about venting their frustration than they do about winning power, a syndrome which is portrayed as having its roots in the pot-smoking nineteen sixties.

To win, say the so-called pragmatist “experts” Democrats should support the President on foreign policy , avoid divisive social issues, and focus on the economy. The problem is that this was the precise strategy of Congressional Democrats in 2002 with one of the worst results for in out of the White House party in history, and was essentially the strategy of President Gore in 2000.

Contrary to Morris’ implication, Republican strategist Karl Rove has had President Bush embrace conservative Christians at every turn. While Democrats timidly avoided the emotional rallying cries that animated the best of the nineteen sixties social change movements , New Gingrich joyously referred to his successful effort to take back the House as a “revolution” and his Budget Committee Chairman, now Fox TV host John Kasich makes approving public references to the Grateful Dead and Radiohead.

In a recent interview in the American Prospect, Bill Clinton said that the moderate posture he took in 1992 would not work today. But even Clinton at that time made sure to work closely with MTV, to bond with Rev. Jesse Jackson for the general election and during his presidency, and supported gays in the military. Clintonism stripped of Clinton’s charisma and his carefully crafted links with the Democratic base would create a Democratic candidacy such as those of Mondale or Dukakis.

Without the support of young people, the support of those whose primary language is that of the popular culture, not merely the OP-ED pages, with a high turnout and small donations from a passionate base, the Democrats don’t have a prayer. Maybe Dean can’t go the distance and under any circumstances is will be hard to beat George W. Bush.But so far, Dean is the only one who seems capable of getting Democrats excited. That’s undoubtedly why the intensely pragmatic Dennis Rivera delivered the Hospital Worker’s union endorsement.


And lets not forget that at least McGovern left behind a list of hundreds of thousands of activists who supported progressive organizations for the next two decades. Mondale, Dukakis and Gore left nothing but good intentions and the tongue clucking support of Washington “realists.”