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Jewish World Review June 10, 2005 / 3 Sivan, 5765 Dean is making alot of noise but not the type the Dems want to hear By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
We are, I fear, in the last days of Howard Dean's tenure as chairman of the
Democratic National Committee. It was too good to last.
Party chairmen are supposed to raise money and keep their mouths shut. Dean
has been failing on both counts.
Through April 30th this year, the Democrats had raised only $20.9 million,
compared to $44.7 million for the Republicans.
The numbers for May and June aren't likely to look better, since three key
DNC fund-raisers have announced their resignations.
Dean was on a West Coast fund-raising swing last week. Turnout in Seattle
and San Francisco, hotbeds of liberalism both, was less than the DNC
expected.
"There is an increasing whiff of desperation permeating the finance side of
the DNC, what with Dean apparently feeling like the nerd at a fraternity
rush party scooted off to a room to hang with the foreign kid and the nose
picker, and the big-time DNC fund-raisers jumping ship like rats sensing
something is amiss," snarked the American Spectator's Prowler.
But if Dean hasn't been raising much money at his fund-raisers, he's been
getting media attention:
"Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people," Dean said
in San Francisco. "They're a pretty monolithic party...and they all look
the same...It's pretty much a white Christian party."
This characterization came as somewhat of a surprise to Dean's counterpart
at the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman, who is Jewish. And boy,
doesn't Condi Rice have a helluva tan?
The week before, in Florida, Dean described Republicans as greedy people who
"never made an honest living in their lives."
Democrats who hold elective office have tried to put distance between
themselves and Dean's comments.
"I don't think the statement (Dean) made was a helpful statement," said
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.
"The rhetoric is counterproductive," said Sen. Joe Biden.
"I don't agree with him," said John Edwards, former senator and vice
presidential candidate.
When Dean visited Arizona recently, that state's Democratic governor, Janet
Napolitano, couldn't find room on her busy schedule to meet with him.
"Dean disappoints Democrats at both ends of spectrum," wrote the Baltimore
Sun's Jules Witcover, who normally would rather undergo a deep root canal
without anesthesia than criticize a Democrat.
"Most Republicans are not coupon clippers," said former Democratic operative
Susan Estrich in her syndicated column. "They go to work and earn a day's
pay like the rest of us. Hearing Howard Dean say otherwise not only offends
Republicans, but also moderates and independents who have no taste for the
class warfare or the strident liberalism that Howard Dean is selling."'
Democrats who win elections (or at least want to) know that: "vote for us,
you racist, homophobe hicks, because we're so much smarter than you" is not
a pitch likely to make a favorable impression on swing voters.
But Dean (oh, please G-d!) may keep his job because he is expressing what
most Democratic activists really think. The typical liberal today is so
convinced of his moral superiority that he needn't obey ethics rules meant
for Republicans and other lesser breeds without the Law, and so convinced of
his intellectual superiority that he needn't actually know anything.
"Does anyone in America doubt that Kerry has a far higher IQ than Bush?"
former New York Times editor Howell Raines asked rhetorically in an op-ed in
August of last year. "I'm sure the candidates' SATs and college transcripts
would put Kerry far ahead."
Actually, Howell, they don't. Kerry's grades at Yale were made public last
week as a by-product of the modified limited hangout of his Navy records.
Kerry's grades were lousy, slightly lower than those of Bush.
In this instance, as in so many others, liberal assumptions of superiority
are not supported by fact. If you spend as much time as liberals do looking
down your noses at people who disagree with you, it's hard to see the road
ahead. The only cure for this myopia is a long, long time in the political
wilderness.
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© 2005, Jack Kelly |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
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