Howard Dean

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
21

Zeb,

I think you are exactly right. The seats to the left are pretty full - most left-wingers are politically active. It may be that the Democrats still feel the sting of the Nader rebellion and want to court back those voters. But I think that is a mistake - trying to lure back the moonbats does nothing to win the interest of the moderate, middle-class voter, which is where Democrats have lost ground.

Nader had less of an impact this year, and the Democrats lost by a wider margin. The solution is not to go left - Americans just don’t go hard left, never have and probably never will.

22

Dean is not nearly as leftist as he portrayed himself to be during the primary season.

He made a huge step to the left to draw support from the lunatic fringe.

Don’t underestimate him, he is very sharp.

He does have a tendency to let his big mouth get him in trouble.

23

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Dean is not nearly as leftist as he portrayed himself to be during the primary season.

He made a huge step to the left to draw support from the lunatic fringe.

Don’t underestimate him, he is very sharp.

He does have a tendency to let his big mouth get him in trouble.[/quote]

I don’t doubt for a second that Dean is a very bright individual. The question is what will win out, his head or his heart?

24

Excerpt and commentary by John Hawkins of the Dean interviwe with Tim Russert last Sunday.

Dean was on the defensive most of the show. I liked it…not sure if Howie did.

During his chat with Tim Russert, Howard Dean inadvertently revealed the truth about liberals: that they’re closet socialists. Here’s Dean and Russert going back and forth about self-admitted socialist Bernie Sanders:

MR. RUSSERT: In your home state of Vermont, there’s a vacancy for the United States Senate about to occur. Bernie Sanders, the congressman from Vermont, wants to run for that seat. He is a self-described avowed socialist.
DR. DEAN: Well, that’s what he says. He’s really a populist.

MR. RUSSERT: But is there room in the Democratic Party for a socialist?

DR. DEAN: Well, first of all, he’s not a socialist, really.

MR. RUSSERT: He…

DR. DEAN: He hasn’t said that for a while.

MR. RUSSERT: Oh, he has a–he wrote in his book: “Outside or in the House, I am a Democratic socialist.”

DR. DEAN: Well, a Democratic socialist–all right, we’re talking about words here. And Bernie can call himself anything he wants. He is basically a liberal Democrat, and he is a Democrat that–he runs as an Independent because he doesn’t like the structure and the money that gets involved. And he actually has, I think, some good points about campaign finance reform. The bottom line is that Bernie Sanders votes with the Democrats 98 percent of the time. And that is a candidate that we think…

MR. RUSSERT: So you’d support him?

DR. DEAN: We may very well end up supporting him. We need to work some things out because it’s very important for us not to split the votes in some of the other offices as well.

So, we have Howard Dean looking at a socialist and saying, “He is basically a liberal Democrat” who “votes with the Democrats 98 percent of the time.” Well, of course Bernie Sanders fits right in because today’s Democratic Party is dominated by socialists. Now will people like Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, & John Kerry admit that they’re socialists? No, but even the head of the DNC is publicly saying there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between a socialist like Bernie Sanders and liberal Democrats.

So why can’t most liberal democrats be as honest as Howard Dean? It’s not as if they don’t vote for cradle-to-the-grave-socialism at every opportunity anyway. They believe in high taxes, big government, burdensome regulation, & state control of ever growing sectors of the economy, so why not admit it?

Republicans admit that they’re capitalists, so why can’t Democrats be as honest as Howard Dean is being? You Dems are never going to convince a majority of the American people that you’re right if you don’t have the guts to be up front about what you believe in…

25

Howard Dean is the gift that keeps on giving.

Thank you for being short-sighted and not learning from your mistakes.

Democrats=Whigs.

JeffR

26

Good to see Russert (a fellow Bills fan) not let Dean get away with his double talk.

We get too much of that from both parties without anyone calling them on it directly.

27

One of my all-time favorite Howard Dean oops’s,

“If you know much about the Bible,which I do,to see and be in the place where Christ was and understand the intimate history of what was going on 2,000 years ago is an exceptional experience,” he said.

Responding to this comment, along with earlier statements that Dean has read the Bible cover to cover, a reporter asked the candidate what his favorite book from the New Testament is. He answered by citing Job, a book from the Old Testament.

28

Dean is the Chairman of the democratic party. Hillary will soon (with in 3 years) be their candidate for President.

If you are reading this and you are a democrat, I implore you to change your registration.

Friends don’t let friends vote for democrats!

:slight_smile:

29

Uhmm, He didn’t say dems were socialist, he said sanders wasn’t a socialist, and the quote leaves out some of the interview where Dean states they’d had differences. Also a majority of americans already agree with Dean,lets’ see stem cell, progressive taxes,social security, individual rights, filibuster, the radicalism of the right, war in iraq, handling of the economy, and on and on.

Don’t confuse the issues with the campaigns—so long as the swing voters continue to care about gay married terrorists having late term abortions—rethugs will keep winning campaigns, increasing the size and scope of government, increasing the tax burden on the middle class, getting more involved in personal lives,put us deeper into debt, flush fertilized eggs down the toilet, keep the stock market at a standstill,and in general screw americans, and america (unless your Paris Hilton–then your GOLDEN!)

30

[quote]ZEB wrote:
Dean is the Chairman of the democratic party. Hillary will soon (with in 3 years) be their candidate for President.

If you are reading this and you are a democrat, I implore you to change your registration.

Friends don’t let friends vote for democrats!

:)[/quote]
Seeing how the conservative agenda/philosophy has now got to be totally debunked (Bush’s most advertised stat: Record Housing!—uhh…mr.president we’ve had record housing, just about every year since the statistic was first started) You’d basically have to be smoking crack to vote for a conservative—uhmm ever?

Unless, your rich–filthy rich–then you’ve got a reason–I guess, except choosing moral bankruptcy would be hard—but your rich! who cares about morals when you’ve got oodles of cash, and more comin’ your way in the form of HUGE tax breaks–just sell some more “worthless IOU’s”!

31

Butthead says: “Dean is cool…hehehehe…”

32

this is interesting: of the 17 states that Dean has gone to since becoming DNC chair, NOT ONE governor or senator has chosen to appear with him. The DNC has also raised less than half of the funds that the republicans have in the same amount of time.

33

[quote]100meters wrote:
ZEB wrote:
Dean is the Chairman of the democratic party. Hillary will soon (with in 3 years) be their candidate for President.

If you are reading this and you are a democrat, I implore you to change your registration.

Friends don’t let friends vote for democrats!

:slight_smile:
Seeing how the conservative agenda/philosophy has now got to be totally debunked (Bush’s most advertised stat: Record Housing!—uhh…mr.president we’ve had record housing, just about every year since the statistic was first started) You’d basically have to be smoking crack to vote for a conservative—uhmm ever?

Unless, your rich–filthy rich–then you’ve got a reason–I guess, except choosing moral bankruptcy would be hard—but your rich! who cares about morals when you’ve got oodles of cash, and more comin’ your way in the form of HUGE tax breaks–just sell some more “worthless IOU’s”!

[/quote]

Actually housing starts drop sometimes as do prices. It’s not a stright upward trend.

As to smoking crack, you should know we prefer a Martini served by the butler.

Tax Breaks. Well here is a real world example not a Dean spinarama special. The less I pay in tax’s the more successful my business becomes. The more money I have to spend the more I expand it, so I can earn more money. When I expand I buy new equipment I am employing people who manufacture it. I am also hiring people to operate the additional equipment. That’s good for them. When the economy is strong and government is not taxing the hell out of people, more people are working.

Common sense but the Democrats don’t get it anymore. I do better, the new employees do better and the govt. does better. They get tax revenue from more people who are employed instead of more from just me.

It’s just common sense. I am sure the responses will be hilarious. I bet you will not find one business owner who thinks he should be paying more in tax’s.

34

[quote]redswingline wrote:
this is interesting: of the 17 states that Dean has gone to since becoming DNC chair, NOT ONE governor or senator has chosen to appear with him. The DNC has also raised less than half of the funds that the republicans have in the same amount of time.[/quote]
Well we didn’t have an inaugaral ball to raise huge cash with either. According to dean, he’s beating year to years.

35

[quote]100meters wrote:
Uhmm, He didn’t say dems were socialist, he said sanders wasn’t a socialist, and the quote leaves out some of the interview where Dean states they’d had differences. Also a majority of americans already agree with Dean,lets’ see stem cell, progressive taxes,social security, individual rights, filibuster, the radicalism of the right, war in iraq, handling of the economy, and on and on.

Don’t confuse the issues with the campaigns—so long as the swing voters continue to care about gay married terrorists having late term abortions—rethugs will keep winning campaigns, increasing the size and scope of government, increasing the tax burden on the middle class, getting more involved in personal lives,put us deeper into debt, flush fertilized eggs down the toilet, keep the stock market at a standstill,and in general screw americans, and america (unless your Paris Hilton–then your GOLDEN!) [/quote]

Did you even manage to breathe while you were spewing forth all those Dem talking points? I have this amusing mental image of you (of course I don’t know what you look like, but that’s OK) red-faced, with arms flailing and spittle flying as you rattle off your list of Republican wrongs. I hope you didn’t pass out on your keyboard afterwards, but you probably have a high tolerance for such exertion from running all those sprints…

36

[quote]100meters wrote:
:slight_smile:
Seeing how the conservative agenda/philosophy has now got to be totally debunked (Bush’s most advertised stat: Record Housing!—uhh…mr.president we’ve had record housing, just about every year since the statistic was first started) You’d basically have to be smoking crack to vote for a conservative—uhmm ever?

Unless, your rich–filthy rich–then you’ve got a reason–I guess, except choosing moral bankruptcy would be hard—but your rich! who cares about morals when you’ve got oodles of cash, and more comin’ your way in the form of HUGE tax breaks–just sell some more “worthless IOU’s”!

[/quote]

I suppose the fact that we’ve been in an economic expansion for the past few years hasn’t intruded on your reality? Nor the fact that the claims I’ve heard them make w/r/t housing had to do with record percentage of home ownership, particularly among minorities.

BTW, how long do Presidential/Congressional economic policies generally take for their effects to be felt in the economy?

37

Many of the liberals on this forum have attempted to make fun of Jeff. However, when he writes whigs=democrats he might be more prophetic than most give him credit for.

Is it difficult to imagine the democrats losing one more Presidential election (especially with Dean as Chairman and Hillary as candidate)? At the same time the democrats could be giving up yet several more seats in both houses of Congress?

Is it not equally easy to imagine President Bush appointing the next two or perhaps three Supreme Court Justices?

How important will the democrats become if the above scenario does in fact develop?

Most of the liberals on this forum are selling Jeff R short. The democratic party of today could indeed become like the whigs of another era, and in fact might just be on their way!

38

Zeb,

Thanks.

As you know, I’m a proponent of a strong two party system. Two parties with strong, creative ideas.

I don’t think I’m being dramatic when I state I think the Democrats are going the way of the Whigs.

Some people say, “Oh, the wheel always turns.”

The wheel doesn’t turn on it’s own. You can look at many eras of our history. For example, after 1992, the Republicans had been defeated. It took the 1994 Republican Revolution (full of creative ideas) to turn the wheel. It took two years of game planning to get that done. The 1960-1968 would be another example The Republicans worked very hard at organization.

What are the Democrats doing? Dean. Read lumpy discredit all of the right in one broad stroke.

I don’t think they’ve got the message.

JeffR

39

Actually I think we have record home ownership all the time, It has to do with population–which seems to go up. Keep in mind Bush actually fronted this meaningless stat during his campaign and at the convention, funny stuff. Apparently it gets more applause than during the last 4 years I’ve created ZERO jobs. At the cost of billions of dollars of borrowed money. Plus interest. Tax breaks are fine, when they’re affordable, and fair, and evenly distubuted. That’s not happening. And of course everybody knows it they just like to pretend they don’t.When your a company struggling with competition it sucks when your competitor sets up a mailbox in the bahamas and gets a nice fat taxbreak, or they donate enough to the GOP and pay no taxes. Guess who picks up the tab. Me. You. Other businesses. Blue States. It really is common sense and most economists would agree that the current admin has no commonsense ----even those on the conservative side of the spectrum.

40

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
100meters wrote:
Uhmm, He didn’t say dems were socialist, he said sanders wasn’t a socialist, and the quote leaves out some of the interview where Dean states they’d had differences. Also a majority of americans already agree with Dean,lets’ see stem cell, progressive taxes,social security, individual rights, filibuster, the radicalism of the right, war in iraq, handling of the economy, and on and on.

Don’t confuse the issues with the campaigns—so long as the swing voters continue to care about gay married terrorists having late term abortions—rethugs will keep winning campaigns, increasing the size and scope of government, increasing the tax burden on the middle class, getting more involved in personal lives,put us deeper into debt, flush fertilized eggs down the toilet, keep the stock market at a standstill,and in general screw americans, and america (unless your Paris Hilton–then your GOLDEN!)

Did you even manage to breathe while you were spewing forth all those Dem talking points? I have this amusing mental image of you (of course I don’t know what you look like, but that’s OK) red-faced, with arms flailing and spittle flying as you rattle off your list of Republican wrongs. I hope you didn’t pass out on your keyboard afterwards, but you probably have a high tolerance for such exertion from running all those sprints…[/quote]

Ok, nonetheless, its what they do. Is it even debateable or you just don’t like the truth of it?