Nation-Building >> if he could be turned... | return to front page

...Andrew Sullivan would be a powerful ally. Sullivan has been posting a lot about Dean recently, and today's post hints at just how receptive a gay fiscal conservative former editor of TNR can be to Howard Dean's message:

DEAN GAINS MOMENTUM: His financial prowess is impressive - but then we knew that. Maybe he'll begin to mellow a little in public debate, which would be a real advance for his campaign, and stop winging the facts in public. The reason he's doing well though, I think, is partly the awfully insipid nature of his competition (can anyone imagine John Kerry as president?) and partly his willingness to be at least occasionally a full-throated partisan. That may hurt him later but it's giving him electricity now among the base. If I were him, I'd make fiscal responsibility my main platform - as long as it contains some serious proposals for real spending restraint. This is Bush's weak point: the damage he has done and continues to do to this country's fiscal health. Bush's answer to this - that deficits don't matter - doesn't persuade any but a handful of true believers. Right now, his prescription drug benefit will add more untold billions of debt to the next generation. At some point, when the deficit reaches the stratosphere, this issue will come back to haunt the White House. And fiscal responsibility combined with social liberalism is a great way to appeal to the center. Dean could even, I think, benefit from being ahead of the curve on equal marriage rights. If Dean can get over his unelectable foreign policy - a massive if, of course - he could be a real player.

(emphasis mine). I think we need to (politely) educate Andrew Sullivan about Dean's foreign policy. The benefit of luring him into the fold could be significant indeed.