Dean hates Republicans?

Dean is alleged to have said at the recent meeting in New York, "I hate Republicans and everything they stand for".

I remain skeptical, though I have sent out several feelers to old contacts within the campaign and at DFA to see if I can verify the statement. I'll share what I learn, of course.


Frankly, the first I heard about it was on NewsMax (referred to by Adam). I don't believe he actually said it unless I see a transcript by a more neutral source. The Jacoby piece in the Globe is just a retelling and not original coverage of the alleged statement.

And even if he did say that sentence fragment, I don't think it's any more logical to conclude he actually hates good people like Adam than it is to conclude that Tom Coburn genuinely thinks Brad Carson is evil [AP 9/2/04] or that the good people of Oklahoma City are "crapheads." [Washington Post 9/12/04]

But if the statement is going to be taken literally, I find it rather selective to be outraged by Dean's alleged rhetoric and yet remain silent about the systematic slandering of "The Left" (cases in point). Why doesn't rhetoric aimed at me, rather than at folks on Adam's side of the ideological fence, get the same condemnation in such public, visible terms? The answer is obvious; it's because the object of vilification is a straw man, and if Dean said what he is alleged to have said, then it was a straw man he was attacking as well. Though, to be fair, a party that approves of torture and disapproves of ethics is one that deserves condemnation. Hypocrisy is nothing new to the GOP leadership in Congress, though I for one do not believe that it extends to the rank and file. Neither does Howard Dean. You will see.

For a detailed look at how Dean fought back the entrenched Democratic Party establishment and earned the position of Chair - and for a good taste of the implications of this victory for the future of the grassroots democratic tradition within the Democratic Praty - read Ryan Lizza's piece in The New Republic.

Important excerpts:

The DNC chair race has exposed deep fissures within the Democratic Party. Some of these are ideological, but the real story of the race is the diffusion of power away from Washington and to new people and entities that have rushed to fill the power vacuum at the top of the party. When the Democrats control the White House, the president can simply pick the chair of the party. But, even when out of power, Democratic pooh-bahs traditionally rally around a consensus figure and present him to the DNC members as a fait accompli. An open process with all the trappings of a modern political campaign--including a seven-candidate field, fund-raising, regional debates, and smear campaigns in the press--is unprecedented in the party's history. To many Washington Democrats watching the circus-like contest from afar, it has been an embarrassment. "I think it's pathetic," says James Carville. "It's so indicative of the Democratic Party. Now we're just playing into every stereotype: We're weak, disorganized, flopping around. ... Somebody should have fixed this damn thing in November. I wish someone would have taken charge and three or four people would have gotten together in a smoke-filled room. ... They're not running for president! They are running for party chair. This is supposed to be a rigged deal. You think the Republicans would do it this way?"

But every attempt to rig the race failed, revealing that the levers of power in the Democratic Party have shifted out of Washington's hands. From the congressional leadership to the governors to the Clintons, top Democrats were all terrified of a Dean victory. They believe he will turn what is essentially a low-key fund-raising and management position into a lightning rod for GOP attacks, eclipsing other voices and emphasizing exactly the elements of the party that weeks of postelection soul-searching had determined the Democrats needed to play down (e.g., its liberal stance on cultural issues and its weakness on national security). And yet none of them could stop him.

[...]

Dean's apparent victory--aides to Roemer and Fowler insist they'll stay in the race, but the rest of the field had dropped out or had plans to drop out by the time The New Republic went to press--proves that a process he sparked in the primaries hasn't faded. Back then, he splintered the party roughly into a reform wing and an establishment wing. That divide was only temporarily papered over during the general election. In his plan for the DNC, Dean declares that he will "make Democrats the party of reform," and reform happens to be a hot word among Democrats these days. The emboldened DNC members talk about reform when they call for Washington Democrats to cede power and help rebuild their state parties. In the pro-Dean blogosphere, the coolest thing to do is to declare oneself "a reform Democrat." What the Deaniacs mean by that is anyone's guess, but they speak in apocalyptic terms. "We need revolution. We need total upheaval," Joyce Nowak, a 60-year-old MyDD blogger told me at one DNC meeting. Chris Bowers, another MyDD blogger, declared, "I can barely believe it. It looks like we finally won something. Outside becomes inside."

But reform is also the new buzzword in the party's idea factories and among its elite as well. Much of the Democratic Leadership Council's recent advice for the party is to retake the mantle of political reform from Republicans using issues like redistricting, ethics, and electoral reform. Similarly, Carville tells anyone who will listen that Democrats must embrace the label of reform. But they are not talking about party-wide revolution. (Carville, after all, was appalled by the open process of the DNC chair's race.) They are talking about issues Democrats can use to defeat Republicans. Dean's first hurdle as chairman will be to erase the cartoon image of him that is seared into the minds of most Americans. But, beyond that monumental task, Dean will somehow have to mend the insider-outsider cleavage in the Democratic Party, a cleavage that he, perhaps more than anyone else, is responsible for creating--and which finally brought him to power.