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So Howard Dean is what passes for a liberal Democrat these days.
No wonder such talk has people in Vermont scratching their heads and looking puzzled. In Dean's 11 years as governor of Vermont, the New York Times recently reported, "he restrained spending growth to turn a large budget deficit into a surplus, cut taxes, forced many on welfare to go to work, abandoned a sweeping approach to health care in favor of more incremental measures, antagonized environmentalists, won the top rating from the National Rifle Association and consistently embraced business interests."
However, to hear centrist Democrats tell it, Dean is the single biggest threat to their party's hope of making George W. Bush a one-term president. Dean, they say, is dragging the party too far to the left by vociferously criticizing the war in Iraq and vowing to repeal Bush's $2-trillion in tax cuts over the next decade, every nickel and dime of it. If that's not enough to make Republicans salivate, his critics say, there's also the issue of gay marriage, which is shaping up as a divisive issue that could favor the president in next year's election. Dean says he opposes gay marriage. However, as governor he signed the nation's first civil-union law giving same-sex couples in Vermont the same legal benefits that heterosexual couples have.
Pretty radical stuff, right?
It is to the moderate Democratic Leadership Council, a group that takes credit for enabling one of its own, Bill Clinton, to end the party's losing streak in presidential elections, in 1992 and again in 1996. Clinton succeeded in part by blurring the lines between Democrats and Republicans on crime, welfare and other hot-button issues. That's not Howard Dean's style. He introduces himself as the presidential candidate from "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." That line brings cheering liberal activists to their feet every time. It makes party moderates wince.
"It is our belief that the Democratic Party has an important choice to make: Do we want to vent or do we want to govern?" Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, the DLC chairman, said at the organization's recent meeting in Philadelphia. "The administration is being run by the far right. The Democratic Party is in danger of being taken over by the far left."
Bayh did not mention Dean by name, but he left little doubt who he was talking about. There's no question that Dean's early and outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq has energized the Democratic left and propelled his insurgent campaign to the front of the pack, in fundraising and in the polls. And more than any other Democrat running for president, he has shaped the political debate on the issues on which Bush is seen as most vulnerable - foreign policy and the economy. In the process, he has reignited the ideological battles within the Democratic Party moderates thought Bill Clinton had extinguished.
DLC leaders see Dean as another George McGovern or Walter F. Mondale. But others see him as a Democratic version of John McCain, whose straight talk and independent streak made him a political phenomenon in the 2000 Republican presidential primary fight.
Dean's rivals for the nomination, including those who supported the war in Iraq but are now criticizing Bush for the postwar occupation, have all but given up trying to compete with him among antiwar Democrats. Now they're trying to shift the debate to domestic issues, particularly the Bush tax cuts. Virtually all the Democratic presidential candidates are now saying they would raise taxes on some or all taxpayers.
Some candidates, including Sens. Bob Graham of Florida and John Edwards of North Carolina, say they would raise the highest income tax bracket - 35 percent - back up to the 38.6 percent it was before Bush's tax-cut plan became law. They would also increase the tax rate on dividends and capital gains. In addition, Graham would create a "millionaire's tax bracket" of 40 percent, and Edwards would scuttle the repeal of the estate tax.
Dean and U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri would not pick and choose among taxpayers. They would repeal every dollar of Bush's tax cuts and use the money to fund national health insurance and other programs. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, once the presumed frontrunner who has been losing ground to Dean in New Hampshire, the first primary battleground, is trying to use the tax-cut issue to challenge his rival's image as a "real" Democrat.
Kerry would repeal most of Bush's tax cuts on income, dividends and capital gains. However, he favors the child tax credit and the elimination of the so-called marriage penalty. He fired this shot over Dean's head last week: "Real Democrats don't walk away from the middle class. They don't take away a tax credit for families struggling to raise their children or bring back a tax penalty for married couples who are starting out or penalize teachers and waitresses by raising taxes on the middle class."
Dean shoved back, saying Kerry "is no better than President Bush" if he believes he can pay for health care and lower the budget deficit without rolling back the president's tax cuts.
At least the "Democrat from Taxachussetts" no longer has to worry about being labeled a "liberal." Howard Dean is proud to wear that hat, even if it's not a perfect fit. But that still leaves the question: Who is the "real" Democrat - Howard Dean or John Kerry?