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I wish Howard Dean's opponents would make up their minds. First they told us the former Vermont governor was a reincarnation of George McGovern, a scary, antiwar liberal who, if he wins the party's presidential nomination, would take Democrats over the cliff. Now, some of his opponents are suggesting that he is Newt Gingrich's political soulmate.
My head is spinning. Would someone explain to me how Dean can go from being George McGovern one day to being Newt Gingrich the next. He can't be both, so which one is he? If I were Dean, I'd take the McGovern comparision as a compliment. Wouldn't the country have been better off with McGovern in the Oval Office instead of Richard Nixon and his Watergate gang? But the Gingrich jab is another matter. It's an insult that, in another time, would have been settled with pistols at 10 paces.
In last week's presidential primary debate, the two Democrats most threatened by Dean - Rep. Richard Gephardt in Iowa and Sen. John Kerry in New Hampshire - went after the frontrunner as a tag team. First, Gephardt recalled that back in the mid-'90s, when he and other real Democrats were battling Gingrich on Medicare cuts, "Howard, you were agreeing with the very plan that Newt Gingrich wanted to pass, which was a $270-million cut in Medicare."
Then Gephardt added, "Now, you've been saying for many months that you're the head of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. I think you're just winging it."
Dean's face went red and he stared straight at Gephardt. "That is flat-out false, and I'm ashamed that you would compare me with Newt Gingrich," Dean fired back. "Nobody up here deserves to be compared to Newt Gingrich."
Moments later, Kerry came to Gephardt's defense, saying Gephardt did not say Dean was like Newt Gingrich but that he had sided with Gingrich on that Medicare issue. That's a policy difference, he added, not a personal attack.
The New York Times reported that Dean at the time did say Medicare was poorly run and its budget could be reduced, but there is no evidence he specifically endorsed the Gingrich proposal. As the attacks continued, an annoyed Dean at one point said that to hear his opponents tell it, "I'm anti-Israel, I'm anti-trade, I'm anti-Medicare and I'm anti-Social Security. I wonder how I ended up in the Democratic Party."
Meanwhile, some are wondering the same thing about the newcomer to the race, Wesley Clark. The retired Army general has admitted that he voted for Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, whom he has described as "a truly great American leader" who "helped the country win the Cold War." And what about the general's praise of the current Bush administration? Speaking at a Republican Lincoln Day dinner in his hometown, Little Rock, in 2001, Clark said: "I'm very glad we've got this great team in office, men like Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Paul O'Neill - people I know very well - our President George W. Bush."
Asked for an explanation at last week's debate, Clark said he had never been partisan in the military and had served under presidents of both parties. However, after Bush "recklessly cut taxes" and "recklessly took us into Iraq," the general said he felt the need to speak out. "And when I needed to speak out, there was only one party to come to." And oh yes, he was quick to add, "I'm prochoice, I'm proaffirmative action, I'm proenvironment, prohealth."
Clark is being promoted as the "electable" antiwar alternative to Dean. But after Clark, in a two-day period, went from saying he "probably" would have voted for the Iraq war resolution to saying he would "never" have voted for it, it seems doubtful that Dean will lose his antiwar base to the general from Arkansas.
Think about it - the two Democratic presidential candidates who are the talk of the party are a former small-state governor who is being tagged as George McGovern on foreign policy and as Newt Gingrich on Medicare, and a retired Army general who voted for Nixon, Reagan and probably George W. Bush. That says a lot about the other eight candidates, especially the four senators and two congressmen in the contest. If Clark's entry shakes up the race and slows Dean's surge, as many Democrats are hoping, it will be less a rejection of Dean's candidacy than a vote of no confidence in the Washington Democrats in the race.