Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
The Democratic front-runner keeps committing gaffes that divert attention from more serious issues and raise questions about his electability.
Howard Dean made himself the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination by giving his party a needed jolt of energy and innovation. In recent days, though, Dean has brought Democrats something they don't need: a front-runner with a proclivity for sticking his foot in his mouth.
This week, Dean found himself trying to explain away an answer to an Iowa newspaper questionnaire in which he left the impression that his brother was serving in the military when he disappeared in Laos during the Vietnam War. Dean, who avoided military service during the war thanks to a dubious medical deferment, later said he has always acknowledged that "my brother . . . was a civilian."
Polls show Dean leading the Democratic pack in Iowa and most of the other early primary and caucus states, but the unnecessary flap over the Dean brothers' Vietnam-era experiences created another diversion from the issues Dean would prefer to focus on. Last month, Dean was forced to apologize for saying he wanted the support of "guys with Confederate flag decals on their pickup trucks." Earlier this month, Dean recklessly brought up "an interesting theory" that President Bush had advance warning of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. And unlike most of the other Democratic candidates, Dean didn't sound all that happy about this month's capture of Saddam Hussein.
Dean even has picked some unnecessary fights with fellow Democrats. After making several comments that were widely seen as veiled shots at former President Clinton, Dean this week referred to the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, with which Clinton has been identified, as "the Republican part of the Democratic Party." That's hardly the way for a front-runner to bring his party together.
Too much can be made of such gaffes, but Dean's words take on new importance now that he is the clear-cut favorite to win the Democratic nomination. Dean's words also are scrutinized more closely because, as the former governor of little Vermont, he was a virtual unknown before his insurgent campaign took off.
Dean's stumbles haven't hurt him in surveys of party voters, largely because the other Democratic candidates haven't offered a very appealing alternative. Dean early on staked out a clear position in opposition to the war in Iraq, while most of the other candidates waffled. He also is a forceful critic of Bush administration social and economic policies, and his campaign's innovative use of the Internet has energized the party's base. That early momentum may be enough to carry Dean through a front-loaded nomination process that could be all but over by early February.
But the rash comments betray a lack of discipline - perhaps even a whiff of arrogance - that could doom Dean in a general election campaign against President Bush. So far, Dean hasn't shown the flexibility needed to transform his intraparty insurgency into a broader appeal to Democrats, Republicans and independents. Unless he does, the Democrats who have rushed to support him could make a decision in haste that they could come to regret before November.