perfidy

What's completely insane to me is that Dean was (and probably is, if you get him alone) an honest-to-God Vermont moderate, fiscally conservative, pro-gun, pro-choice and everything. Willing to listen. Passionate, but not an ideologue. A uniter, not... you know. Theoretically the guy to bring the Democrats back from the brink.

And now... what the hell? Occam's razor suggests that it's a brain parasite or eating paint chips, though I would not rule out mind control or android substitution either.

I think that at least some of the Republicans who think Dean is a gift beyond price are about to be acquainted with "be careful what you wish for." The biggest problem with this "gift" is that there is no incentive for the Stupid Party to behave less stupidly.

Ken, good point. From the perspective of pure strategic partisan politics, Dean is the gift beyond price. From a less parochial viewpoint, Dean is (potentially) sabotaging one half of a system that - despite its flaws - has served this country well for fifty years in its current form, and for over two hundred going back to Jefferson and Adams.

We've survived the collapse of a major party before, when the whigs snuffed it back around 1850. I don't know that the Democrats are really going to collapse, but their leadership does seem to be trying hard.

I think McCain would be almost as polarizing to the right as Dean is to the left. A *lot* of conservatives don't like him not because he's a moderate, but that he forgets to be a Republican when it suits his PR machine. If McCain runs, it'll be a closer race than you'd think because the right vote will be split.

Good lord, what I would pay to see Dean do a Hulk impersonation. "Dean getting ANGRY! Dean SMASH!!!"

Johno -- Wow. I had totally forgotten about that. He had a lot of approval among republicans in VT back when he was governer. I thought that his shift in the lead up to the primaries in 03 was because of the idiotic cater-to-the-fringe method we Dems use to select our candidate. What happened? I think this might be a good illustration of the mind-rot that the Dems have because of their Rage. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to ... stupidity?

Buckethead -- Interesting point about the Whigs. I would personally say that the Democrats during the civil war would count as a death as well, though they reformed with the same name afterwards.

I wouldn't mind a new Whig party, aim to cut back a bit of the presidential power. I also long for the days of more than two parties. It was confusing at times back then, but I think it made politics more flexible. You didn't have as much policy being tied down to monolithic party ideology.

See, here's the thing:

From a less parochial viewpoint, Dean is (potentially) sabotaging one half of a system that - despite its flaws - has served this country well for fifty years in its current form, and for over two hundred going back to Jefferson and Adams.

He (and the maundering fuckwits on the extreme left) are sabotaging the whole system. The maundering fuckwits on the extreme right are part of the chum that keeps them frothing in the water, and their utter disconnect from what they just saw happen to them is another part.

But, as I've whined many a time in many a place, without a credible second party, this country will be in such deep shit we might as well just make a compost heap out of it.

While I think Howie the intemperate paint-chip eater is funny, in a cartoonish sort of way, the fact that he hasn't yet been run out of office on a rail scares the living daylights out of me.

Just as most Republicans aren't Jerry Falwellesque, Democrats as a group, I continue to believe, are neither as extreme or as stupid as those they're allowing to speak on their behalf. The party's inaction, to-date, toward Schumer, Conyers, Pelosi, Reid, Dean, Voinovich, and their other embarrassing elements is inexplicable.

[Absolutely NOT Wik]: Of course I know Voinovich isn't a Democrat. But does he?

Beggin' yer pardon, Patton, but Voinovich is a Republican...well, he's s'posed to be, anyhow (which tells you everything you need to know about Senator Emptysuit).

For some inexplicable reason, Patton used invisible HTML ink to hide his comment about Voinovich. If you select the text in his last (visible) paragraph and move the mouse down, you'll see the rest of his comment.

I don't get the furor over the "white, Christian party" comment. Aren't Republicans generally, like, proud of it? Don't strategists constantly tell the Democrats that they have to court the religious voters that the GOP has locked up? And doesn't the GOP constantly note that they're trying to get blacks to reject the "slaveholder" mentality of the Democrats? Doesn't the GOP position itself as the party of Red State (read: white) values (read: religious) voters?

Didn't the GOP carry 78% of the "White Evangelical" vote in 2004, along with 52% of the Catholics, 59% of Protestants, but only 25% of Jews, 23% of other religions and 31% of the nonreligious? Didn't they carry 58% of the white vote, but only 11% of the black vote, 44% of Latinos, and 44% of Asians?

Again, what about the statement is "factually wrong?"

Phil, Dean said it like its a bad thing. The fact that many white Christians are Republicans does not mean that Democrats should be reviling whites, christians, and Republicans alike.

The thing is, by categorically excluding whites, Christians, and so on; Dean might lose the Dems what fraction of those demographics that they still have. You can't maintain a national party by appealing only to a bizarre confabulation of splintered interest groups, especially when the Republicans are poaching on many of the groups that the Dems have traditionally had a lock on, like the Jews and the Blacks.

If Dean and the rest of the Democratic leadership turn the rhetoric up to "11" they can only lose in the long run, because it's pleasing only to the choir, and off-putting to everyone else.

Well, I hate white people, so Dean's got my ear!

Just one white family on the block and poof! There goes the neighborhood. Of course it was me and my family, so I'm not quite sure what to think.

I also hate freedom, kittens, apple pie, Skynyrd, and wrestling. But I love stinky cheese, unnecessarily convoluted VAT revenue repatriation schemes, and hovercraft.

Sorry, Ken - I used that silly little trick precisely to elicit a comment like yours. No, not the one correcting me, the one agreeing with my text you'd not yet read.

Phil: The Washington Post put out a story the other day asking the same question about Dean's statement - "what was factually wrong"?

I consider that particular logorrheic spasm on Dean's part to be among the less offensive things he's said. It has the benefit of being true, while also being an accurate description of at least a plurality of the Democrats.

It also has the benefit (since, really, so what?) of being a stupid statement, particularly coming from a White Christian. I was reminded of Dave Chappelle's skit on the black KKK member.