What on earth can be wrong with the chairman of the Democratic National Committee? Despite the recent party tradition of attempting to split all middles with the Bush administration and the governing Republican majority, Howard Dean dares articulate a decisive and different point of view. He ventures to call out the GOP on a number of issues, ranging from their relative indifference to the economic predicament of the working classes to the party’s culturally homogeneous nature.
Dean has even gone so far as to suggest that the Republicans have a “darker” social vision than his own Democrats. Worse, he insists on saying these things in the American heartland, where he encourages Democrats to rise and rally and actually try to compete for votes in the so-called red states.
Shhhhhhhh. Does the chairman not know that it is now the accepted custom among Democrats to disguise their views and try to pass themselves off as quasi-Republicans and to avoid impolite discord? Worthies ranging from Senator Joe Biden to our own ambitious Blue Dog congressman Harold Ford Jr. have proclaimed that Dean does not speak for them in these assertions.
Thing is, Dean seems to speak for a growing number of Democrats and independents who do want some diversity in the national dialogue. Listen up, is what we say. n
