To his credit, Howard Dean, like all of the Dem presidential candidates, has said that he’ll support the eventual party nominee against Bush, even if it isn’t him.
There’s just a little bit of doubt lingering about how much he means it.
In an interview with L.A. Weekly that’s being widely circulated in Dem circles, Dean was asked about Wesley Clark’s late entry into the presidential campaign.
“It’s going to be very hard to start late and think you’re going to do well in Iowa and New Hampshire,” Dean said. “It’s going to be incredibly hard. I mean, we’ve already got 39,000 people working for us all around the country.”
So far, so good. Dean’s right; starting late puts any candidate in a tough position. The problem is Dean went on to demonstrate that his campaign is more about helping Howard Dean than beating George W. Bush.
“I want to get this nomination, and if I don’t…these kids are not transferable,” Dean said of his cadre of campaign supporters. “I can’t just go out and say, ‘Okay, so I didn’t win the nomination, so go ahead and vote for the Democrats.’ They’re not going to suddenly just go away. That’s not gonna happen.”
This is the completely wrong attitude for a party’s presidential candidate. I can appreciate that Dean wants to win the nomination. His rivals do, too. None of the serious candidates run for president unless they really want the job.
But for Dean to announce five months before a single primary vote is cast that he’s already uninterested in supporting the Dem ticket unless he’s on it shows that he’s hardly representing the “Democratic Party wing of the Democratic Party”; he’s simply leading the Howard Dean wing of the Democratic Party.
As Jonathan Chait at The New Republic said earlier this month, “Dean is not only predicting that his supporters wouldn’t vote for another Democratic nominee, he’s suggesting that he won’t even encourage them to do so.”
Indeed, as Kevin Drum noted yesterday, Dean should at least be prepared to go to his supporters and encourage them to “vote for the Democrats” no matter who wins the nomination.
This isn’t the first time Dean has made these kinds of comments. In August, DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe quietly approached each of the candidates and asked them to be prepared to drop out of the race when it became “mathematically clear” who the nominee would be. The candidates agreed — except Dean.
“It’s not going to happen,” Dean told U.S. News. “I’m not deliberately going to sit it out [in order to] have an uncontentious convention.”
Usually a successful political party muddles through a competitive nominating process but closes ranks once a nominee emerges. The idea is that the party should be unified for a difficult general election. It’s no longer a competition within the party, it’s a competition with the opposing party.
Dean seems to believe his supporters are “non-transferable.” That this entire campaign is about him, his agenda, and his movement. Too many of his most ardent fans believe the same thing, writing emails to non-supportive bloggers saying that they’ll “sit out” the ’04 election and let Bush win unless Dean gets the Dem nomination.
Folks, we’re supposed to be focusing on beating Bush. That’s the top priority. Many of us have a favorite Dem candidate, and that’s as it should be. We’ll vote for, contribute to, and campaign on behalf of the one we’d like to see nominated. We’ll point out our favorite’s strengths and highlight his rivals’ weaknesses. May the best man or woman win.
Dean’s approach is misguided and counterproductive. No wonder so many party leaders at the DNC and on Capitol Hill are worried about him getting the nomination.