The New Republic has a fascinating article by Ryan Lizza in this week’s issue on the under-the-radar power struggle that he believes is playing out in the race for the Democratic nomination. It’s a great read and it’s generated a lot of buzz, but I just don’t think the conclusions Lizza draws are correct.
Lizza notes that Dean is reaching the point whereby many Dems are beginning to believe that he will inevitably win the nomination — yet no one in the party’s leadership is happy about it.
“[F]or all of his newfound respectability, the buzz from numerous Washington Democrats in the wake of Dean’s extraordinary two weeks has been a hardening of opposition rather than a cascade of previously reluctant supporters endorsing the governor,” Lizza wrote. “‘My sense is that this isn’t tipping anyone towards Dean,’ says a top Beltway Democrat with ties to the Dean campaign. ‘The overwhelming majority here in Washington are more worried.’ Instead of consolidating support within the party establishment, Dean is polarizing it.”
I think this is true. The more Dean looks like the nominee, the more worried party leaders become about losing next year. DNC types seemed unconcerned when Dean had a few good months over the summer, when they assumed, incorrectly, that Dean was “peaking too soon” (a phrase I’ve always thought was useless). Now, however, panic is setting in.
But Lizza has a theory about this. He believes it’s not about Dean being too liberal; it’s about Dean’s status as an outsider. In fact, Lizza sees the current struggle as a fight for control over the Dem Party between Dean and Clinton.
“The division in the party over Dean is less about ideology than about power,” Lizza said. “Three years after Bill Clinton left office, he and Hillary still control what remains of a Democratic establishment. Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), was installed by Clinton. Most of the powerful new fund-raising groups, known as 527s, and the new think tanks, such as the Center for American Progress, are run by the best and brightest of the Clinton administration. As National Journal noted in a detailed look at what it called ‘Hillary Inc.,’ the senator’s network of fund-raising organizations ‘has begun to assume a quasi-party status.’ And some of the best Clinton talent is heavily invested in non-Dean campaigns, especially Joe Lieberman’s (Mandy Grunwald and Mark Penn), John Edwards’s (Bruce Reed), and Wesley Clark’s (Bruce Lindsey, Eli Segal, and Mickey Kantor).”
It’s a provocative thesis, but I don’t think it’s true.
To hear Lizza tell it, Dean is a Washington outsider struggling to succeed against a Clinton-driven machine that feels threatened by Dean’s insurgency. Dean, Lizza wrote, “has come to represent the party’s anti-establishment forces.”
“No Democrats closely associated with the Clintons are working for the Dean campaign,” Lizza noted. “In fact, it’s hard to find a Clintonite who speaks favorably of the former Vermont governor. This evident schism is not just about Dean’s opposition to the war — or even his prospects in the general election. It’s a turf war to decide who will control the future of the party.”
Daily Kos, a Dean consultant and author of one of my favorite blogs, echoed this sentiment in highlighting Lizza’s article.
“[T]he hatred the establishment feels against Dean has nothing to do with ideology,” Kos said. “Dean hasn’t paid his dues with the establishment. Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi has made his name working the campaigns of insurgent (hence anti-establishment) candidates like Jerry Brown. He is not part of the chummy inside-DC club of Democratic Party consultants.”
I don’t think any of this is true. Let’s take a closer look at some of the Lizza/Kos claims.
* Dean built a grassroots army first…and is only now leveraging his fund-raising power to win over establishment types — Not exactly. Early on, Dean had no grassroots army and wasn’t even paying any attention to his burgeoning online support. In fact, instead of intentionally blowing off the Clintons early on, Dean went out of his way to reach out to the Clintons before even launching his presidential bid. Lizza didn’t mention it, and many people may not be aware of it, but one of the first people Dean spoke to about his presidential aspirations before he started campaigning was Hillary Clinton. In the subsequent months, Dean spoke with Bill Clinton regularly. That certainly doesn’t fit into the “Dean vs. Clinton” theme portrayed by Lizza’s article.
* No Democrats closely associated with the Clintons are working for the Dean campaign — That’s not quite true either. A year ago this week, Dean signed on former Democratic National Committee chairman Steve Grossman to join his campaign as national co-chair. Not only is Grossman an obvious member of the Dem “establishment,” he’s also a close friend of the Clintons who served as the DNC chair at the height of the Ken Starr madness — 1997 to 1999. (Clinton even campaigned with Grossman when he unsuccessfully ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002.) If Dean were trying to break away from the Clintons and seize control of the party, I don’t think Grossman would be helping run Dean’s campaign.
* Dean hasn’t paid his dues with the establishment — Sure he has. Dean didn’t spend his tenure as governor simply hiding in Vermont and shunning the national party. On the contrary, Dean was the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association in 1997 and served on its executive committee through 2002. At the time, he was actively involved in the party establishment and built ties that he continues to use today.
* Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi has made his name working the campaigns of insurgent (hence anti-establishment) candidates like Jerry Brown [and] is not part of the chummy inside-DC club of Democratic Party consultants — That’s not true at all. While Dean rails against “Washington insiders” all of the time, Trippi has been a leading DC insider for years. Despite Kos’ claim, Trippi didn’t make his name working for “insurgent” candidates; he became well-known for working for good ol’ fashioned establishment types. Indeed, some of Trippi’s former clients include Ted Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, and Dick Gephardt. If these guys aren’t “establishment,” no one is.
The Lizza/Kos theory seems to overlook just how committed Dean has been to Clinton (at least in name) throughout the campaign. When Lieberman attacked Dean on Israel, Dean said his position was acceptable because, as he put it at the September debate in Baltimore, “My position on Israel is exactly the same as Bill Clinton’s.” When Gephardt attacked Dean on Medicare, Dean defended himself by noting that his policies were consistent with those of Bill Clinton’s. When Kerry attacked Dean for saying that the U.S. may not always be the world’s most dominant military power, Dean said his comments were similar to those of Bill Clinton’s.
If Dean were trying to wage a “turf war” to rip control of the party establishment away from Clinton, he’s got a funny way of showing it.
That said, Lizza and Kos are right about members of the Dem establishment opposing the Dean campaign. While they believe this is part of a challenge to Clinton’s control of the party, the truth is far less complicated.
The Dem establishment, quite simply, doesn’t believe Dean can beat Bush next year. They don’t see him competing well in the South, they don’t think his social liberalism will play well in the Midwest, and they simply don’t believe he will be perceived as trustworthy on national security issues.
There’s no behind-the-scenes plotting to oppose Dean because he’s an “insurgent”; there’s out-in-the-open resistance to Dean’s campaign because the establishment thinks he’ll lose. The Clintons have nothing to do with it.
The Dem establishment wants to beat Bush desperately next year. If they thought Dean was the best candidate to pull that off, they’d jump on the bandwagon, whether they thought he had “paid his dues” to the establishment or not. Their resistance isn’t about keeping control of the party in the Clintons’ hands; it’s about the fear of keeping control of the White House in Bush’s hands.