Howard Dean took to the pages of Politico this morning to heartily endorse Hillary Clinton for president. I don’t know whether or not we should read anything into the timing of the piece, although I suspect it isn’t simply a matter of Dean waking up one day and deciding to submit this pitch to Tiger Beat on the Potomac. His support isn’t exactly breaking news, as he’s been talking her up for over a while now. As long ago as the summer of 2013, he told the Des Moines Register that he was supporting Hillary for president.
It’s less significant for what Howard Dean thinks than it is for legions of his former supporters, many of whom were animated by the votes Sens. John Edwards and John Kerry cast in favor of authorizing force in Iraq. Of course, Senator Hillary Clinton cast a vote in favor of using force, too, which led most of Dean’s adherents to align against Clinton’s campaign in 2008.
Dean doesn’t mention Hillary’s vote authorizing force in his piece, even to explain it away. It’s like it needs no explanation at all. He trusts her to nominate good Supreme Court justices, thinks she works well across the aisle, has confidence that she can sell a plan to help the middle class to the electorate, and figures that his differences will be dwarfed by his agreements.
Most importantly, he believes she “has the experience and knowledge required to protect American national security.”
Apparently, she gained this experience and knowledge in the twelve years that have elapsed since she gave Bush permission to “Fuck Saddam.”
To be frank about this, I have my doubts.
My impression is that Clinton had a hawkish attitude about Syria during her time serving as Secretary of State, and had her counsel been followed, we would have been arming ISIS years before they overtook Mosul and seized our arms without our consent. It is not my impression that she was prescient about what Libya would look like post-Gaddafi.
At a minimum, I would like Dean to address the issue that is obviously of tremendous concern to many, if not most, of his loyal supporters: Is Hillary likely to make the same kinds of reckless foreign policy commitments that she endorsed when serving as a senator and recommended as Secretary of State?
There’s a second tectonic plate shifting here on the left, and it has to do with the Clintons’ historical position within the Democratic Party. They come from the free trade, neoliberal, pro-business, deregulating wing that many progressives opposed during Bill Clinton’s presidency. Many more progressives have problems with Clinton’s economic and regulatory policies in retrospect, seeing in them seeds that bore the rotten fruit of the housing bubble and the financial collapse known as The Great Recession.
The candidacy of Howard Dean was to some degree hijacked by economic progressives in the sense that Dean didn’t so much invite them in on those terms as they came along for the ride with the antiwar progressives. Dean wasn’t running against Hillary or Clintonism, and so he isn’t turning his back on his followers by expressing his confidence in Hillary’s commitment to working people.
Nearly all of the gains in the past fifteen years have bypassed the vast majority of Americans, while the holdings of the top 20% have increased dramatically. This is a fundamental disparity that will be the greatest challenge our next President must tackle—how to reestablish a commitment to all of us to restore the opportunity to live and achieve the American Dream.
Hillary Clinton will not shrink from this challenge. In the coming months, I expect her to lay out her plans to attack income inequality and help rebuild the middle class. She knows how to sell a broad range of Americans on these policies, and has shown how to stand up against extremist economic policies…
…I am sure I will have disagreements with her as she focuses on getting Americans back to work and rebuilding an America that works for all of us. I value and respect her enough that whatever differences may exist will be minimal compared to the tasks we really need to do for the good of restoring our country.
A lot is being glossed over by “I am sure I will have disagreements with her” on her economic policies, especially for the nation of Deaniacs. You don’t have to be on the ramparts of an Occupy Wall Street protest to be politically motivated primarily be a sense that both parties (including the Clinton administration) have sold out the middle class and destroyed the American Dream. Dean was never a far-left progressive on these issues, but it still feels like he is disrespecting a lot of his fans by not even deigning to explain why he has such confidence in Hillary on these matters.
Maybe none of this will matter. Maybe Hillary will waltz to the nomination and easily win the presidential election. But it’d be nice to know if Dean is subscribing to a “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” strategy or if he never really stood for things people thought he stood for.
I suppose, but Dean can endorse who he likes. I’m not going to worry about the reasons.
My own response to this endorsement is that it would be a lot more palatable if it was published after she had won the nomination. She’s certainly the better choice as compared to any conceivable Republican, but we need to have a primary first.
I was once a Deaniac. He lost me when he tried to undermine the ACA. Guy’s a phony. I was wrong to ever support him.
i was also a deaniac. he lost me when he endorsed the terrorist cult MEK
While I liked Dean, is was never a Deaniac, and never thought he was “All That!”
Imo, he became the blank whiteboard for the people who lean to the left.
They assigned him with virtues and beliefs I don’t think he ever had.
Back before it became a parody of itself (which wasn’t a long period of time from when it started), I used to watch ‘Cup O’ Schmoe’s Morning Coffee Klatch for Has-been Politicians and Pundits,’ and see Howard Dean on as a guest once in a while.
He said stuff that was so counter to what people thought he stood for, that that was the moment that I realized left-leaning people had cast their aspirations and hopes onto him, hoping that they would stick.
I’m not saying he’s a bad man.
Or that he’s not a good Democrat.
I’m just saying that he isn’t what many people think he is.
Again, that just my opinion.
“I’m here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.”
That was the invitation. And now he endorses the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. What a bummer.
Yes, he did invite that. The implication being that he was primarily supportive of working class men and women, and would use that lens to listen and think through all issues.
Team Obama ran with a more sophisticated version of that promise. Like a political Rorschach test.
And we wonder why voters aren’t inspired by Democratic ciphers.
taken aback a bit by Howard’s lionization on the left. Some of this is personal – I first met Howard at a Chittenden County Democratic Party Meeting. In 1982. He was a moderate most of his career. Civil Unions was forced upon him by the Supreme Court – though he handled it well. At the Democratic Convention in ’96 I think it is fair to say there was tension between the Dean people and the Sanderista people in the Vermont delegation.
I think what brought him to national prominence was his reflection of my native State’s suspicion of military interventions – a suspicion that in Vermont runs through the Vietnam War all the way to WW2. But on economic issues I never thought he was left wing at all.
Meh. Dean was a vehicle, a means for ending the Bush Syndicate. His deification ended in 2004.
Only silly people deify any politician. (Sillier still are the New Yorkers and politicians that went ga-ga over young British royals the past few days.)
Dean was one of the few Democratic politicians that could possibly have defeated Bush in 2004. Alas, we went with the “reporting for duty” guy.
But Dean was still instrumental in taking out the “Bush syndicate” in 2006 and 2008; so, your dismissal of him with the 2004 election is historically inaccurate.
Agree on all points except I wasn’t dismissing Dean – just saying that the utility of “Dean The Infallible” became nonexistent after 2004. Nobody should have honestly believed that in the first place – I didn’t, and I was all in for Dean. He still has utility today, but if he’s on Team Clinton then oh well, no biggie.
Dean was never infallible and never pretended to be. (A shame political groupies don’t listen better.) What he brought to the table in late 2002 was energy, plain speaking, and a voice that said “Bush’s case for war” is a fraud. Added to that he had demonstrated the civil unions aren’t difficult for government to accommodate to. (The number of Democrats/liberals that said “Oh, no, can’t go there” was not only appalling but demonstrated how far inside the box their thinking resided.)
What he lacked was debate skills and a cohesive plan and organization to get through the Iowa caucus in strong shape. The biggie that his team missed was the backroom heavyweights lining up and calling in chits for Kerry in Iowa and team Edwards lining up support among local politicians. How did Dean lose his strongest card — opposition to the Iraq War that by the time of the caucus was ongoing and had cost tens of million of dollars — to one guy that had voted for the IWR, another that had co-sponsored the Senate resolution, and barely beat a third guy that had co-sponsored the House resolution?
He was also the only candidate that would have been well positioned to (particularly so given his physician credentials) to blast the Bush administration when the prisoner torture at Abu Ghraib reports broke that spring. Instead we got the ever mealy mouthed Kerry ducking and running for cover at that time.
His deification ended in 2004.
The hell it did. There’s a significant group of Kossites and people on DemocraticUnderground.com, inter alia, who maintain that Dean’s the answer, pretty much regardless of the question, party chair, Secretary of Whatever, White House thing-a-ma-bob, you name it.
I caucused for him, and was a Dean state convention delegate, but it’s gotten a bit silly over the years… too many people can’t tell him and Nye Bevan apart.
Not sure which is worse — not recognizing the right person at the right time or clinging to what was once a right person whose time has passed.
There will always be a few true believers – I believe there are still PUMAs out there too – but the overall view is true, very few people hang on Dean’s every word any more, that mostly ended in 2004. Said differently, Howard Dean endorsing Hillary will persuade very few of his 2004 followers to join Team Clinton.
but it will destroy his organization DFA
love your calculus subject heading
A shame that even the “better Democrats” that garner national attention are so limited. For the past few years, instead of digging deep down for principles and growing, Dean has been acting like an abused spouse seeking to please the abuser.
Recall back in 2003 when billmon withdrew his endorsement of Dean after Dean stated his mostly unqualified support for Israel. That may be an electorally advantageous position, but it hardly demonstrates a principled, informed, and thoughtful position. Dean is better than a stopped clock, but he’s still the guy that supported NAFTA until in application it was evident that it was deeply flawed.
Why is it so difficult for “better Democrats” to see the interconnectedness of issues? Elizabeth Warren gets somewhat further on that score than Dean, but she too falls far short. She also supports another Clinton presidency, in seeming obliviousness to the fact that the first one significantly and negatively impacted her signature issue.
The “New Dealers” weren’t perfect, but even in comparison to today’s “better Democrats,” they look like geniuses.
I supported NAFTA until it was flawed in application. I still support the theory because it does create tremendous wealth but now I know the elites have too much power to allow it.
I think its just the ‘system’ is so powerful and pervasive. Its impossible to avoid its effects. We have no personal idea how the view from it looks because its so vastly different.
No, it’s conceptually flawed. Whether it’s dumping surplus US corn in Mexico or rice in Haiti, both are negative shocks to their economies. To be replaced with what? New industrialization requiring expensive credit and jobs paying such low wages that the former farmers can no longer support themselves and their families as they once did. Those low wage outsourced jobs then return to the US and further erode the earnings ability of US workers. And so it goes.
Al Giordano had a cheery tweet on this topic back in August:
https://twitter.com/AlGiordano/status/501734810457763840
He trusts her to nominate good Supreme Court justices, thinks she works well across the aisle, has confidence that she can sell a plan to help the middle class to the electorate, and figures that his differences will be dwarfed by his agreements.
Lets just unpack this.
He trusts her to nominate good Supreme Court justices,
Not even RBG voted for workers yesterday. So that only goes so far.
thinks she works well across the aisle,
Dean really wrote this? Who is this supposed to impress outside the Beltway? Also shows that Dean has been asleep these past 6 years. Also, too, given the current GOP, the only thing the GOP might work with her is on bombing some country.
has confidence that she can sell a plan to help the middle class to the electorate,
What plan? A UBI? Free college education? Forgiveness of all outstanding student loans?
“Dean wasn’t running against Hillary or Clintonism … “
I was always under the impression that Dean was running against the DLC and the leadership of a Democratic Party that was dominated by the DLC.
What the distinction is between Clintonism and the DLC I am not sure. Perhaps Clintonism is DLC with a Clinton face.
I had not paid the slightest attention to Howard Dean before his presidential campaign of 2004 and subsequent leadership of the party. Whatever Dean is or is not, it was his opposition to the war and to the Democrats as “Republican Lite” that made me look to him as an important Democratic leader. I would have gladly voted for him.
I don’t know why he’s now supporting Hillary, but I’m not.
I just discovered an item published way back in early October that reports on an embryonic movement to draft Elizabeth Warren. I wasn’t aware of this movement at the time, but it seems it was already more substantial than I would have thought. I think the article is very interesting.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/09/obama-s-2008-backers-we-re-ready-for-warren.html
Here is where the Draft Warren movement is now:
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/major-progressive-groups-join-effort-draft-elizabeth-warren
What the distinction is between Clintonism and the DLC I am not sure. Perhaps Clintonism is DLC with a Clinton face.
Clintonism is the same as the DLC. Clinton was once the chair of the DLC. Hillary might have been too. Gore was also chair of the DLC back in the late 80’s/early 90’s.
Is Dean signing on to Hillary’s campaign in some role?
Hillary Clinton is mirrored in the fate of The New Republic, let it be a warning. It’s time for real change in economic opportunities, equality in honest wages, better education for all and spending federal money on American institutions, not corporations making profits from homeland security, war on terror and keeping up the military war machine. Boot the lobbyists off The Hill and set new priorities at home for the American people. Indeed, change Middle East policy and backtrack on further US interventions. Or else it’s time for revolt … further poverty is unacceptable.
○ Growth Has Been Good for Decades. So Why Hasn’t Poverty Declined?
Quibble: a long way to go before “further poverty is unacceptable.” Or white, working class men figure out why they’ve been losing economic ground for decades and that it has nothing to do with women and minorities.
But since Democrats aren’t going out of their way to ensure that white men have it better than minorities and women, why should white men vote for Democrats.
Tribalism 101.
Is the question for white men not how much they earn but how much more they earn than women and minorities? If so, then they better stick with the GOP that will favor them as they plunge all of us to the poor house.
Not that the current pack of neo-liberal Democrats have much interest in most of us either, but at least they’ll hand out food stamps to those that end up in the poor house.
But seriously:
and this:
I heard a Sussex professor speak to a reporter about the Ukraine and western propaganda. The Ukraine is in dire need of another €15bn [$18bn] or it will face bankruptcy. The IMF has reached its limit and the costly war in Eastern Ukraine has emptied the federal reserves. The EU is not in a position to continue funding a bottomless pitt {Greece, Italy and France] and he urged the Ukraine to look eastward and make a deal with Putin’s Russia.
Interesting views from the emeritus professor with perspective of class warfare to neoliberal economics:
○ Global and local rivalries in NATO’s push towards the Caucasus – 2009
it’s not about Howard Dean the candidate, it’s about DFA; a tremendous disappointment. how about we have a primary before endorsing candidate? are we to become like the Republican mega donors who want to pick their candidate in advance?
Except DFA’s mailing list, at least those that replied to the email, overwhelmingly disagree with Dean.
As a definition of leadership — trying to take one’s supporters to a place they don’t want or aren’t yet ready to go — I suppose his endorsement qualifies as leadership. OTOH, it demonstrates that he doesn’t know and doesn’t listen to DFA supporters, and therefore, is unworthy of their support.
it’s highly unusual for DFA, they don’t work that way
exactly. what is going on with that. they made a big point about prioritzing potential nominees, you can change your mind, etc etc. Why is he doing this after they have so cultivated a progressive constituency?
iirc the top choices were Bernie Sanders, E Warren and ??
Seems to me that all Howard Dean is doing is trolling for a job in the next administration, no matter whose it is.
Dean’s contribution to the world is the 50 state strategy, which we should find a way to return to. He was never incredibly progressive on many other issues.
that was a sham too, he’s more myth than anything else
But it’d be nice to know if Dean is subscribing to a “if you can’t beat `em, join `em” strategy or if he never really stood for things people thought he stood for.
Er, yes, I think that’s pretty much it. I don’t think Dean was ever that dovish or that far to the left. I supported him in 2004 because I thought (wrongly!) that he would be a good candidate and I thought (rightly!) that he made a good call on Iraq, but I never thought he was going to be a great liberal hero.
I also think that Hilary Clinton’s vote in favor of the Iraq War is unlikely to be a major issue in the 2016 primary. It will have been 13 years past.
I don’t trust Hillary Clinton on domestic issues.
Period.
Nor do I trust her on foreign policy issues.
Dean can support whomever he wants, but he never ever articulated about financial inequality.
Pretty much everything that Barack Obama cleaned up financially has its origins in Bill Clinton’s administration.