Is Dean Going to Get Gore-ed?

by Ari Dimitriades
7 January 2004

ight now, I’ve joined ranks with the thousands of other voters who haven’t given much thought to the Democratic presidential candidates. I’m aware of most of them; I’ve given cursory glances to the evening news when one of them is mentioned, but I haven’t watched or listened to any of the debates. For the most part, it’s all background noise.

Except I have a nagging feeling about what I have paid attention to. If you’re interested in the candidates, there doesn’t seem to be a real shortage of media. And when I finally stopped to look at the media reports, I keep running into this perception that journalists don’t like Dean. That any number of “analysts” and politicos keep repeating the same theme: Dean can’t win, Dean is a loser, Dean is a wreck, Dean this and Dean that. Hell, even respected newscaster Jim Lehrer described Dean as the candidate who “won’t go away.”

I can’t help but wonder if we’re witnessing the beginning of the Gore-ing of Howard Dean.

It will take an army of professional brainwashers to convince me that the press treated Al Gore and George W. Bush the same. Let’s drop the pretense: the media disliked Gore and relentlessly pounded on everything, including spreading the discredited statement he allegedly made about inventing the Internet. Practically everything was about his character or lack thereof. Like about how he was a pampered rich boy – a charge I found ridiculous since George W. Bush is heir to a fortune that Gore would probably kill for. Web site after Web site with a political bent took Gore to task for the most mundane things, and proceeded to build Bush up as some type of regular guy fighting the establishment. A low point that I won't forget: how everyone kept wondering if Gore was really hung when he appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.

Now in the aftermath of the 2000 election, and a flurry of horrible domestic policies, I’m starting to hear the same stories about Gore resurfacing and refit as pieces on Dean. That he has a temper that calls up questions about his character. That he’s not as fiscally conservative as he portrays himself – again, it’s a question of character (that is to say, he's a liar). That, as Slate keeps reminding us, he just can’t win. His campaign is the reincarnation of George McGovern. That he’s inexperienced.

This last point is one that confuses me terribly. Dean has been in politics long enough to know that no man is an island. That you need to have aides and advisors to guide your decisions. And as far as I know, I have never heard of one American president who was so thoroughly prepared for office that he could do it with one hand tied behind his back. I doubt that Abraham Lincoln had that nasty little Civil War in mind when he was campaigning for president.

But my real point here about Dean’s inexperience ironically comes via George W. Bush. That was one of my biggest complaints about Bush during the last campaign: he was the most unqualified candidate the Republican Party could have dreamed up. Practically every business venture he was handed fell into the hole. He does not have a sterling record as the governor of Texas. During the campaign, Bush liked to call himself a “compassionate conservative,” but not one politico has ever explained what that means. Bush’s incuriosity about the world is practically legendary: before he occupied 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he’d barely ventured outside the United States and didn’t seem inclined to do so.

So for myself, Bush was more a representation of the old (white) boy network: cronyism par excellence. Corporate interests and lobbyists licking their chops at the trough being readied for them. And in many respects, I haven’t been disappointed, what with tax cuts (during a time of conflict!) for the wealthy, reduction of environmental controls, a growing federal deficit that forces you and me to pay for it when we’re old, and crass manipulation of the fear of terrorism.

Bush had nothing in his background that would prepare him for the presidency, other than having a coterie of handlers who had slipped back from the 1980s to re-take positions of power and influence. Bush so far has not vetoed one bill at all in the last two years. Not one. You think it’s because he’s such a deep thinker and has this stunning grasp of everything? Of course not – he may have his own opinion, but he not calling all the shots. Anyone who believes that is a beggar to his own demise.

So, given this example of a horrid presidency, I’m not exactly too worried that Dean won’t have every contingency figured out. If I’m inclined to support him, I think I’d give careful thought to whom he would work with: in other words, if the short list of potential cabinet members includes oil executives or the children of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, I won’t be supporting him. Put another way, I don’t need the simpering platitudes of politicos telling me that I need to know what he stands for and everything else takes care of itself. It’s not only what the candidate believes in, but how he’s going to carry it out.

Unfortunately, that last point alienates me from millions of other registered voters who have unblinkingly swallowed this tripe from the media. As if electing a president is only about whether he’s an aw-shucks kind of guy. That I just need a simple check-list of what he believes in to satisfy my democratic impulses and let other people sort it out. That’s one of the vast differences between ordinary voters and those who try to be informed.

There is creeping negativism about Dean that I fear will spoil his candidacy. Since there are far more uneducated voters than those who can think and chew gum at the same time, a sustained message that Dean is unelectable or just can’t win will sink in and result in a Republican victory. It’s a clever strategy, of course, because it reduces the election to a red herring: do you want someone who really shouldn’t be in the White House running the country? Vast groups of voters will then put two and two together when faced with that brow-furrowing problem, opt for familiarity. Ergo, Bush’s smirking face is there for another four years.

While it may sound like I’m a Dean supporter, I’m not. I don’t know right now who I think is the best candidate, though I’ve whittled it down to just four. But I do know that I will be watching how the media will continue to build a momentum of treating Dean like Al Gore. And then lying about it when asked.