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FORD
01-25-2004, 12:09 PM
A Conservative For the Deans

by David Franke


It's always hard to separate our personal evaluation of a political figure from our ideological view – we tend to like those with whom we agree or support, stressing their good qualities, and the reverse with those with whom we disagree. So, since I'm supporting Howard Dean for president, it probably won't come as a surprise that I like his personal qualities as well. But this is a case where I like him as much for his personal qualities as for his anti-war stand.

To me, he's the Barry Goldwater of our time – that rare politician who speaks his mind honestly and passionately, without regard for the polls and the political technicians, and often too bluntly or clumsily for his own good. That doesn't make either of those two men the ideal politician or presidential candidate, but it sure endears them to me on a personal level. It is rare to find a politician who is not scripted. As a right-wing libertarian, I disagree with Dean on virtually every issue, including war (I go further than he does), but I would feel safer with him in the White House than with any of the standard-issue politicians in either party. He could be counted on to repeatedly make the "mistake" of leveling with me and the rest of us, rather than lying and concealing. It's in his nature. He hasn't been reconfigured by living or working in Washington, DC.

Which brings us to that "awful" thing he did in his concession speech in Iowa. Am I the only person in America who can't comprehend what was wrong with it? It was a pep rally with his followers, for goodness sake, and he was letting them know they weren't going to accept this as a defeat and how much he appreciated what they had gone through together. It wasn't a tirade of a mad man, it was a real man caught up in the moment, and bonding with his mostly young and very enthusiastic and idealistic fans. As a native Texan, I even liked the whoop at the end. Heck, we whoop more than that at the contra dances I go to every weekend.

Is this what it comes down to – that we accept a president who lies us into war for his hidden agendas, and who harms the American people in countless other ways, because he piously mouths all these platitudes about God and country, and turn against a man who refuses to give a concession speech (which is what the press wanted) and turns it into a pep rally?

We apparently have reached a (downward) stage in American political life where an open show of emotions is forbidden. The one thing I liked about Truman was his emotional honesty; he could never become president today because of that. We (or at least the press, which tells us what to think) want only obsessive politicians, like Kerry. Emotional honesty is "unpresidential." We want state "gravitas."

Have we, as a people, become so scripted and controlled ourselves, that we actually want that in our politicians? After all, we have gone through decades of conditioning by the television moguls – we laugh when they tell us to laugh, with their sound tracks. We don't laugh, and certainly don't laugh hysterically, just because it really hits us as funny. And have we become so conditioned by bland suburban "values," not to mention political correctness, which really comes down to – in the end – "don't do anything that will make people think you are different"?

Which brings me to the matter of Judy Dean. Last night I watched Diane Sawyer's Primetime interview of her and her husband, the first time ever that she's been on television, and I fell in love with her. She's as human as her husband. Not a mannequin for her husband, like Mamie or Jackie or Laura (and especially Hillary). These are two people very private people (very New Englandish in a Calvin Coolidge sort of way, and he's one of my heros), who really pay attention to family first rather than preach about it.

She explains that she has a private medical practice that she loves, that she doesn't have a partner so she can't easily turn her patients over to someone else, that she can rearrange her Thursday schedule (and thus appear on this interview) because she's not seeing patients that day. He explains that he doesn't feel a need to use her as a prop. They aren't consumed by consumerism; they aren't into giving big gifts because they have what they need, so she's not embarrassed that he gave her a rhododendron for her last birthday. For her birthday they usually celebrate – get this! – with a family bike ride!

And they don’t watch television. She doesn't want the kids to be distracted and influenced by it. (She says this to one of TV's top interviewers, who looks totally nonplussed and obviously doesn't know what to make of this strange woman – I loved that moment!) I can't think of any industry in America (even the movies) that has changed America more dramatically in the directions conservatives say they dislike intensely, than television. Yet, how many conservative families do you know where the TV is the babysitter?

This couple is too conservative for the conservatives. Most of today's conservatives are Babbitts, just like their liberal opposites, concerned with keeping up with the Joneses and what the Joneses think of them. This couple knows who they are, and they don't need the approval of anyone else.

Bottom line: I would love to know Judy and Howard Dean personally, and I can't think of any other political family today about whom I could say that.

January 24, 2004

David Franke is one of the founders of the conservative movement, having organized (with his college roommate) the first nationwide conservative activist organization in the late 1950s.

FORD
01-25-2004, 06:50 PM
"A Vision of Hope"
Nancy Rossi of Francestown, NH

Posted by Guest Writer
on Sun, 01/25/2004, 2:38 pm
http://www.deanfornewhampshire.com/


Although I live a very private life, I am taking the rather public step of offering to write to others my personal story of why, because of Dr. Howard Dean, I changed my voter registration to become a Democrat—after thirty years as an active Republican. On the first day of spring last year, Friday, March 21st, 2003, I was invited to a house party in Greenfield to meet Dr. Dean. What I liked immediately was that in a cozy living room I was surrounded by my neighbors, people I see every day—not the candidate’s entourage or campaign workers planted as questioners. After Nell Conkright of Aesop’s Tables in Peterborough introduced Dr. Dean, Dr. Dean talked about political labeling and how it has changed over the years. He remarked that as a young man he was a moderate and that he still is a moderate. “I haven’t changed,” he said, “the difference is that moderate is now defined as liberal and ultra-liberal.” His statement of the obvious took me by surprise, and I recognized myself in it.

Dr. Dean went on to discuss how the practical and the moral are compatible and possible. He described how he had worked hard to use his skills to balance Vermont’s budget while also giving children health care coverage and reducing the state’s taxes. He also said, referring to the Bush administration’s spending spree of the inherited budget surplus and the development of a deficit greater than any in our history, that reckless spending and reckless tax cuts, and not asking for a war-time sacrifice of any of us at home except to buy things, dismisses the goodness of Americans.

Dr. Dean also took particular care to emphasize the moral imperative of supporting our troops now that they are in Iraq and that spreading our troops so thinly across the globe does them and their families a great disservice. As the mother of a son who is completing his Basic Training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, I am reassured that Dr. Dean’s commitment our to country’s safety and to the strength and morale of our military matches my son’s.

Every time I’ve had the chance to hear Dr. Dean since then, I have been struck by how true he has remained to his belief in a moral America, an America that does not find itself blind and deaf to the enormous economic difficulties millions face and to the enormous economic burden our children and grandchildren will have when they pay back the country’s debt and repair an environment under assault.

When I left that March gathering, I felt that for the first time in years I had found a real “moderate” and one with a vision of hope. Soon after, I filled out the paperwork at the Francestown Town Hall and became a Democrat so that I can vote for Dr. Dean on Tuesday. Today I am asking you to vote for Dr. Dean on Tuesday. I particularly hope you will let Dr. Dean’s integrity and dignity and belief in a moral and safe America ring in your ears as you make your decision to put your pencil beside his name on Tuesday. Sometimes good guys do come in first. Dr. Dean wants all Americans to come in first.

Sincerely,
Nancy Rossi
Francestown, NH

BigBadBrian
01-25-2004, 09:31 PM
A conservative for Dean. :D


My, My, how they have you fooled. You and thousands like you. Having Dean run against Bush is the GOP's dream come true and you don't even know it.

FORD
01-25-2004, 11:30 PM
Then it's the GOP who is fooling themselves. Dean will be our next President.

BITEYOASS
01-26-2004, 12:53 PM
I'm better of voting for Dean anyway. Especially when Bush wants to grant amnesty to a few million illegals. Don't expect to find a job anytime soon, when a company can find someone who will work for little or no money.

BITEYOASS
01-26-2004, 12:54 PM
Maybe voting for Dean will get the republicans off the golf course.

Guitar Shark
01-26-2004, 05:42 PM
Originally posted by FORD
Dean will be our next President.

No he won't.

FORD
01-26-2004, 06:18 PM
Originally posted by Guitar Shark
No he won't.

What? Are you supporting Edwards now because he's one of your own kind? ;)

Seriously, Matt. I believe that Dean combines the neccessary experience with the ability to draw voters in from the left all the way to the sane Republicans, including many who haven't bothered to vote at all in years, or whose votes have been cast in utter frustration to third parties because the two main ones have become corporate sellouts (i.e the current push for Kerry by FAUX News, of all people).

I would vote for Clark or Edwards if nominated, but I don't believe they would do as well as Dean.

ELVIS
01-26-2004, 07:34 PM
Dean isn't drawing voters from anywhere...:rolleyes:

BITEYOASS
01-27-2004, 10:39 AM
Well I just found out that a lot of the republicans in congress are quite pissed about bush granting amnesty. So hopefully either bush changes his mind or the republicans will find some of there own candidates. So Dean is off of my list.

FORD
01-27-2004, 11:25 AM
Originally posted by BITEYOASS
Well I just found out that a lot of the republicans in congress are quite pissed about bush granting amnesty. So hopefully either bush changes his mind or the republicans will find some of there own candidates. So Dean is off of my list.

If the Republican party was going to go against Junior, they would have done it in 2000 when they had a better qualified candidate already running (John McCain). They went with Bush Sr's money and connections and ignored his son's stupidity. They'll make the same mistake this time for the same reasons despite the "miserable failure" of the Bush pResidency on so many levels. So the GOP will have no other candidates.

And since we're now officially into primary season, it's looking less likely that someone like Pat Buchanan will jump in to splinter off votes from the right.

So I guess that leaves you with the options of a minor party protest vote, or supporting a candidate who's pissing off the establishment of BOTH parties, so he might just be doing something right ;)

John Ashcroft
01-27-2004, 02:10 PM
McCain is a media darling and that's all.

Ford, I'm seriously concerned for your well being. Not right now mind you, but on the day Kerry becomes the democratic nominee for the general election... We'll have to post a suicide watch.

FORD
01-27-2004, 02:45 PM
Originally posted by John Ashcroft
McCain is a media darling and that's all.

Ford, I'm seriously concerned for your well being. Not right now mind you, but on the day Kerry becomes the democratic nominee for the general election... We'll have to post a suicide watch.

If the election truly becomes a choice of 2 candidates who are Skull & Bones and PNAC (i.e Junior vs Judas) then it's time to admit we are living in a fascist dictatorship and that the entire electoral process has been stolen from us.

As I said, I hope it doesn't come to that, but I refuse to believe that it's truly the will of the American people to have traitorous criminals like this running our federal government.

BigBadBrian
01-27-2004, 04:16 PM
Originally posted by FORD
If the election truly becomes a choice of 2 candidates who are Skull & Bones and PNAC (i.e Junior vs Judas) then it's time to admit we are living in a fascist dictatorship and that the entire electoral process has been stolen from us.



:rolleyes:

ELVIS
01-27-2004, 10:28 PM
Traitorous criminals...:rolleyes:

Like the Clintons ??

rustoffa
01-27-2004, 10:30 PM
Originally posted by FORD
Then it's the GOP who is fooling themselves. Dean will be our next President.
:rofl: