Posted on 02/09/2004 9:35:53 AM PST by bcopay
Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean and his advisors are looking into options that would allow him to run for President on the Green Party ticket should he fail in his bid to wrench the Democratic nomination away from Senator John Kerry.
Dean had been looking at the Green Party long before his campaign caught fire.
As early as late last summer, Dean was considering the Green Party as an option, particularly because at the time Ralph Nader, the Green nominee in 2000, appears lass interested in a run.
'This isn't a ploy to get the Democrats to pay attention to us, says a Deaniac in Washington.'
'This is about ensuring that our man's views and this supporters' views get carried into the fall campaign. A Green Party bid puts him into the debates with Bush and whomever the Democrats nominate. It keeps us viable.'
It would also, as the Deaniac pointed out, get the attention of Terry Maculiffe and the DNC pretty quick.
Dean is the first to brag he's brought in hundereds of thousands of new voters to the party-voters who would most likely would follow Dean to the Greens. He probably would generate more votes than Nader himself pulled in 2000, again dooming the Democrats to another loss.
Nader has not indicated what he will do in the 2004 camapaign. In the past three months he has twice pushed back a decision on whether he is running.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
All democrats are lying cretins!
Well, they have been, haven't they? Although "encouraging" may not be the best word to describe prodding-by-means-of-knives-in-the-back.
Still, I agree with another poster who questioned whether the Greens would accept Dean. Anybody remember the Greenie with the big-ass anti-Dean placard who showed up at Howies announcement? (It was hilarious. The Dean people kept trying to cover up the sign with their own, but the Greenie's sign was too big, so the Deaniacs had to paste or staple a bunch of theirs together. That didn't work either 'cause the Greenie also had a looooooong stick and just kept his sign higher. The Dean people eventually brought out a ladder. LOL!)
Remember that Ralph Nader backed off from another Presidential run because he liked what he saw in Howard Dean. If Dean nailed down Nader's support ahead of time, the Green Party would leap at the opportunity to select Dean as their Presidential candidate.
I have a hard time believing that Dean would really go Green, but it is certainly doable.
First, it's easy for Dean to find an excuse to break his promise to support the Democratic nominee: Just name some horribly unethical thing that Kerry or McAuliffe did in their efforts to deny Dean the nomination. For example, Dean could say he had proof from several witnesses that Kerry was responsible for fraudulent push-polling in Iowa (which he probably was).
Second, Dean could claim that Kerry has no chance of beating Bush in the general election, because of all the contradictory positions Kerry has taken on the Iraq war. The logic here is that if Kerry can't win no matter what, then ABB (Anybody But Bush) doesn't require Dean or his followers to support Kerry.
Third, Dean can argue that he's the true leader of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. If there's no room for true Democrats in the Democratic Party, then it's time for them to switch to a different party (the Greens) and let the dead carcass of the Democratic Party rot away.
Fourth, Dean can argue that he has a realistic chance to beat Bush in a three-way race. His ideal strategy is to sign on Wesley Clark as his Vice-Presidential running mate. If Clark is convinced that Kerry won't pick him for the VP slot (and it would be very dumb for Kerry to do so), then Clark may as well jump ship and join Dean. That way both of them stay in the glare of publicity which their egos require, all the way through November and perhaps even beyond (a la McCain). A Dean-Clark ticket would garner all the left-wing antiwar votes, while still being able to argue that it contained strong foreign policy experience and credentials. At some point in September or October, if Kerry kept going downhill in the polls and Dean-Clark kept rising, there could be a tipping point in which rank-and-file Democrats abandoned Kerry and jumped on the Dean-Clark bandwagon, based on ABB sentiment.
It's a plausible series of arguments, even though the reality is that Dean would have no chance at all of winning and would totally doom Kerry.
Even though Dean couldn't win this November, it is conceivable that he could set the Green Party on a path towards overtaking the Democrats. Then Dean could hope to come back in 2008 as head of the new number two political party and truly win.
If that happens, this race is OVER.
Thanks for the GOOD NEWS ping. :) Oh please let it be so. This would assure President Bush being re-elected to office, and perhaps then we would get some Conservative Judges on the Supreme Court.
So why aren't they voting for him in the primaries??
Easley, NC - up in 2004
Bredeson, TN - up in 2006
Warner, VA - up in 2005
Blanco, LA - up in 2007
Regardless, I still think the Dims won't run two senators. Senators have the three Ps, Pitifully Poor Performance, in presidential elections, IIRC.
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