Democratic leaders stand up for Dean (The Boston Globe)

How ironic that Howard Dean, the man who promises to make Terry Schiavo (the now-passed brain-dead Florida woman whose death watch became a national media event) a political issue, has himself become a political issue and the subject of a media death watch due to his own brain-dead comments. The major difference between Terry and Howard’s situation seems to be that more people were working on keeping Schiavo alive than appear to be working to save Dean’s DNC role. Life is sure funny that way.

In today’s developments, a private meeting between Dean and the leadership team of Senate minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada instead will now include a news conference and photo opportunity as a public embrace of Howard Dean.

On recent occasions, Dean has said many Republicans ”never made an honest living in their lives,” described the Republican Party as ”pretty much a white, Christian party,” and declared that House majority leader Tom DeLay of Texas, who is facing ethics questions but has not been charged with any crime, ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence.

Despite criticism of his remarks since the weekend from Hoyer and other congressional Democrats, Dean yesterday refused to back down, asserting in an interview on NBC’s “Today Show” that Republicans are “outside the mainstream.” In an interview last month with the Globe, the former presidential candidate said Republican policy makers had “gone off the deep end,” and called the party’s stance on gay marriage and other cultural issues “despicable.”

It has been notable that no one has really defended what Dean has said. The best that anyone has been able to muster is the backhanded excuse that the job is really hard:

“I was [DNC] chairman for four years — it’s a tough job” said ex-DNC Chief Terry McAuliffe.

However, most Dems, including those interested in a 2008 Presidential campaign are distancing themselves faster than Atlanta Braves teammates distanced themselves from the equally stupid comments by John Rocker years ago.

”I do not agree with those comments,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the House Democratic whip. ”A party chairman’s job is to organize the party, to support policy-makers.”

Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware said Dean does not speak for the majority of Democrats, and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said Dean is not the spokesman for the Democratic Party.

“I think in terms of his role as party spokesman, [Dean] probably needs to be a little more careful and I suspect that is a message he is going to be getting from a number of us,” said Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)

As we discussed earlier in Howard Dean’s Performance Review Gets an F, some leading Democrats and major donors are concerned that Dean is jeopardizing the party’s ability to reach beyond its traditional base to win close elections, particularly for the White House. Dean has repeatedly said his goal is to build the party’s ranks not only in Democratic-dominated states, but also in culturally conservative regions where Republicans usually prevail. That said, one can only wonder how criticizing the Republican party for being a “pretty much a white, Christian party” will play in predominately white Christian states?

Harold Ickes, a longtime Clinton aide, has made the most unnecessarily obvious comment to date:

‘Some of his comments will reinforce the view that he sometimes talks before he really thinks through the implications.”

Thank you Ankle Biting Pundits for the link.

More Independent Sources Dean Stories: If You Thought Howard Dean’s Iowa Scream Was Over the Top; and Dean Wastes No Time in Charting Dems Course to Ruin.

Technorati Tags: 2008 Election, Howard Dean

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 9th, 2005 at 8:48 am by Insider and is filed under Election 2008 Live Team Coverage!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.