Hypocrisy 101

Will Saletan of Slate made an excellent point about Gore's speech when he endorsed Dean: the same man who in December 2000 said we should wait until every vote is counted in December 2003 says he doesn't want to wait for a single vote to be counted.

Elections should be determined, Gore said, "by the votes cast by the people, not by politicians." Gee, I wonder which one of those he is.

By telling everyone to get out of Howard's way and shut up, Al and Howard just made us all louder. I think it will be harder for some folks to raise money and get support and ultimately win and thus the process will be accelerated to be Dean and someone else, but what right does Gore have to tell us Democrats what to do? Unlike Republicans, we don't take marching orders well.

as Saletan said "Who decided Dean was the strongest candidate? Not the voters: They haven't voted. Not the polls, either: They've shown Dick Gephardt, John Kerry, and Wesley Clark scoring better than Dean in hypothetical match-ups with President Bush." In fact, even in national polls Dean by be leading but not by much, most of the time it is within the margin of error. Sure, he has a commanding lead in NH and is up in IA too, but how much of the party (or the country) really is behind or even knows who this guy is? Not much, that's because we haven't voted yet. And I for one am not voting for Howard Dean.

Did anyone notice where the announcement was held? In Cedar Rapids IA and Harlem NYC, a few feet away from President Clinton's office and a few more from Senator Clinton's New York district offices. But back to the point, no one doubts Dean is #1.

So who is that number 2 going to be, now that Dean is solidly number 1? I say Clark, and I am not the only one.

"Who's really still in this race?, Josh Marshall asks, "....Gephardt and Kerry can be effectively knocked out of the race by losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively -- eventualities which now seem quite likely....Lieberman isn't closely tied to success in either of those states. But his campaign has just never taken off... Lieberman is the only major candidate in the race for whom there is a significant core of Democratic primary voters who find him an unacceptable nominee. ...

In any case, that leaves Clark.

Add to this two other factors.

1. Clark is raising money at a better clip than any of the other candidates beside Dean.

2. Clark has a clearer raison d'etre for his campaign than that of any of the other candidates, save Dean: namely, his national security credentials as a retired general...Many presidents have been governors with no prior foreign policy experience. So Dean's in good company. But it's a clear distinction between Dean and Clark in what is sure to be a general election fought heavily on national security issues."

Finally, I would like to quote from David Letterman: "Al Gore has endorsed Howard Dean for president. That's pretty fitting, the guy that didn't beat Bush endorsing the guy who won't beat Bush" ("Late Show").