Dean IS the Best in a Crowded Field!
Howard Dean is running for President of the United States. No really, he's got his own web site and everything. The former Governor of Vermont believes that he should be leader of the free world. Vermont has an international border…well, almost. It borders Canada, a nation that has noticeably different pronunciation of English and a sick obsession with bilingualism. Economically,
Vermont has a Gross State Product almost as large as
Microsoft's. Well, in the ballpark anyway. My friend
Michael Totten is waiting for Dean to impress him by proving that he is worthy by showing that he has a meaningful foreign policy other than "Bush is wrong; way, way, way, WRONG!" Michael is notoriously picky, and he rarely gives his support just to spite the current administration. Michael is therefore a dangerous counter-revolutionary who will be up against the wall when the real people's party comes to power.
Last week Dean wrote an Op-Ed for the
Wall Street Journal. In it he stated that the answer to our economic woes was "simple": All we needed to do was the exact opposite of the Bush Administration economic policies. I will freely acknowledge that some of the Bush Administration's economic plans are in fact a dog's breakfast. Writing in the Wall Street Journal that economic recovery is "simple", however, is intentionally rude. If it was simple, why isn't everybody doing it? It amounts to saying: "All you financial types are morons; you only need to engage in partisan politics to achieve economic prosperity!"
This is actually a fairly astute, and depressingly effective, old trick. Anybody who cares about real economics will strenuously oppose Dean, the other 80% of the population will have proof that the evil business types are conspiring against the hero of the Democratic Party. Announcing that you are a loyal student the
Robespierre School of Economics (whose central economic theory is to guillotine CEOs, CFOs, and anybody with two dimes to rub together until the economy improves) can have that effect.
Dean has already impressed me. I think he is an amazingly effective con man, easily the best in a crowded field. That is not what I want as President, though.
