The GOP talking heads continue to beat the drum for Dean, their official candidate and the one the Bush Political Machine is salivating to run against. Sam Tanenhaus, a Tailgunner Joe McCarthy witchhunt apologist and upcoming author of a William F. Buckley biography (can you be more rightwing than that and he also works for the wealthy elitist rag, VANITY FAIR), is happy to report that "radicals" like Dean (yeah, like McCarthy and McGovern were considered "radical candidates" in their day) will actually be good for the Democratic Party. Sheesh! I predicted this covert cheerleading was kicking into gear when George Will (the slick "WILLie" of the GOP media gang) started up the band. Scrol down to see that article listed on August 7th below.



August 11, 2003
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR NY TIMES
How the 'Radicals' Can Save the Democrats
By SAM TANENHAUS

TARRYTOWN, N.Y. — A battle for the soul of the Democratic Party has broken out, pitting a predominantly liberal field of presidential hopefuls against moderate party leaders and political strategists. While Howard Dean and John Kerry have been stirring up crowds plainly eager to have at President Bush, Democratic officials have been trying to tamp the fervor down, warning that "extremists" will take the party back to the dark ages of 1972 and 1984.

True, with Mr. Bush looking formidable and the Republicans in control of Congress, the urge toward moderation may seem sensible. But it ignores a glaring fact: Republicans have repeatedly won elections in recent decades largely by taking the opposite approach: giving free rein to their raucous base and choosing candidates who excite the party's rank and file. And isn't that, after all, what political parties are supposed to do?

Certainly, none of the top Democratic contenders are truly radical. Mr. Kerry, who happens to be the wealthiest member of the Senate, perhaps went overboard when he read aloud the pay packages of several business executives at an A.F.L.-C.I.O. event the other day. But if he's an extremist, so was Franlin D. Roosevelt, who railed against "unscrupulous money changers" in 1933. And to exaggerate the threat of an imminent "far left" takeover of the party — as Senator Evan Bayh, head of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, recently did — really implies a repudiation of much of the party's traditional beliefs.

Besides, it is not at all clear that far-left ideology was the cause of past Democratic defeats — or that ideology plays a truly decisive role in presidential elections. While political strategists and pundits tend think in terms of sharply delineated issues, most voters do not. "The American Voter," the landmark study by University of Michigan researchers published in 1960 and still a very useful guide to its subject, found that only one-fourth of the electorate held a clear opinion on most issues and identified those positions with one party or the other. A mere 2 percent could be classified as holding a consistently "ideological" position on overall policy.

And to judge from recent elections, little has changed. In the 1980's the public supported the anti-Soviet, anti-government views of Ronald Reagan. In the 1990's the same public favored the globalist, pro-government politics of Bill Clinton. And neither president was held to the bar of consistency, whether it was the conservative Mr. Reagan creating huge deficits or the liberal Mr. Clinton dismantling welfare.

So, too, with President Bush, who now seems a small-government conservative (tax cuts for the rich), now a big-government liberal (prescription drug benefits), now a social liberal (favoring some types of affirmative action), now a social conservative (opposed to gay marriage).

But if abstract ideology plays a limited role in presidential races, the importance of ideologues and extremists — that is, of people who cling to strong beliefs — can't be overstated. It is they who bring passion and energy to politics, as Dr. Dean's Web-linked legions are now doing. Without these "radicals," parties can lose their way.

The Republican establishment learned this lesson almost despite itself in the 1964 election. Democrats would do well to study that campaign, too, since its circumstances were remarkably similar to those unfolding today.

Back then, of course, the positions were reversed. A strong Democratic incumbent, Lyndon Johnson, was buoyed by a national crisis that rallied the public behind him: the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Republican Party chieftains, facing almost certain defeat, wanted to anoint a moderate candidate like Nelson Rockefeller or William Scranton, who could at least make a respectable showing.

But the party rank and file, tired of me-too politics and demanding "a choice, not an echo," ardently backed the conservative Barry Goldwater. Party moderates, sounding just like today's worried Democrats, warned that Goldwater was an extremist whose nomination might marginalize the party for decades to come. They mounted a last-minute offensive to stop him, but Goldwater squeaked through, shocking his adversaries (and thrilling his followers) when he declared in his acceptance speech: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. . . . Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." After that, most agreed, he was finished. And indeed he was trounced by Johnson.

But for Republicans this was not the devastating setback it appeared. On the contrary, it was the crucial first step toward a historic victory. Goldwater's "extremism" turned out, on closer inspection, to be a form of idealism that revitalized the conservative movement in the years ahead. Youthful veterans of the Goldwater movement — including Lee Edwards of the Heritage Foundation and Howard Phillips, head of the Conservative Caucus — help set a new policy agenda. Richard Viguerie, a member of the pro-Goldwater group Young Americans for Freedom, became an innovative fund-raiser. Patrick Buchanan, another Goldwaterite, helped formulate the more conservative components of Richard Nixon's agenda as a White House speechwriter.

Over time the party shed its "me too" approach and developed a more sophisticated ideological style, which culminated in Ronald Reagan's 1980 victory. Today it is Lyndon Johnson's big-government heirs whom centrist Democrats say are on the fringes, while the Goldwater-influenced conservatives plausibly claim to occupy the mainstream.

The Republican Party would never again underestimate the uses of zeal and continues to exploit it. In fact, even as the Democratic Leadership Council sounded its alarm in Philadelphia, some 1,000 young right-wing firebrands assembled at the Republican college convention in Washington. They excitedly discussed Ann Coulter's new book "Treason," which depicts liberals as the enemy within, and heard from a prominent lobbyist who described Democrats as "the ascension of evil, the bad guys, the Bolsheviks." Other highlights were speeches by Tom DeLay, the vociferous House majority leader, and Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's political maestro, who looked delighted by the enthusiasm of these extremists.

Our two major parties seem to have swapped identities. The Republican establishment, presumably allied with the rich and privileged, embraces its populist core of hard-edged activists, while the Democratic elite, supposed champions of "the people," evidently fears them. Only one party has learned the lesson of 1964 — that extremists should not be lectured to but listened to, because they may have something important to say.

Sam Tanenhaus, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, is writing a biography of William F. Buckley Jr.





__________________________________________________________________