Molly Ivins Picks Her Candidate

Molly Ivins: Picking a winner

By MOLLY IVINS, Creators Syndicate
December 4, 2003
<http://www.creators.com/opinion.html>

AUSTIN, Texas -- No one has been waiting with bated
breath for me to make up my mind about the Democratic
presidential candidates, but I have, and you might be
interested in how I got there. I'm for Howard Dean --
because he's going to win.

It is the bounden duty of bleeding-heart liberals like
myself to make our political choices based on purity of
heart, nobility of character, depth of compassion,
sterling integrity and generosity of spirit. The concept
of actually winning a political race does not,
traditionally, influence the bleeding heart liberal one
iota -- certainly not in the primaries.

Over the years, I have proudly voted for a list of
losers only a lily-pure liberal could love. I am rather
surprised not to find myself in the camp of the Noble
Dennis Kucinich this year. (And believe me, there are
supporters of the Noble Dennis who are plenty upset
about it, too.) In fact, I initially passed on Dean
precisely because he looked like one of my usual losers
-- 2 percent in the polls and the full weight of Vermont
behind him ... wow, my kind of guy.

Having concluded that this was the year to Be Sensible,
look for a winner, find a moderate, and all that good
stuff the expert political players do, I carefully
studied the conventional wisdom. The conventional wisdom
-- the avatar of all political knowledge, the
Washington, D.C., press corps -- said John Kerry was the
man. So despite his resemblance to the finer products of
the taxidermist's art, I sat around waiting for him to
show signs of life. And waited.

Next, I consulted my buddies in the union movement, and
they said Dick Gephardt was the man. I always like a
labor liberal, and Gephardt's eyebrows have improved. I
was hopeful for while, but concluded, as many do, that
while Gephardt is Perfectly Good as a Democratic
candidate, he ain't settin' the world on fire. Doesn't
seem like a good year for a regular politician on
account of we ain't lookin' at regular politics. These
Republicans do not have a different strategy -- they are
playing a different game. They don't want to govern,
they want to rule.

Next, my lawyer friends recommended John Edwards, and
even though my first impression was, "Too pretty, too
light," I liked him better as time went on. Good strong
populist streak to him, some good economic ideas, goes
right after Bush on the economy. But conventional wisdom
decided he is too young and untried.

Then along came Gen. Wesley Clark, and lots of people
were excited. But I never have thought anyone should
start in politics at the top. All those rich guys who
run for office want to start at governor or senator,
instead of running for the school board. Arnold
Schwarzenegger aside, it's really not as easy as it
looks.

Meanwhile, there's old Dean, causin' excitement. I went
up to Vermont and talked to a bunch of liberals there.
They all said Howard Dean is no liberal. Funny, that's
what Howard Dean says, too. And indeed, he isn't, but in
politics, everything's relative. The conventional wisdom
first dismissed Howard Dean (the man has never been to a
Washington dinner party!), then condescended to him,
then graciously offered him instruction on how he should
be running his campaign -- which seemed to be going
along quite well without their input.

I talked to some big money guys who assured me Dean
Can't Win. But of course I'm noticing this interesting
thing: Dean has so much money he actually turned down
public campaign financing (since I'm a card-carrying
liberal, I was naturally deeply unhappy over this. But
since Dean's money comes from Real People instead of
corporate special interests, I'm not that unhappy.) Let
me second the notion that this year, the Internet is to
politics what television was in the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon
race.

For a while, I fretted over Dean being angry, or at
least appealing to the political anger that is normally
manipulated by right-wing radio jocks. Anger makes
liberals uncomfortable: We prefer peace, reason and
gentle persuasion. Beloveds, it is way past time for us
to get mad -- social, economic and political justice are
being perverted by the Bush administration.

Dean gives a hell of a speech -- even if you're
Republican, you should go and hear him just for the
experience. But I fretted about Dean on TV -- TV is so
important. How could anyone poker up on Margaret Carlson
of PBS, not one of the world's toughest interviewers?
But then I saw Dean laugh his way through a Chris
Matthews interview (which he should have done with Tim
Russert, who was hell-bent on gotcha questions), and I
know the guy can take care of himself. So he fights back
if you get in his face -- that's not all bad.

I know, he's even less of a liberal than Bill Clinton
was, but I don't think Dean is a moderate centrist. I
think he's a fighting centrist. And folks, I think we
have got ourselves a winner here


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