I don't really understand about Dean.

[Ramo]

Are you kidding? Shrub made verbal gaffes all the time, particularly during his first campaign. In contrast, Gore was very disciplined.

An even better example might be Reagan.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Upset this isn't your troll thread Tassy?

[Ben Kenobi]

I think that there is a fair amount of substantial criticism in this thread. I think a lot of these critiques were made about Bush 1st time around, too.

But Dean does not have the benefit of running against Al Gore.

[Shi Huangdi]

Moving back to the center would be difficult given the positions Dean has already taken. Repealing all of Bush's tax cuts, opposing pre-emptive war, increasing government regulation of businesses, etc. Combined with Dean being from Vermont, as well as his record on social liberalism, it will be all too easy for Karl Rove to paint Dean as a left wing New England crackpot.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Shi exactly

[Imran Siddiqui]

Shrub is a very disciplined politician. He's on message all the time.

Exactly. This was one of the criticisms of his campaign: it was always 'on message' and didn't want to talk about ANYTHING else during that week or so. It was an extremely disciplined campaign.

Dean has to show the same thing, but he seems all over the place lately.

[Alexander's Horse]

Of course most of the people commenting here are the kind of people whose vote Dean isn't interested in.

If he annoys you he must be doing something right.

[Timexwatch]

Horse, et. al.:

Except the kind of people who Dean is targeting haven't historically been the group that carries a candidate to victory. The elderly, rich, white and educated vote in higher numbers than everyone else. Concentrating on the young and somewhat educated may help him in the primaries, but won't put him over the top.

A total of 100,000,000 million people over 18 have some sort of college experience according to the 2000 Census. That's about half of the voting electorate.

Let's assume that Dean is attempting to target the 18-34 set. According to the 2000 stats from the Census Bureau, if you examine the statistics simply by age, the turnout rate isn't promising. The average for the 18-34s is about 38% turnout with turnout peaking at age 34 with 49.5% voting. Men average 35% turnout, while women average 41% turnout.

Looking at the 2000 stats again and adjusting for education , the 18-24 Males average 40% to 60% turnout once they obtain at least some college education. Female turnout is slightly worse, peaking at almost 60% for bachelor's degree holders. As a whole, the 18-24s average 43% to 53% turnout if one holds some degree of college education.
The 25 to 44 year olds with some college education turned out between 55% and 65% of the time.

The strategy of mobilizing the youth is one fraught with perils if the stats from the most recent election is to be believed. The under-30 crowd has been a poor performer in terms of getting to the ballot box for the last Presidental election. Dean would have a statistically better chance of tying up the national vote if he focused more on the over 35 set. As much as Meetups can excite the young, they aren't likely to turn up at the polls.

[Tripledoc]

Re: I don't really understand about Dean.

Originally posted by Lancer
I don't really understand about Dean.

You don't have to understand anything. You just have to follow his orders.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Timexwatch
Horse, et. al.:

Except the kind of people who Dean is targeting haven't historically been the group that carries a candidate to victory. The elderly, rich, white and educated vote in higher numbers than everyone else. Concentrating on the young and somewhat educated may help him in the primaries, but won't put him over the top.

A total of 100,000,000 million people over 18 have some sort of college experience according to the 2000 Census. That's about half of the voting electorate.

Let's assume that Dean is attempting to target the 18-34 set. According to the 2000 stats from the Census Bureau, if you examine the statistics simply by age, the turnout rate isn't promising. The average for the 18-34s is about 38% turnout with turnout peaking at age 34 with 49.5% voting. Men average 35% turnout, while women average 41% turnout.

Looking at the 2000 stats again and adjusting for education , the 18-24 Males average 40% to 60% turnout once they obtain at least some college education. Female turnout is slightly worse, peaking at almost 60% for bachelor's degree holders. As a whole, the 18-24s average 43% to 53% turnout if one holds some degree of college education.
The 25 to 44 year olds with some college education turned out between 55% and 65% of the time.

The strategy of mobilizing the youth is one fraught with perils if the stats from the most recent election is to be believed. The under-30 crowd has been a poor performer in terms of getting to the ballot box for the last Presidental election. Dean would have a statistically better chance of tying up the national vote if he focused more on the over 35 set. As much as Meetups can excite the young, they aren't likely to turn up at the polls.

Haven't you heard of the voting mobilization of younger adults called, "Rock the Vote?"

[Drake Tungsten]

Yeah, "Rock the Vote" has done a hell of a lot in the period it's been around...

[MrFun]

I never said it was highly successful -- but I thought Timex may have forgotten about that attempt to mobilize younger adults to vote.

[Sava]

I think Che is right on in his assessment of Dean... upon further review of his voting record and his policy plans, he's not much of a liberal. In fact, he scores very close to Repukes on the political spectrum... so do most of they other candidates. Maybe this will shed some light on why I don't like Dem's that much more than I like Repukes.

BTW, Shi... you don't have to be a "lefty" to realize Bush's tax cuts were wrong... ineffective, and a complete giveaway to the rich. Plus, many conservatives... TRUE conservatives opposed the war in Iraq.

And re-regulating business... well, if wanting to stop corporations from exploiting America, dodging taxes, and increasing media cartels' powers is "liberal" then I guess Dean is liberal. Personally, I don't think someone is liberal or conservative if they want to loosen corporations' strangle hold on America.

Bush is a corporatist, not a conservative. Why do peopple think Bush is a conservative? I'll list some conservative ideals...

limited government power... IMO, the biggest display of government power is banning consensual sexual practices between two people (sodomy laws) or meddling in religious and social affairs (like marriage)

decreased wasteful spending... I think this one is obvious

"conservative" use of America's military... attacking a country that was no threat to the US, had not commited an act of war against us, and using "UN resolutions" as an excuse while saying the UN is irrelevant sounds radical to me... certainly not conservative.

Here is the politicalcompass of the 2004 primary candidates... based on VOTING RECORDS and policy plans... not propaganda speeches. People may think Dean is left because the media tells them so... well, those morons are wrong.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
Moving back to the center would be difficult given the positions Dean has already taken. Repealing all of Bush's tax cuts, opposing pre-emptive war, increasing government regulation of businesses, etc. Combined with Dean being from Vermont, as well as his record on social liberalism, it will be all too easy for Karl Rove to paint Dean as a left wing New England crackpot.

Which of course is a gross mischaracterization of vermont, but of course, gross mischarecterizations of states and cities are always allowed. Dean has a 100% rating from the NRA..for god's sake, 100%!

Dean is "liberal" in 3 areas: Social issues such as gay marriage and abortion. The gay marriage stance is not popular, but most of his social stands are those that appeal most to democracts and centrists.

The War on Iraq: He is not the most leftwing here: Kucinich and Sharpton are. Dean has failed to put together a plan for the future of iraq, and this is the one thing his people must fix- but he is correct in his ciritcism of how Bush went about this, and things in Iraq are as dicey as ever, so this is not an immidtate losing Issue. The Dem so many say is best able to beat Bush, Clark, was also anti-war.

Taxes: he is one of only 2 (gephardt being the other) who realizes that the whole of the BUsh tax cut scheme must be undone. The fact is the middle classes are not seeing significant benefit form this becuase as the Feds give local areas more than take away, as do increases in Health and education costs.


The media is out to do a number on him for some reason, but I find it hard to believe that a guy who has raised 40 million mostly from small contributors is "unelectable". As Kucinich said in the Iowa debate: "I am electable if you vote for me".

The one problem all democratcs have are 2 fold: the Republicans will play the GOD card incessently and even Lieberman would be painted as some wide eyed hippi anti-God type, and Bush will have over 100% more money to spend on endless adds, both positive for him, and negative ones.

[chequita guevara]

Dean realizes something that most of the rest of the Dem's do not. In order to build a center-left alliance, you actually have to include the left. The rest of the "serious" candidates want to continue the 1990's strategy of concentrating soley on the center and telling the left they've got no where else to go. Well, as they showed in 2000, the left is perfectly willing to suffer short-term pain for long-term gain, and will continue to vote against being ignored.

What I'm curious about is whether the "Dean movement" is focused soley on the Presidency or whether they intend to strat challenging Congressional Dem's to get some more fire breathers in Congress.