Who's Nader Now?What screws with my brain is that Lieberman and Kerry have been hammering and hammering and hammering and hammering and hammering on Dean ever since Al Gore's endorsement several weeks back. And Terry McAuliffe, the pillar of pudding who runs the DNC, does nothing to stop the attacking.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
In the 2000 election, in a campaign that seemed driven more by vanity than by any realistic political vision, Ralph Nader did all he could to undermine Al Gore — even though Mr. Gore, however unsatisfying to the Naderites, was clearly a better choice than the current occupant of the White House.
Now the Democratic Party has its own internal spoilers: candidates lagging far behind in the race for the nomination who seem more interested in tearing down Howard Dean than in defeating George Bush.
The truth — which one hopes voters will remember, whoever gets the nomination — is that the leading Democratic contenders share a lot of common ground. Their domestic policy proposals are similar, and very different from those of Mr. Bush.
Yet some of Mr. Dean's rivals have launched vitriolic attacks that might as well have been scripted by Karl Rove. And I don't buy the excuse that it's all about ensuring that the party chooses an electable candidate.
The irony is that by seeking to undermine the election prospects of a man who may well be their party's nominee, Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Kerry have reminded us of why their once-promising campaigns imploded. Most Democrats feel, with justification, that we're facing a national crisis — that the right, ruthlessly exploiting 9/11, is making a grab for total political dominance. The party's rank and file want a candidate who is running, as the Dean slogan puts it, to take our country back. This is no time for a candidate who is running just because he thinks he deserves to be president.
With all these factions of the party stomping a mudhole in his gut, Dean finally fights back against what he called the "Washington insiders" - who of course get shocked and indignant over Dean's remarks.
"Washington Wusses" is more like it. This blog has called for Terry McAuliffe to grow a pair back in July. He won't. Because he's still convinced the right wing of the Democratic party is what we need. We hereby declare him irrelevant.
Stand in line behind Joe and John, Terry.
