Democrats miss the boat with Dean

One week ago, Katherine Reilly used this space to celebrate the election of Howard Dean to the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Her column deserves a response from a Democrat who is less than thrilled by Governor Dean's most recent rise to prominence.

The premise of Reilly's argument is that Dean was a candidate whom Democrats could actually admire — not some bland equivocator (read: John Kerry) who could scarcely be distinguished from his opponent. Indeed, in the aftermath of the presidential election, Dean has successfully marketed himself as the very antithesis of Senator Kerry: principled where Kerry is unscrupulous, direct where Kerry is evasive and impassioned where Kerry is insipid.

Thus, according to commentators like Reilly, Dean's ascendancy is proof positive that the Democratic Party has learned its lesson well: i.e. the party has recognized the error of its obsession with "electability" and repudiated John Kerry's penchant for saying just about anything to get votes.

This narrative offers a plausible interpretation of Bush's reelection: Democrats lost because they didn't stand for anything, because they compromised at every chance, because the best they could offer was a "lesser evil." We are to understand the DNC's embrace of Howard Dean as a bold declaration that Democrats will now reclaim their lost idealism and — for once — fight the good fight.

In fact, the DNC's choice shows that the party has learned very little from its recent electoral defeat.

The DNC fails to appreciate that throughout his primary campaign, Dean displayed only one talent: reminding disaffected voters that they were angry. As far as I can remember, Dean's rhetoric made absolutely no impression upon a single voter who was ambivalent about George W. Bush. Dean excited, but he did not persuade. All he ever demonstrated was an exceptional flair for telling his audiences exactly what they already believed.

Democrats delude themselves if they think that Dean qualifies as an effective exponent of liberal values. Dean's popularity was fueled by the intensity of his expressed frustration with the President — and not by the articulation of his own positive ideas. His strategy was to tap into a preexisting reserve of pent-up animosity; thus, he never really bothered to make the case for liberal policies in a way that took the opposition seriously. Everybody knows that Howard Dean was against the war. But I'm not sure anybody knows what he was actually for.

I wonder when my fellow Democrats will abandon the notion that what the party really needs is more "excitement." Among the large number of voters who know right now that they'll be voting Democrat in 2012, there is already too much excitement. Instead, the party must learn to better communicate with less excitable voters who have to think whenever they look at a ballot, and I'm not sure how Dean's brand of leadership will help.

This criticism of Dean is not a veiled argument for centrism. A politician can be unabashedly liberal and still have the skills and temperament to engage with people who are not. There is a world of difference between having the courage of one's convictions and preaching to the choir. The problem with Dean is not that he proudly represents the left-wing of the Democratic party; the problem is that he has shown contempt for the party's internal diversity.

I'm glad the DNC finally understands that the party cannot be everything to everybody. But why overstate the case? Why choose a chair whose supposed "strength" is his tactlessness? In turning to Dean, the DNC has announced that rallying the faithful is more important — or at least more practical — than trying to persuade the undecided. And in expressing such little confidence in its own powers of persuasion, the party has surrendered much more than it realizes.

I agree with Reilly when she suggests that Dean was picked to prove a point about the core character of the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, the only point we've proven is that we can match Republicans, ideologue for ideologue.

Jeremy Golubcow-Teglasi is a religion major from Potomac, Md. He can be reached at golubcow@princeton.edu.