The Howard Dean of four years ago may have been just the man Democrats needed to take on President George W. Bush. NBC recently aired footage of Dean from Canadian television while he served as governor of Vermont. This footage showed Dean as a straight-talking, pragmatic New Democrat, willing to depart from the Democratic establishment on many issues. The media has been hounding Dean about the controversial comment he made about the Iowa caucuses during one such appearance, when he charged that the caucuses merely represented the fringe elements of the American electorate. The irony in this statement is sickening.
Two summers ago, Dean found himself in a precarious position. In a race with some of the Democratic Party’s most distinguished members, as well as several rising stars, his low-name recognition seemed to doom him to obscurity. Dean hooked me that summer because of his pragmatic domestic policy, his focus on empowering young people and his fresh approach to policy-making. While I continued to praise Dean to my friends throughout the first half of 2002, he barely even registered in polls in the early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Initially, Dean was so compelling that I was willing to overlook my disagreement with him about the war in Iraq. Then disaster struck.
I looked on with glee as Dean began to skyrocket in the Iowa and New Hampshire polls. While this was largely based on the appeal of his anti-war stance and his blinding hatred of President Bush, I was sure it was only a matter of time before everyone realized what Dean was really offering. Much to my horror, Dean seized this momentum and took a sharp turn to the left, prompting an even sharper rise to the top of polls in Iowa and New Hampshire. What a tragedy.
While Dean should absorb most of the blame for this blunder, Democrats should blame Iowa and New Hampshire as well. One would be hard-pressed to find two states less representative of the American electorate. Both reward candidates for taking ultra-liberal positions on issues important only to their isolated constituencies. Iowa and New Hampshire, with their overwhelmingly white majorities, do not even provide a forum in which candidates must address difficult issues important to minorities and urban voters. Because of the front-loaded nature of the primaries – a practice which, while helping the eventual nominee in fundraising for the general election, does little to make a nominee more appealing to a more centrist American electorate – only ensures that the winner of these contests will be the eventual nominee.
In order to prevent the Democratic Party from self-destructing, the road to the nomination must be drastically altered. Some argue that a national primary would be a sound alternative. While tempting, this option would make it virtually impossible for a lesser-known candidate like Bill Clinton to spread his or her message. The only option is to move states that represent a broad cross-section of the American electorate to the front of the primary schedule.
Putting candidates through early contests in such states asNew Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania or Missouri would produce a nominee who would have to deal with issues concerning all sorts of constituencies. Each of the aforementioned states has both large urban and rural populations, as well as ethnically diverse populations. Given these realities, it is no surprise that these states are perennially up for grabs in any given election. Having a candidate able to appeal to a broad constituency would infinitely improve the chances of an eventual nominee to win in the general election.
Some praise the historic role Iowa and New Hampshire have played in selecting the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. I would join this chorus if more than two Democrats had successfully navigated this process to become president in the last 35 years. New Hampshire and Iowa did produce Bill Clinton, but Democrats must remember that they launched George McGovern, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis to the nomination as well. And while a masterful politician like Bill Clinton can blaze a new path for Democrats under such circumstances, all it takes is someone like Al Gore to expose how bad the system really is.
–The writer, a sophomore majoring in international affairs, is the Hatchet opinions editor.
