Joe Scarborough has once again proven his idiocy:
If you are a Democratic activist or leader who believes Kerry should have been more liberal, don't bother reading the rest of this blog. You are Karl Rove's best friend and delusional when it comes to the political realities facing your party.[...]
You may be asking yourself why a former Republican Congressman would be telling Democrats that they can gain power through the power of moderation.
It's because I know their national leaders will be too stupid to take it.
My reply (which I have also emailed to him) is below the fold.
Here's my email in response:
For the love of God would you PLEASE at least try to obtain a basic understanding of Dean's principles? Your (and the press's) repeated mischaracterizations are really getting aggravating. I am a Deaniac myself. I busted my derrierre to collect nearly five hundred sgnatures to help get him on the primary ballot in Virginia and have donated hundreds of hours of web/graphic design time to Dean and other democratic candidates in the last election. I am pretty far to the left on one single issue - gay rights - but I would say most of my other positions are pretty close to the center, as were Dean's.
I believe in balancing the budget (something this administration seems to care nothing for); Dean did that eleven years in a row in Vermont, even though he was under no obligation to do so. I believe in gun ownership rights to an extent (we don't need people carrying around uzis, obviously); Dean had an A rating from the NRA. I believe, as Clinton said (and Dean repeated), that abortions should be safe, legal and RARE. I believe in government accountability and honesty, not propagandizing as Bush's administration has done repeatedly. I believe Bush's promise to restore dignity and integrity to the White House should extend to the press briefing room as well (I shudder to think what would have been said if Gannon had worked for Clinton instead of Bush). I agreed with the GOP's promise to end unfunded mandates - too bad they didn't keep it (see NCLB). Like Dean, no matter how much I oppose the war in Iraq, I also recognize that we cannot simply pull out now, and leave them high and dry - we'd make the problem far worse than it already is by doing so (but that doesn't prevent us from punishing those who got us there under false pretenses). I believe in supporting small businesses and requiring people to work their way off of welfare, but I also believe we shouldn't be changing social security in ways that will make it less secure and not even address the solvency issue.
On the whole I don't think you could say I'm that far to the left. I'm certainly not a fan of Hillary's (because of her stridency, more than her positions). I find myself agreeing with reasonable conservatices fairly frequently. It's the unreasonable radicals in the administration now who are causing the problem. The Democrats must stand up to the constant misrepresentations of them and show the country what we really believe in. With a renewed focus on our core principles, we can demonstrate to the public how far off the mainstream the current administration is. No matter how far to the right the Clintonistas take the party, they would never convince the people who say we're a bunch of leftist commies to vote for us, so there's no point in compromising our core principles just to do that. The party tried it their way for some time and lost seats all the while, so it should be no surprise to anyone that we have finally declared enough and started the process of taking back our country by first taking back our party.