This is my first entry at the Daily Kos. Thanks for this great website and for fostering wonderful political discussion and debate.
I'm sure I'm not the only Paul Wellstone disciple who is outraged by the disingenuousness with which Howard Dean has taken up Wellstone's mantle. As we know, Dean has adopting a lot of the Wellstonian policy positions and has been paraphrasing Wellstone in his stump speeches on the campaign trail for a while now.
I take extreme umbrage at this. Wellstone was a man of conviction who always spoke from the heart. He was consistent and always principled, which, for me, garnered the utmost respect. Howard Dean, on the other hand, has clearly adopted a Machiavellian, opportunistic approach to the presidential race.
During his career, Wellstone always stood together with the little guy, whether it was with striking coal miners, family farmers, veterans, metal health patients or other disadvantaged groups. Dean, on the other hand, stood together with corporations, secret energy groups, and the NRA during his reign in Vermont. On issues like campaign finance reform and corporate tax breaks and incentives, Dean speaks like Wellstone but looks a lot like Mitch McConnell or Tom DeLay.
If the Democratic Primary were the NASDAQ, Dean would be a stock market speculator who has invested heavily in the anger, disillusionment, and anti-war sentiment of the left in order to make a quick buck.
And before you respond, just so you know, I tend to judge people by their public records, not by their rhetoric. Would we not use the same standards with, say, foreign policy under the Bush administration?
I, for one, as a liberal, am sick and tired of Dean pretending to be one of us. He is a conservative in sheep's clothing, and we are doing ourselves a great disservice by fawning all over him. Paul Wellstone was one of the few politicians of true conviction in this country, and I believe Wellstone would have seen right through Dean's posturing.
What say you?
(Please respond substantively to my references of Dean's record in VT, or not at all.)