Howard Dean?

I’m not quite sure how to save the Democrats. In fact, I haven’t a clue. Luckily it’s not my responsibility.

However, as a liberal in a red state who actually knows people who voted for W, lots of them, nice, reasonable people (and some cretins too, but I promise you, there were cretins who voted for Kerry), I do have a few things to say.

1) For the Democrats to take back the White House, red states are going to have to turn blue. Maybe just one red state, maybe several, but people who voted for Bush are going to have to vote for a Democrat. Which means the Democrats need to think about red state voters. This doesn’t mean they should ignore their base--Kerry’s treatment of the Black community can basically be summed up as appalling. It does mean they need to expand their appeal.

2) Throwing a few Bible quotes around won’t help. The religious fundamentalists aren’t going to vote Democrat no matter what, so we should just ignore them, like the Republicans ignored union members and minorities for decades. But my neighbors, the ones who fly American flags and go to church on Sunday morning and sit on my deck on Sunday night drinking ginger daiquiris, they might vote for a Democrat. But they won’t do it because he or she spouts religious rhetoric. They’ll vote for a Democrat who makes sense on the economy and the war and, most importantly, who they like.

3) The Democrats need an appealing candidate. Unfortunately, I have no idea who that is. It sure wasn’t John Kerry. If Kerry had spent his whole career being the guy he seemed to be during the last six weeks of the campaign, he might have had a chance. But he didn’t. And even that last-six-weeks-of-the-campaign guy was someone we convinced ourselves to like. We need a candidate we can like straight off the bat, and not just like, but believe in.

Which brings me to Howard Dean. I’m not quite sure about Howard Dean, and I never was (I know: liberal heresy). I remember way back, before Iowa, before meet-ups, I went to Dean’s website and I thought “this guy is too good to be true.” Then I thought “he’ll never fly in Red State.”

I love Vermont as much as the next blue-state-born-and-bred liberal, and yes, Vermont has cows and so does Red State. But it’s just hard for me to see how a dorky New-York-born-and-bred former governor of a small 99.8% white state in New England is going to reach voters across the country. Not the ones who already believe, but the ones who need to be convinced.

I’d love to be wrong. I’d love to meet him in person and realize that he is indeed the greatest political people person since Bill Clinton. Then I could quit my job and take the girls out on the road to spread the gospel and help him bring the Democrats back into power. But I don’t know…I can’t quite see it.