In honor of Governor Dean's Iowa appearance tonight at the Iowa
Democrats Hall of Fame Dinner, we bring you the always eloquent William
Rivers Pitt on Howard Dean and the Democratic Party.

Democrats need to follow Dean's lead

Dean Was Right

   ~ By William Rivers
Pitt

If the leadership qualities of those in charge of the
national Democratic Party could be squeezed into a shampoo bottle, the
directions on the back of the bottle might read something like this: “Make
tentative statement. Offer equivocation to avoid appearing adamant. Scramble
for cover when colleague offers stinging critique of opposition. Stab colleague
in back in public. Palpitate and fret, hem and haw. Lather, rinse, repeat.”

Quite a recipe for success, yes? Not lately.

For the last several years, the Democratic Party has been,
for the most part, leaving skid marks on the street as they have retreated from
confrontation after confrontation with the radicals who now control the
Republican party. This retreat has gone from the ridiculous to the sublime to
the utterly outrageous.

Here and there resistance has been put forth – on the Social
Security issue, on the stem cell legislation, on the nomination of Bolton as UN
ambassador – but all too often the most effective resistance to these and other
disastrous policy initiatives has come from other Republicans, and not from the
Democrats. It was the eloquence of Republican Senator Voinovich that threw sand
in the gears of the Bolton nomination, and it was
Republican Senator Specter’s promised override of any Bush veto of the stem
cell legislation that has made that issue a problem for the White House.

And then along comes Howard Dean, chairman of the DNC,
outspoken and uncompromising, swinging Willie Stark’s meat ax with a will and a
purpose. He dared to say that he hates Republicans, that the leadership of that
party hasn’t worked a day in their lives, that the GOP has become a radical
hothouse of right-wing Christians, almost all of whom are white, and that House
majority leader Tom DeLay should go back to Texas and get his looming prison
sentence over with. Insert palpitations.   Suddenly, Democrats like Joe Biden and
Bill Richardson start knocking over furniture and old ladies in their rush to
get to a microphone so they can distance themselves from the wild man.

Yes, yes, lather and rinse and repeat. The problem with all
the equivocation is that it obscures a simple fact that requires exposure and
discussion in this country: Dean was right. Ninety-nine percent of Republicans
in the state legislatures in all 50 states, and in Congress in Washington
DC, are white. Even in states and districts
with large minority populations, the Republican representatives for those
places are almost uniformly white Christians.

Of 3,643 Republicans serving in state legislatures across
the country, only 44 of them are minorities, amounting to 1.2%. Texas,
with a minority population of 47%, has 106 Republicans in the state
legislature. There are exactly zero African Americans and exactly zero
Hispanics serving in that body as Republicans. In Washington,
274 of the 535 elected Senators and Representatives are Republican. Exactly
five are minorities.

Of course, there are ethnic and religious minorities within
the rank and file of the GOP, but every demographic analysis of the party’s
makeup clearly shows the vast majority of Republicans fit exactly into the
description offered by Mr. Dean. His point, by the way, was not that white
Christians are bad people. His point was that, in this pluralist society made
up of so much diversity, the Republican Party does not represent the true face
of this country. He was also pointing out that the GOP has been taken over by
that small, radical minority of white Christians who believe separation of
church and state is evil, and who believe Biblical law is a better tool of
governance than that pesky Constitution.

As for hating Republicans, the employment record of the GOP
leadership, and DeLay’s date with a Houston
cellblock, there is method to the supposed madness here. Those who question the
wisdom of Dean firing broadsides like this look to the old lawyer’s maxim: When
you have the law on your side, pound on the law, and when you have the facts on
your side, pound on the facts, and when you have neither the law nor the facts
on your side, pound on the table. On so many issues facing us today, Dean and
the Democrats have both the facts and the law on their side. The question
becomes, then, about why Dean is pounding on the table.

The answer is straightforward, and appropriately bold after
several years of ineffective limp-noodle Democratic leadership. Every time Dean
fires off one of his salvos, reporters flip open their notebooks. Headlines get
made, discussion begins, and a whole lot of people start debating the facts and
merits of his statements. Is the Republican leadership run by right-wing
yahoos? Is DeLay going to jail? Controversy begets press. Dean can see, as well
as anyone else, how effective the moderate, soft-touch, treading-lightly
approach has been working lately for the Democrats.

But how are we going to win those white Christian
middle-America voters to our side by having Dean basically call them out? asks
the ruffled Democratic leadership. The answer to this lies at the heart of what
the Democratic party has been failing at for a while now. The voters who are
supposedly going to be alienated by this kind of talk are the very same voters
who look for guts, strength and straight talk from the leadership of this
country. All too often, Democratic leaders come off sounding like they are
saying seven things at once, leaving the impression that their spines are
somewhat slippery. Boldness, on the other hand, begets confidence, even in
disagreement.

These Dean statements also, coincidentally, whip the
Democratic base into a roaring frenzy as they hear an actual Democratic leader
speak their beliefs out loud and in public. One of the things Dean is working
on every day is to redirect DNC fundraising away from the big-dollar donors who
give equally to both parties in order to hedge their bets. Dependence on this
breed of donor causes the party to crab towards the middle and avoid anything
resembling true opposition.

Dean wants DNC fundraising efforts to be focused on the
common citizen, the Democratic activist who has been screaming at the party to
say what must be said, and Dean’s inflammatory statements spark the kind of
donation avalanche that turned his Presidential campaign into a financial
juggernaut. He may have lost in the end, but the manner in which he raised
campaign money changed the face of electoral politics. He is porting those
lessons into national DNC fundraising efforts, and statements like these go a
long way towards making those efforts wildly successful.

Memo to Dean: Keep doing what you are doing. Lather, rinse,
repeat.

(Source)

 _______________

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally
bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq:
What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.  You can also find him at Truthout.