ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JULY 30, 2003

WASHINGTON - - Legislators often stumble when they run for president.
They come from a different world and they have a hard time adjusting.

A presidential candidate is far better off putting things simply and starkly, even at the risk of over-simplifying, than to constantly try to explain the shades of gray that exist around any issue.

Legislators live in a grayish world, however, and they try to avoid absolutes. (If you take an absolute position, you might alienate someone whose vote you might some day need.)

Legislators live in a world of compromise and log-rolling, a world of "on the one hand" and "yet, on the other."

This can be fatal in a presidential campaign, however, especially a primary campaign in which the field is crowded.

In a crowded field, a candidate has to leave voters with a clear impression. Otherwise voters simply won’t remember which one he is.

Howard Dean, a former governor, is a good example. If you have to sum him up in just a couple of words (which is the way most voters end up thinking about candidates) he is the “anti-war guy.” Sure, he is about other things and sure other Democrats in the race oppose the war, but Dean, by speaking out clearly and simply, has staked out his territory. He can expand from there - - he must expand from there - - but at least people know where he stands on an important issue.

Joe Lieberman is having a tougher time. He is probably the most hawkish candidate in the Democratic race, and you’d think he’d want to stake out that territory. But Lieberman, a long-time legislator, lives in a world of nuance, which makes him want to qualify the things he says.

And so it is a lot tougher for him to make a clear impression.

Take Lieberman’s position on George Bush: Sometimes he likes George Bush. He likes the George Bush who launched the Iraq war and he even likes some of the things Bush has been doing during the occupation of Iraq.

"The end was just and the means were fitting to the test," Lieberman said of the Iraq war in a speech this week, "as was the killing of Saddam Hussein's two sons and the encouraging search going on now in Iraq for Saddam Hussein himself."

On the other hand, there are things Lieberman doesn't like about Bush and the occupation. He thinks by including those 16 false words in his State of the Union speech about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium, Bush exaggerated the justification for the war.

On the third hand, however, Bush was still justified in pursuing that war.

On the fourth hand, though, Bush should have been much more prepared to find the weapons of mass destruction and he should have built more international support, according to Lieberman.

"By it's actions, the Bush administration threatens to give a bad name to a just war," Lieberman said.

If you want to put some of these hands together in one sentence, there is this statement, which exemplifies the difficulty Lieberman has in putting things in clear, unqualified terms:

"There's a danger that in expressing the justified questions about the 16 words in the State of the Union, and the stunning lack of preparedness of the Bush administration for post-Saddam Iraq, that we obscure the fact that this was a just war."

Got that? Or do you have to go over it two or three times to find out just which hand Lieberman is using at the moment?

"I think the mixed message is too confusing," Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, said of Lieberman's speech.

And if Bill Kristol is confused, what are ordinary voters to make of it?

When Lieberman attacked his fellow Democrats in his speech, he was more clear - - up to a point.

"By their words, some in my party threaten to send a message that they don't know a just war when they see it,” Lieberman said, “and more broadly, are not prepared to use our military strength to protect our security and the cause of freedom."

But which Democrat is not prepared to use our military strength to protect our security or the “cause of freedom?” And what does “cause of freedom” actually mean? There are many countries where people are denied freedom. Does Lieberman advocate using America’s “military strength” to overthrow the regimes in each of those countries?

Most thought Lieberman was chiefly attacking Howard Dean. Except that Dean has said he would use the American military to invade another country under any of three conditions: If America is attacked (on that basis, Dean supported the invasion of Afghanistan), if the hostile country is an “immediate threat” to the United States, or to stop genocide (Dean supported President Clinton’s use of troops in Bosnia and Kosovo and he supports the use of American troops in Liberia.)

Lieberman and Dean do disagree on whether the Iraq war was a just war. "Every day," Dean said in response to Lieberman’s speech, "it becomes clearer this was the wrong war at the wrong time." (A clear, stark statement. You can accept it or reject it. But at least you can understand it.)

Joe Lieberman is betting the Democratic Party is not as anti-war as some think and is confident that people can be won over to his positions.

And he may be right. If people can just figure out what his positions are.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JULY 28, 2003

WASHINGTON - - A typical summer’s day: Picnic tables and a barbecue grill, tubs of cold drinks and plates of sliced watermelon, children chasing butterflies and adults standing in the shade and me avoiding everybody.

I avoid everybody because if I don’t, I will get asked The Question.

The Question is usually asked by Democrats, but sometimes Republicans ask it, too, just with a slightly different choice of words. The Question goes like this:

Democrats: “Can anybody beat George Bush?”

Republicans: “Nobody can beat George Bush, right?”

The answer is not an easy one, I tell both Democrats and Republicans, when I get cornered. First, elections are not just about one person. They are almost always about at least two people and sometimes three or more.

So the question really is: “Can (fill in the blank) beat George Bush?”

And, of course, we do not yet know who “fill in the blank” is because the Democrats are still six months away from their first contest in Iowa and there is no real front runner for their nomination. (We can predict Bush will have no serious opposition within in his own party.)

A recent poll of Democratic voters in New Hampshire showed that the number of undecideds jumped from 19 percent in April to 30 percent in July, meaning the more voters learn about the candidates, the more difficulty they are having choosing one.

Which makes it real hard to predict in the summer of ’03, who is going to win in the fall of ’04. We don’t even know who’s running yet.

On the other hand, there are some obvious dynamics: Hardly anybody is ever really unbeatable. George Bush's father looked unbeatable in 1991, yet he lost in 1992. Not only did the economy tank, which made people forget about America’s victory in the Iraq war, but Bush came up against one of the best campaigners in modern history, Bill Clinton.

This time around, the economy will once again go a long way in determining our current president’s re-election chances. The economy may be booming by next fall, but if it isn’t, will voters believe George W. Bush that the economic downturn is a result of Sept. 11 and the best cure is his tax cuts, or will they believe Democrats who say his tax cuts caused huge deficits that harmed the economy?

Then there is Iraq. So far, Iraq has been a plus for Bush, because Bush and his team have managed to link Saddam Hussein with Sept. 11 and Al Qaeda. Though critics say the hard evidence is scant, the administration argues that the Iraq war not only punished these terrorists, but will protect our shores in the future.

As the new head of the Republican Party, Ed Gillespie, put it a few days ago, we “want the front lines in the war against terror to be in Baghdad, not Boston. Kabul, not Kansas."

Some Democrats have responded, however, that invading Iraq has not made America stronger, but weaker. Instead of concentrating our forces on the job of destroying Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, they say, we divided our efforts by invading Iraq.

They also argue this has alienated our allies, squandered the good will we had worldwide after Sept. 11 and reduced our credibility. “George Bush has left us less safe and less secure than we were four years ago," Dick Gephardt said on July 22.

Howard Dean says in his speeches: “We’re supposed to be inspecting cargo containers coming into the United States, (but) we’re inspecting about four percent of all the cargo containers that come into America. The President chose to cut taxes instead of putting funding into that program.”

The administration paints the Democrats as weak and either unwilling or unable to protect America when the chips are down.

Dick Cheney says: “At a safe remove from the danger, some are now trying to cast doubt upon the decision to liberate Iraq….But those who do so have an obligation to answer this question: How could any responsible leader have ignored the Iraqi threat?”

“Liberating” the people of Iraq will be one a major theme of the Bush re-election campaign. But this, too, is not a guaranteed winner. As I write this, 49 U.S. soldiers have been killed by the people we “liberated.” Which begs the question: If we freed them from an evil dictator, why are some of them now trying to kill us?

There are other questions: How long are we staying in Iraq, how much is it going to cost, and what is our plan for getting out? To be a victor, you have to have a victory and not a quagmire.

Will Iraq be pacified by November, 2004? Will the Dow Jones be at a new high or a record low? Where will unemployment be? And what would happen if, God forbid, there is another terrorist attack on the United States, with a major loss of life? Would voters rally around George W. Bush or blame him?

On the one hand, it is always easier to attack than defend. On the other hand, there are worse things to be going into an election than an incumbent president who has won two wars.

See what I mean? It is easy to ask The Question, but it is much tougher to provide The Answer.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JULY 23, 2003

WASHINGTON - - It was not that long ago that some Democrats feared they would have one, prohibitively-popular front-runner for their presidential nomination, who would drown out all other voices.

That front-runner was supposed to be Al Gore, the nominee in 2000. But late last year Gore ended up scamming the national press into giving him oodles of publicity not for a presidential run, as they thought, but to sell his new book. (The book was a flop.)

This left Joe Lieberman free to run and Lieberman might have become the front-runner - - lots of experience, high name recognition, a lead in the national polls - - but he has thus far failed even to smolder, let alone catch fire.

Which left a group of serious contenders that included two well-known Democrats - - John Kerry and Dick Gephardt - - and an attractive, first-term senator, who had a lot of media buzz going - - John Edwards.

The trouble with all of them, including Lieberman, is that they voted for the war in Iraq, while it was clear to anyone who was attending party rallies that the party was opposed to the war. True, such rallies were made up of the hard-core party faithful, but these are exactly the people who dominate primaries and caucuses.

In other words, the Democratic party had a leadership that was out of touch with its core.

Even when the Pro-War Four gave speeches and got good receptions, the best-received lines were those that seemed to question the war or took on President Bush.

John Kerry, who had voted for the war, told a meeting of the California Democratic Party in March: "The United States of America should never go to war because it wants to; we should to war because we have to!”

That got a lot of applause. But then a man shouted from the crowd: "Then why did you vote for it?"

That got even bigger applause.

Later, Howard Dean won the crowd when he said: “What I want to know is what in the world are so many Democrats doing supporting the president's unilateral war in Iraq?"

Largely because of his opposition to the war and his straight-forward and seemingly “authentic” manner, Dean has now raised far more money and garnered far more support than anyone thought possible.

Although just a few months ago it was unimaginable, some political analysts now entertain at least the possibility that Dean could win both Iowa and New Hampshire. (Which is very difficult to do: Gore did it in 2000, but among both Democrats and Republicans you have to go all the way back to Jimmy Carter in 1976 before you find another dual-winner in a contest not involving an incumbent president.)

I went back into my clips to see the first mention I ever made of Howard Dean. In January, I wrote: “Howard Dean does have charisma, but it is the kind that appeals to college-educated, relatively well-to-do voters. He wowed the crowd in Marion (Iowa) on Saturday, but how well he can do on the farms and in the factories remains to be seen.”

It still does, but Dean has definitely moved to the top tier of candidates. I don’t know anyone who has gone out on a limb and called him the front-runner, but some now think he will be one of the last two men left standing.

The race is on to define Dean and the easiest way seems to be to compare him to past candidates. The centrist Democratic Leadership Council, who loathes and fears Dean, says he represents the “McGovern - Mondale” wing of the party. An article in the New Republic this week says that while “Dean’s personal style apes McCain, his candidacy structurally resembles that of another insurgent: Steve Forbes” and an op ed piece in the Washington Post on Wednesday said, “The candidate whom Dean more nearly resembles is the 1968 antiwar insurgent, Eugene McCarthy.”

I have met with Howard Dean a number of times, seen him speak to a number of different groups in a number of states and have interviewed him at some length.

And I have come to the conclusion that the candidate whom Howard Dean most nearly resembles is Howard Dean.

Who’d a thunk it?

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JULY 21,2003

WASHINGTON - - Like most people in America, I have health insurance.

And while I am sympathetic to plans to provide health insurance to everyone in this country, millions of people like me face a different kind of problem:

The health care system we have currently does not operate in a rational way.

Here is a true-life example, one I bet most of you have experienced yourself.

You find a doctor you like and trust - - one whom your insurance company has approved, of course - - and you are prepared to follow his or her medical advice.

Recently, my doctor prescribed a drug for me for a common ailment. He did this after examining me and talking to me. He then called upon his years of training and expertise to prescribe exactly the right drug.

So I take his prescription to my pharmacy and hand it in.

After a wait, the pharmacist says to me, “Your insurance company won’t pay for this.”

Why not? I ask.

The pharmacist shrugs. “It’s on their list,” he says.

Their list of what? I say.

“Their list of drugs they won’t pay for,” the pharmacist says.

Why the insurance company won’t pay for the drug is something mere mortals - - you and me - - cannot find out.

They won’t pay because they won’t pay.

I call my doctor and tell him the insurance company won’t pay for it.

“I was afraid of that,” he said.

Is the drug no good? I ask.

“Oh, no,” he says. “It’s very good and it’s what you need. But the insurance companies don’t like to pay for it.”

The drug is neither exotic nor experimental; the insurance companies just don’t want to pay.

My doctor mentions another drug and I check it with the pharmacist who checks it on his computer. His computer, by the way, is not showing him information on the drug.

It is showing him what the insurance company will and won’t pay for, which is the most important decision in medicine today.

“They will make a partial payment,” the pharmacist says. “And your doctor has to call them.”

Why does my doctor have to call them? I ask.

“Because the insurance company says so,” the pharmacist says.

I tell my doctor he has to call the insurance company. My doctor is a hard-working, busy guy, but he will do it. “It usually takes about 10-15 minutes on the phone,” my doctor says.

Which is not a real lot of time, unless you have to do it for five or six patients a day.

My doctor calls me back and tells me he has called the insurance company and the company has agreed to make a partial payment on the drug. The insurance company almost always agrees, he tells me.

Why, then, does the insurance company make the doctor call? Because the insurance company knows that most doctors don’t want to waste their time calling, which means they will prescribe some other (cheaper) drug instead.

In other words, some insurance toad somewhere, who does not have any training in medicine and has never examined me, determines what kind of drugs I can take.

I pay for my health insurance. I also make co-payments on all drugs, doctor visits and treatments.

But the insurance company does not view this as my money. The insurance company views everyone as an enemy: It operates as if every patient, every physician, every healthcare provider is trying to cheat them out of their money.

Undoubtedly some do cheat them, but this has become an excuse for treating everyone as an adversary.

But I am an optimist. And I look forward to a day in America when doctors make medical decisions and not faceless bureaucrats who neither know nor care about us.

And if some presidential candidate could come up with a plan to do that, he or she might really be onto something.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JULY 16, 2003

WASHINGTON - - It pains me to do this, but I am forced to give Joe Lieberman my Dumb and Dumber Award for pulling off two bonehead plays in a single month.

Joe Lieberman is the one serious candidate for president who was really active in the civil rights movement while growing up. More than active. He risked his life for the cause. While other candidates were comfortably ensconced in school, Lieberman went to Mississippi to register black voters at a time when this was seriously dangerous.

And it did not go unappreciated. In August, 2000, when he was a vice presidential candidate, Lieberman spoke at a black church in Detroit. According to the AP account: “Before Lieberman took to the pulpit, the Rev. Wendell Anthony, pastor of the chapel and president of the largest chapter of the NAACP in the country, recalled for worshippers how Lieberman in the 1960s had marched on Washington with Martin Luther King Jr. and went into Mississippi to register black voters. And he criticized Republican rivals George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the process.

“ ‘It does mean something,’ said Anthony, shouting in a lyrical cadence, ‘for I ain't read nothing about no Bushes in Mississippi.... I ain't seen no Cheneys on no freedom buses.’ ”

To the congregation, Lieberman recounted “how he had spoken at a civil rights rally in Bridgeport, Conn., in the 1960s just before King and that the civil rights leader had remarked, ‘very good young man.’

" ‘I had actually thought I heard the voice of Moses,’ Lieberman said.”

Not a bad platform from which to seek black support in 2004, right? I mean considering no other candidate has anything approaching a lock on the black vote?

So what does Lieberman do? He stiffs the NAACP by not showing up at its annual convention in Florida this week and the NAACP leadership is now furious.

Sure the NAACP was flexing its muscles and showing its clout by demanding the candidates show up. This is what interest groups do.

But why does Lieberman stiff an interest group that a.) is extremely powerful in the Democratic party and b.) one with which he might have an advantage?

True, two other Democratic candidates also stiffed the NAACP: Dick Gephardt said he had a family commitment and Dennis Kucinich said he had vowed not to miss any votes in the House of Representatives. (President Bush did not show up, either.)

What did Lieberman do instead of going to the NAACP? He spent part of the day taping Bill O’Reilly’s TV show.

One can only guess at how the Lieberman Brain Trust came to this keenly astute political decision.

First Genius Staffer: “Do we want Joe on a TV show with a right-wing Republican audience that would not vote for him over George Bush in a million years or do we want him in front of thousands of black voters?”

Second Genius Staffer: “Hmmm, let me think. Maybe we ought to take a poll to find out. Drag some money out of the safe and get one going.”

Third Genius Staffer: “No time. Let’s go with TV. I read somewhere lots of people watch TV.”

During this campaign, Lieberman has had to miss a number of political events that were (rudely) scheduled for the Jewish Sabbath on Saturdays, but the NAACP event was on a Monday. And Lieberman still doesn’t show up!

His campaign now recognizes this was a mistake and Jano Cabrera, Lieberman’s spokesman, said: "Our hope is to mend relations and reach out to the NAACP to work together in the future."

An excellent plan. If there is a future.

What could be dumber than this? Well, putting your kids on your campaign payroll at salaries so big that other staffers get enraged and complain to the press. That could be dumber.

Lieberman’s son Matt and daughter Rebecca are on the Lieberman campaign payroll as fundraisers, each making six-figure annual salaries. According to the Forward, “some (staffers) grumbled that, given their eye-popping salaries, the Lieberman children were not pulling their weight as fundraisers.”

Hiring your own children at fat salaries is not illegal. But I know I have never heard Joe Lieberman give a speech that went: “Please give to my campaign so I can keep our military and our homeland security strong, return to the fiscally balanced, pro-growth, pro-middle class fiscal policies of the Clinton-Gore years and line the pockets of my kids with dough.”

Gephardt has a daughter working for his campaign at $3,500 a month, which apparently is not enough to anger anybody. But Howard Dean’s teenage daughter is doing something really old-fashioned: She is volunteering in her father’s campaign, which means she is getting paid nothing. Presumably she is doing this because she thinks her dad would make a fine president and that is motivation enough. What a crazy thought. Do you think it could catch on?

The Lieberman kids have now agreed to take 20 percent pay cuts. Which leaves only 80 percent to go.

I doubt Joe Lieberman has a dishonest bone in his entire body. But he is supposed to be the candidate of higher values.

And, last I looked, nepotism was not a higher value.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JULY 14, 2003

WASHINGTON - - On March 14, less than a week before the war began in Iraq, I gave a speech in Palo Alto, Calif., on what the war was going to cost the American people.

I found the subject fascinating considering what we had not been asked to do since the attack of Sept. 11.

We had not been asked to sacrifice. We had not been asked to go without. We had not been asked to give up our lifestyles, though clearly some were soon going to be giving up their lives in the war.

Far from the famous inaugural words of John F. Kennedy some 42 years ago - - “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” - - the current president had not asked any real sacrifice from the American people at all.

Rarely in American history, I believe, has a president asked so little of his people in times of so much peril.

When President Bush addressed Congress after Sept. 11, he said, "I ask you to live your lives and hug your children. I know many citizens have fears tonight, and I ask you to be calm and resolute, even in the face of a continuing threat."

All that Americans will have to summon up, the president said back then, is "patience with the delays and inconveniences that may accompany tighter security and . . . your patience in what will be a long struggle."

The war in Iraq was clearly going to cost more than this, however.

How much, we are just now learning.

Before the war began, a panel of experts put the cost of reconstructing Iraq at $20 billion per year and requiring the long-term deployment of 75,000 to 200,000 American troops to prevent “widespread instability and violence.” Some thought we would be there for 10 years or more.

The panel that came up with these figures was made up of senior American officials from Republican and Democratic administrations. It was chaired by James Schlesinger, secretary of defense in the Nixon and Ford administrations and Thomas Pickering, ambassador to the UN under George H.W. Bush. Also on the panel were Gen. John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the joint chiefs and Jeane Kirkpatrick, who served in the Reagan administration.

This was not, in other words, some left-wing think tank. These were people seeking a hard-headed assessment of the true cost of the aftermath of an Iraq war.

The audience I spoke to in Palo Alto reacted with shock at these numbers. Surely we would not have to deploy so many troops for so long a time, one person said in the question and answer session that followed. After all, our vice president was predicting that most Iranians would welcome our troops as liberators.

That was possible, I said, but if that rosy scenario did not work out, the cost was going to be severe. According to one panel member, James F. Dobbins, who served as special envoy to Afghanistan under our current president, “even the lowest suggested requirement of 75,000 troops” to stabilize Iraq would mean “that every infantryman in the U.S. army” - - not just every infantryman in the occupying force, but every infantryman in the entire U.S. army - spend 6 months in Iraq out of every 18 to 24.

If the higher number of 200,000 troops was needed to keep peace in Iraq, a figure endorsed by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the army chief of staff, then obviously the troops would have to spend more time and the cost of occupation would be considerably more than $20 billion per year.

Well, as we all know the war was fought, and the United States achieved a stunning military victory. Since victory was declared by President Bush, however, some 32 American soldiers have been killed maintaining the peace in Iraq.

And the estimated monthly cost of the peace has almost doubled: It was estimated that it would cost the United States about $2.2 billion per month in post-combat operations. The actual current rate of expenditure is $3.9 billion, which is shocking when you consider the average monthly expenditure during the heavy combat phase of the war was $4.1 billion.

In other words, the peace is costing us almost as much as the war.

The total cost of the war and occupation so far has been about $50 billion and could reach $100 billion through next year, according to the Washington Post.

Now, back in those days when the U.S. economy was booming and we had huge surpluses, a $100 billion price tag, while not exactly chicken-feed, was not a crisis.

Today, however, with a federal budget deficit that is expected to exceed $400 billion for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 - - the largest in U.S. history - - the $50 billion cost of the war so far is no trifling matter. It is going to have a real impact.

“Fifty billion dollars to a $400 billion deficit - - that’s a significant addition that should have some bearing on tax cuts and other spending decisions,” said Rep. John M. Spratt, D-S.C., who serves on the House Budget Committee and Armed Services Committee. Spratt said “the war will likely lead to delays in news weapons purchases and some weapons development.”

That’s what it will cost the military. What it will cost U.S. taxpayers, we will be finding out in the weeks and months ahead.

Maybe nobody asked us to make sacrifices for this war, but sacrifice we will.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JULY 9, 2003

WASHINGTON - - A conversation with former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a Democratic candidate for president:

Me: How important is it for a presidential candidate to be likeable?
Dean: I think it’s a big deal.

Me: Pardon me?
Dean: I think being likeable is a big deal.

Me: Why? How do you make yourself likeable to the public?
Dean: People have to believe that you know who you are. If they know who you are, then what you say has credibility. As Bill Clinton was quoted as saying, the people will vote for someone who is strong and wrong before they’ll vote for someone who is weak and right. I think that is true.

So part of the likeability stuff is not having a big smile and a glad hand; it’s about having people respect you. That’s very important. In fact, that’s more important than having them like you. I mean, it’s better to have both, but if they don’t respect you, you’re not going to win.

Me: In front of an editorial board at the Roll Call newspaper in Washington earlier this year, you didn’t come across as very likeable, at least to some in the room.
Dean: When I get before editorial boards, I have three hours worth of stuff to cram into an hour with 25 people all of whom want to ask questions and so I tend not to be terribly likeable on editorial boards. They don’t bring out my best because they’re going to be tough and I am combative. And so when I get tough questions, I get combative. I’m not one to sort of lean back and say, ‘Well, now, boys…’ you know, all that stuff, I don’t do that.

Me: Do you think it will be harder for you to win the nomination than the general election?
Dean: No, I think it will be harder for any of us to win the general election. It will be hard for all of us to win the nomination, of course, but George Bush should never be underestimated by the Democrats. The reason people like the president is because he’s direct, he knows who he is, he’s very comfortable with himself and gives an unambiguous message. That’s why they like him. They don’t necessarily like his message; they like him.
So voting with the president and his preposterous domestic policy agenda that he has, not to mention his foreign policy agenda, is not going to get you elected president.

Me: What does a Democrat have to do to get elected president.
Dean: I think the Democrats have got to know who we are, be plain spoken, very unambiguous and have a better Democratic message, because I think in the end the voting public will choose the Democratic message before they choose the Republican message.

Me: I am not sure where the Democratic party is right now.
Dean: Neither does anybody else; that’s the problem. We need to move this country back to the center. This is the most conservative president since Coolidge. And he’s probably done more damage to the country (than anyone) since Hoover.

Me: But you also think the Democratic Party is moving too far to the right?
Dean: I do.

Me: And you believe it should move to the center?
Dean: I do. We’re not talking about the left; we’re talking about the center. I think our party has moved. Our party’s moved farther right than Bill Clinton was. We’ve lost our way, because we’ve concluded that the way to beat the Republicans is to be like them. And that’s the mistake. Bill Clinton was never like a Republican. He was more conservative than the left wing of the Democratic Party, but the things he did made sense.

Me: What’s your campaign strategy for the primaries.
Dean: I am going to point out the differences between me and the Washington Democrats that are running. I’m going to be Howard Dean.

Me: What do you think of your fellow candidates?
Dean: I like them. Some more than others. I worked for Dick Gephardt (in 1988.) I love Dick Gephardt. He’s one of the most decent people I know. And he’s the one I know the best.

Me: It’s January, 2005 and you have just been inaugurated. What do you do first?
Dean: Submit a balanced budget or build a path to a balanced budget as Bill Clinton did. Put together a program for health insurance for every American and in my first budget fully fund special education.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JULY 7, 2003

WASHINGTON - - Just outside this city, in a place they call America, most people go about their daily lives without giving politics a second thought.

Take Ashland, Oregon, which I visited recently on vacation. Ashland, a town of about 20,000 located approximately 15 miles north of the California border, is home to a famous Shakespeare festival, lots of B&Bs, a hundred-acre park and people who spend entire afternoons without ever saying things like “electability” or “momentum” or “political viability.”

Which is why I was surprised one morning to come down to the lobby of the inn I was staying at to find two women wearing large “Howard Dean for President” buttons.

This was a shocker for two reasons: First, campaigns don’t really do political buttons any more. They are too expensive and have been replaced by peel-off stickers. (Which is a shame. What kid is going to start a peel-off sticker collection?)

Second, how many people are walking around wearing political buttons in the summer of 2003? Most people don’t even realize there is a presidential campaign going on.

Unless, of course, they support Howard Dean. People who support Howard Dean are excited by Howard Dean.

Only a few months ago some political experts were saying that the end of the war in Iraq would also spell the end of Dean, because it would rob him of his chief issue.

Instead, Dean is the Democrat making Democrats proud to be Democratic again.

His scathing, unrelenting attacks on George Bush (as well as on his fellow Democratic candidates) have convinced a number in the party that Dean is unafraid to be himself, that he is uncompromising and authentic.

He, like John McCain before him, is the politician for people who hate politics.

Though McCain rarely pandered to the crowd - - he would sometimes challenge questioners in the audience - - he had an uncanny knack for winning people over on a personal level. For all McCain’s rumored hair-trigger temper (rumors fueled in some part by the George Bush campaign), McCain was a very likable candidate.

Likability is not Dean’s strong suit, however, especially the warm and fuzzy variety. Dean is a doctor and it sometimes shows: He can be arrogant, dismissive, and abrupt.

Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan analyst, wrote of Dean a few months ago that "it's only a slight exaggeration to say that he has the personal warmth of an empty fireplace on a frigid night in Novosibirsk."

"The single most important attribute a candidate brings to a campaign is not his record but his personal qualities," Rothenberg told me. "Issue voters are mostly ideological voters, but the voters in the center think first not about a candidate's stand on trade or abortion, but is he a windbag? Is he arrogant? How is his bearing? How does he carry himself?"

Andrew Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union, the largest union in the nation, said: “To become president in this era, you have to go to a bar or a bowling alley or a diner and have people feel you belong there. The question is, can you hang out with them?"

And one could argue that from the election of Ronald Reagan to the present, the more likable candidate has won the presidency each time.

The Democrats have a number of candidates who are strong on likability - - Dick Gephardt, Joe Lieberman, Bob Graham and John Edwards - - and one who is working hard to become more likeable - - John Kerry who jokes about having his “aloof gland” removed. But Dean is not the first guy who comes to mind when you imagine hanging out with somebody in a bar or bowling alley.

Which may be one reason why George Bush’s chief political strategist, Karl Rove, was overheard recently telling a companion that Dean is “the one we want.” (Dean’s liberal record would be another reason.)

Bush does very well on likability, so well that in the last campaign his aides spent almost all their time getting him over the “competency” hurdle in the public mind, a battle they now believe is won.

I believe in the power of likability, but Dean may also be re-defining what likability is: After all, how many other candidates have followers making their own political buttons?

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JULY 2, 2003

SIMON SAYS:
Do we have an exit strategy for Iraq? I thought exit strategies were one of those things we were always supposed to have, along with plans not to get bogged down in quagmires.

Quite a few people who are into the bare-midriff look shouldn’t be.

John Kerry is setting a very bad example by riding his Harley without a helmet.

Why do we have to be quiet at golf tournaments and not baseball games? You can’t tell me it’s harder to hit a golf ball than a curve ball.

When a person says, “To make a long story short,” you know you’ve got at least 20 minutes to go.

Right after hockey pucks and Peter Jennings, the BlackBerry is the best thing ever to come out of Canada.

If New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s approval rating dips five more points, he automatically becomes mayor of Trenton.

There is no culinary act more fraught with peril than de-boning a fish.

I can’t help it: I use “google” as a verb.

I cannot understand why we have not yet found those weapons of mass destruction. In the old days, the CIA would have planted some by now.

Does Starbucks have any age limit? Would they serve coffee to a five year old?

I just don’t think I’ll ever get used to blue nail polish.

A few months ago, nobody knew who Howard Dean was. Today, everybody knows that his favorite Beatles’ tune was “I Am the Walrus,” which he used to sing at the top of his lungs while at Yale. So next time you see him, ask him what these lines mean:
“Semolina pilchard
“Climbing up the Eiffel tower
“Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna
“Man, you should have seen them kicking
“Edgar Allan Poe”
I am sure he has a very good explanation.

I don’t trust a concierge who recommends the hotel’s restaurant.

If you are not watching “The Wire” on HBO you are missing the best series since “The Sopranos.”

I don’t get it: Midsummer’s Night does not come mid-summer.

Learned at a wine tasting in California’s Anderson Valley: No matter how tipsy, never drink from the spit cup.

Who will be the first Democratic presidential candidate to host “Saturday Night Live?” (And wouldn’t it be a hoot if President Bush beat them to it? Or someone even bigger, like Karl Rove?)

If you always accept the first table the hostess shows you or the first hotel room the front desk gives you, then you are a sap.

Having just driven through about 10 zillion of them, can anybody tell me the difference between a sequoia and a redwood? (And why do they grow so close to the road?)

Are you as sick as I am of those Iraqi National Museum officials who keep blaming the looting on the Americans? How come they don’t blame the Iraqi looters? And how come they didn’t stay at their posts and shoot the looters?

I often select my entrée based on the side dishes.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Ore., is one of the country’s great festivals. (And there is plenty of non-Shakespeare if you find the bard a bore.)

Key lime pie should never be green.

Paperback pick of the month: “Six Days of War” by Michael B. Oren and anything by Henning Mankell.

Shouldn’t Baskin-Robbins have come up with more than 31 flavors by now?

My advice to this year’s graduating class: If you don’t learn to fix a running toilet, you will be at the mercy of plumbers for the rest of your life. (And will probably die broke.)

If you know that an “Arnold Palmer” is a drink made of half-ice tea and half lemonade, then consider yourself among the cognoscenti. (Question: Does Arnold Palmer know what an Arnold Palmer is?)

Ralph Nader says if Dennis Kucinich gets the Democratic nomination, then Nader will be less likely to run as a third-party candidate for president. Other events that will keep Nader from running: Getting hit by an asteroid, winning the Lotto or being named ambassador to Disneyland.

Even if it’s just street buskers, there is nothing like live music.

Why do people with tattoos assume the rest of us want to see them?

A career is a job you’ve had too long.