An August Surprise

Bush: Vice-President Cheney to Step Down
Giuliani to Join Republican Ticket

  The Associated Press Thursday, August 26, 2004; 11:49 AM   WASHINGTON -- A somber President George Bush said today, in an emotional Rose Garden press conference, that Vice-President Dick Cheney has asked to be replaced on the Republican ticket due to health reasons.

With the Vice-President at his side, the President said that Cheney's health had to come before all other considerations. He thanked him for the selfless contributions he had made to his administration, and to the country, and wished him a calm and healthy retirement.

Bush said that he had asked former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to join him on the Republican ticket, and that Giuliani had accepted. The President said that he was confident that his party's delegates would confirm his choice of Giuliani as Vice-President when they convened next week in New York for the 2004 Republican National Convention.

While news stories like the fictitious one above may seem unlikely to many people, they should not be dismissed -- particularly as Democratic voters go through the process of choosing their nominee for next year's presidential election.

Nationally syndicated, progressive radio talk show host Thom Hartmann speculated on the possibility of a Cheney resignation scenario this summer, and he has not been alone. Hartmann has observed that the Republicans will go to considerable lengths to maintain control of The White House and the Congress.

But if putting Cheney on the fast train back to Wyoming means a win next November, it will be bye-bye Mr.Vice-President.

Next year's election is not only a question of who feels best -- right now -- to lead the Democratic Party against George Bush and his Republican Party.

It must also be a question of who can win in a situation such as the one described above. Who possesses the gravitas and the credibility to calm a nation in economic and international turmoil?

Tactical decisions are often very hard to make, because it means putting emotions to one side, and evaluating the upper tier of Democratic candidates in terms of their appeal to a broad based electorate -- from Maine to Florida, from California to Virginia.

And Democratic primary voters, be they Democrats, Independents or Republicans must evaluate their primary vote in very strategic terms. It seems very clear that the vote they will be casting in the next few months may be more critical, and harder to determine, than the one they will cast next November.

Many voters actually bypass the primary elections altogether, saying that they will simply support the nominee of their party.

In many presidential elections such an approach may be acceptable, but the 2004 Presidential election has all the signs of being the most important judgment American citizens have been asked to make in five decades.

The prize after all is not to become the Democratic nominee, but to defeat George W. Bush and become the next President of the United States -- to put an end to a 25 year trend of increasing neo-conservative control over the American political process.

This election, more than any other in recent memory, is going to require a Democratic candidate to break out of the traditional model of running left for the primaries and then to the center for the general election.

Tens of thousands of Americans believed that Howard Dean was that candidate -- but many are now beginning to question their early support. Dean held the promise of a broad based unconventional campaign that looked more like a general election campaign from the outset. But, in recent weeks, changing campaign tactics are beginning to reveal a candidate strikingly similar to many Democrats of the past.

The Dean campaign's early use of negative campaigning, combined with its hiring of well-known attack dog Ace Smith -- Governor Gray Davis's opposition research director -- (www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/129744p-115983c.html) are a significant transition away from the appealing, innovative style that characterized the campaign this summer, and a move towards seizing the nomination at any cost.

While such tactics might be successful in the short term, winning the nomination at the risk of splitting the party, and driving away critical swing voters might well be a dangerous gamble.

Interestingly, Dean workers have told me that the 7,000,000 to 10,000,000 potential Republican and Independent votes are nothing but "background noise" and are a "demographic" they will worry about in the Spring. I have been told that "we should not interfere," and that our opportunity will "come later."

For everyone's general information there are 20 open primaries (Republicans and Independents are allowed to crossover) and 9 Open Modified primaries where Independents can participate.

Among the major Open Primary States you have: Georgia, Illinois, Texas, Michigan, Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.

Included in the Modified Open Primary States are: Colorado, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Ohio.

I am suggesting that the Republicans and Independents are a significant voting bloc and should be considered now, and not in the Spring. There is not a light switch you can flip on and get these voters to listen to you -- you have to begin that process now.

Beyond that, in a close, tightly fought, primary season these votes could easily decide the nominee of the Democratic Party.

Additionally, many Dean people seem intoxicated by the "Big Mo" the campaign has developed in recent weeks. Sadly, they seem to lack an understanding of political history.

Washington Post political writer Richard Morin discussed momentum, among other issues, with Northeastern University professor William G. Mayer in a recent Post story (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15041-2003Oct25.html). Big Mo is a bust Mayer says. A case in point is Senator John McCain in 2000. "If you're interested in figuring out why John McCain who went from 15 percent to 34 percent in the national polls within five days of his New Hampshire victory, momentum clearly provides the best explanation," Mayer says. "But if your main interest is in who finally wins the nomination, momentum is really of very little use."

Surprisingly money does not have as much of an impact as one might think either, Mayer says. The problem? Money alone can't get a candidate the nomination. Gobs of greenbacks didn't deliver for John Connolly in 1980, John Glenn in 1984, Pat Robertson in 1988, Phil Gramm in 1996 or Steve Forbes in 1996 and 2000. "Unless a candidate also has a strong base of support among ordinary, rank-and-file party voters, a huge war chest will not get a candidate very far."

And that support will not legitimately begin to reveal itself until meaningful votes are cast in the primary elections.

Another factor that could make next year's Democratic presidential primary elections quite singular is the fact that the Democrats have a large field of qualified regional candidates. Certainly Representative Dick Gephardt, Senator John Kerry, Governor Howard Dean, General Wesley Clark and Senator John Edwards must all still be considered serious candidates for the nomination because of their regional bases of support.

As a result, this election cycle could have two quite separate seasons -- Iowa and New Hampshire, and a second season that starts shortly thereafter in the South.

Having been involved in presidential elections in the South I can attest to the fact that they can be hot, hard and grueling, and culturally very different. And, they can be real eye-openers to the uninitiated.

David Broder discussed these cultural issues, and a Democracy Corps poll, in a recent Washington Post column (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14549-2003Oct24.html) when he said,

"If it's not his early antiwar stand that is powering Dean, what explains his lead in the Jan. 27 primary? The Democracy Corps poll strongly suggests it is the fact that the New Hampshire primary electorate -- including many of those independents -- is overwhelmingly liberal on social issues on which Dean has identified himself. By a margin of 76 percent to 18 percent, they favor civil unions giving gay couples the same legal rights as married couples. Dean signed the first such law as governor of Vermont. Two-thirds of those likely to vote in New Hampshire also approve of gay marriage.

In this respect, they are very different from the blue-collar caucus-goers in Iowa, many of them union members, who will vote eight days earlier, on Jan. 19, and even more at odds with the voters in South Carolina, probably the most publicized of the round of primaries on Feb. 3 and the first place where African Americans in large numbers will weigh in the balance. Support for civil unions of gay couples is 20 points lower in Iowa, at 56 percent to 35 percent. In South Carolina, prospective Democratic primary voters oppose civil unions, 52 percent to 36 percent.

In short, it is cultural forces -- far more than anything else -- that explains Dean's appeal in New Hampshire, forces that may tug the other way when the race moves to more typical battleground states."

Finally, I would like to endorse the sentiments of a fellow blogger on salon.com (http://blogs.salon.com/0002379/2003/10/27.html#a72) who said, "We must nurture a coalition where the differences between groups is respected and debated; where we all have a basic zone of trust and shared purpose despite occasional disagreements. In the broad strokes, our objectives coincide. On the points where we genuinely differ we must respect those differences, then we must come back together and close ranks without accusation or recrimination or resentment."

This writer is absolutely correct. We have to learn to work together with integrity, intelligence and vision -- because if we do not -- we will lose.

As one who has worked with Republican strategists, I can tell you they will calculate every tactic, every edge and exploit whatever works when they need it.

Should it be determined that replacing Vice-President Dick Cheney on the ticket with a more moderate choice -- after the Democrats have nominated their ticket in Boston -- they will do it.

America's single best hope in next year's presidential elections is a Democratic Party that is visionary enough to create a broad coalition that is capable of isolating the hard right wing of the Republican Party. A coalition of progressives, Independents and traditional Republicans who understand that the solution to this nation's severe problems will be grounded in creative cooperation and dignified disagreement.

As we begin the process of evaluating our candidates, we must decide who will be the strongest, the most credible, to face any strategy the Republicans can muster to defeat us.

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