The Democratic Nomination as Entitlement

As Howard Dean mounts another unstoppable campaign to become some kind of leader of the Democratic Party, I've been thinking about how he was last toppled.

In a weird mixture of brazen hunger for victory and utter chickenshit fear, voters decided after all that John Kerry was the electable -- whatever that means -- candidate. Dennis Kucinich has a simple, funny answer to the critique that he was unelectable. "Vote for me," he said, "And I'll be electable."

Just the word electable sounds like so much navel-gazing. It's a psychobabble word on the periphery of political science. It's so much snootiness about how to pick a candidate that is safe enough to get the party's middle votes as well as tough enough to bring the victory home.

Kerry, after a stumblebum pre-Iowa campaign season, was instantly crowned the nominee before the last New Hampshire voters punched their chads and capped the cold day with chowdah.

So intense was the electorate's hatred of Bush that they wanted a sure thing in a candidate. Kerry was their man.

In a way, I think Kerry was selected in the same way Bob Dole got the nominee in 1996. He earned it and deserved, so went the logic. It was his time, Dole's and Kerry's. They'd been around and -- Dole, even more so, being a septagenarian -- had these laurels coming to them.

I will stop here to assert that John Kerry was a sterling candidate, a formidable foe, and more-than-qualified to lead the nation and the world out of the gooey morass that Bush and company have put us in.

But I don't think Kerry got the nod because of that. I think he won the votes early because Democrats were desperate, angry and frightened. Howard Dean's clear-cut passion was exciting, then frightening. His authenticity -- he is a counterpart, or should I say counterpunch, to Bush's direct and plain-spokenness. (I take issue with the notion that Bush is plain-spoken. He speaks well when reading simple, declarative sentences. Had one of his doomed businesses flourished, he'd have been a great Texas TV commercial pitchman. But for the sake of argument, I'll just go along with the myth that he is a direct, plain spoken fellow.) Now, Republicans embraced Bush. Democrats embraced Dean, then eschewed him, just like they eat up and spit out their past party leaders like Dukakis and McGovern.

I'm not trying to relive the election with a what-if-Dean-ran revision. What I'm trying to figure out is why Kerry won so quickly and so soon in the primaries, and what does it say about Democrats that they wanted someone "electable" when the very examination of "electability" is a fool's errand that exposes Democrats for our weaknesses rather than our fortitude and loyalty. It sounds like marketing chicanery, trying to find the right smile for the right product. We'd do best not to do so much analyzing next time, and find the candidate who supports our platform but appeals to America in the heart and gut. This means the next candidate must be a fighter, a natural and not one given the nomination as an entitlement.