Dean: Crazy Like a Fox?

Something I try to do on this blog is not to point out some news event and merely say "how great" or "how awful", but to ask "Why did he do that apparently stupid thing?" or "Why are all these reports arriving?"

Lately, I've been wondering why the Democrats were ever crazy enough to make Howard Dean their party chairman and why they continue to tolerate him despite his remarkable propensity to say fooling things at the wrong moment.

It is tempting to say: "Because they are a pack of liberal idiots!" and leave it at that.

I can buy the liberal part; and although I often think the Dems do often fall into silly ideological traps, I don't think they are idiots.

Here is what I think is happening with Dean:

He represents the party base. He unabashedly celebrates every liberal ideal cherished by every campus lefty, overgrown hippy, blue-blooded easterner, Hollywood diva, and America-hater who ever took up a ballot to vote.

Thank God those people don't represent the majority of Americans.

But they do represent the voting base of the Democratic Party. They also represent the values the Democrats will promote if they ever get the Whitehouse and both sides of Congress under their control again. The only problem is that the majority of American voters will not vote for anyone who displays the sort of values which Dean celebrates.

So, the Dems put up candidates like John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and (thirteen years ago) Bill Clinton, who make a point of not ranting and raving like Dean, and who are perfectly willing to throw bones to moderates and conservatives (See Hillary expressing sympathy for the Pro-lifers), and who sound perfectly moderate and reasonable standing next to that guy who occasionally erupts with a nice "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAA!"

Someone like Dean keeps the Democratic party faithful from getting disgusted with the capitalist bourgeois values apparently represented by the mainline Democratic candidates, and keeps the party base from giving up on the Dems and becoming Greens or Socialists or Independents or legal-hemp-libertarians.

And someone like Hillary can attract what may or may not be the future majority of Americans who are scared by Dean and ambivalent about the Republicans, but comforted by someone like Bill Clinton's wife who seems so prudent and moderate next to the party chairman with the head that always seems like it is about to explode.

But what most people don't realize is that folks like Hillary agree wholeheartedly with folks like Dean on just about every important issue the Dems deal with.

You might call it a good cop/bad cop act. Or, if you are a former hippie, you can call it a good pig/bad pig act.

Me: I call it the quiet liberal/crazed liberal act.

Let's see if it works.