The public spewing of insults

While cattle farmers fret about mad cow disease, Democratic Party leaders wrestle with another sort of malady. Call it the “Angry Howard Syndrome.”

Its symptoms include a tendency by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, the front-runner in the Democratic presidential polls and fundraising, to insult members and factions of his own party whose help he may very well need, if he wins the party’s presidential nomination.

Dean’s not the only one afflicted. Angry Howard Syndrome is contagious. It unleashes reactions in some of his rivals, particularly Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, that President Bush’s campaign could easily and gleefully use against Dean later, if Dean wins the Democratic presidential nomination.

What’s going on here? Put in its starkest terms, Angry Howard Syndrome is the latest manifestation of an ancient Democratic Party affliction, a divide between its sober pragmatists and its passionate idealists.

On one side, the party has its pragmatists who want more than anything to beat the other party. The pragmatists worry about the details of issues and ideas later. After all, the party’s leading candidates actually agree on much more than they disagree. Even on the pivotal issue of foreign policy, Dean and his opponents all agree that they disagree with Bush’s pre-emptive, go-it-alone approach.

But that’s not always enough for the idealists, some of whom have told me they are less concerned with making a victory than with making a point–or two or three. Think of the idealists as being one step away from voting for Ralph Nader or Jesse Jackson, should the opportunity arise again.

Of course, Republicans have their pragmatic and idealistic wings too. But since the Barry Goldwater disaster of 1964, Republicans have learned to temper their passions behind a public wall of unity and discipline, no matter how long their knives might be in private.

Democrats, by contrast, seem to relish the circular firing squad.

For example, even when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was embroiled in a heated battle with Bush in the 2000 Republican presidential primaries, McCain never resorted to questioning Bush’s electability.

Lieberman, by contrast, charged a few days before New Year’s Eve that Dean will “melt in a minute” under Republican attacks if he becomes the nominee. He also said it was “outrageous” of Dean to suggest that Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe step in and shield Dean from growing criticism by his rivals, like Lieberman. Dean had cut into McAuliffe with snippets like: “If we had strong leadership in the Democratic Party …” and “If Ron Brown were chairman, this wouldn’t be happening,” referring to the late DNC chairman.

Dean has since spoken with McAuliffe to clear the air, Dean’s representatives said.

But attacks against “Washington Democrats” have been a standard Dean mantra on the campaign trail. While governors, including 2000 presidential candidate George W. Bush, often take jabs at Washington “insiders,” Dean goes further, targeting his own party’s insiders.

As Democratic challengers Lieberman, Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts have all pointed out, Dean has called members of Congress “cockroaches,” party leaders “prostitutes” and the centrist Democratic Leadership Council “the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.”

One seasoned Washington Democratic insider said Dean might want to consider the wisdom of an unspoken thought now and then. In other words, it might be more prudent, for example, for him to voice criticism of his party’s leaders in, say, a cell phone conversation with them instead of public declarations.

President Bill Clinton wisely warned against the Democratic Party’s self-destructive tendencies in an interview in the November issue of American Prospect: “I don’t believe that either side should be saying, `I’m a real Democrat and the other one’s not,’ or, `I’m a winning Democrat and the other one’s not.’ … [T]hese kind of ad hominem attacks … are dead-bang losers.”

With the countdown ticking toward the first primaries and caucuses, leading Democrats need to heed Clinton’s advice. Dean is far enough ahead in money and in the polls to give serious thought to reaching beyond his impressive core of supporters. It is time for him to reassure everyone else.

And mainstream Democratic leaders need to stop dismissing the Dean crusade the way party regulars dismissed anti-war protesters in the late 1960s. Instead party leaders should try to figure out what the Dean upsurge is about so they can harness its energy as smoothly as Democratic presidential candidates Clinton and Jerry Brown brought progressives and wary moderates together in 1992.

After all, if candidates cannot unify their own party, voters should reasonably wonder how they are going to unify the country.

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