More on McGovern and Dean

From McGovern himself - Ignore Pollsters -- Just Tell the Truth

McGovern tells his detractors that losing is no sin but dishonesty is.

The man who inspired me to enter politics was Gov. Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. As the Democratic presidential nominee in 1952, he began his campaign with two sentences that I will never forget and that I hope my fellow politicians will heed: "Let's talk sense to the American people" and "Better to lose the election than to mislead the people."

With the 2004 race about to begin in earnest, I would only add: Give me a presidential candidate who speaks the truth as he sees it and I'll show you a candidate whose campaign, win or lose, will be good for the nation.

Brownstein - When Fighting Bush, Heavyweight Contenders Need to Use a Light Touch

As president, Bush has pursued a more confrontational conservative agenda than many on either side expected. That has energized conservatives. But it has also repelled many Democrats.

The result is that except for the periods immediately around the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq, Bush has polarized public opinion as sharply as any president in memory. In a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken late last month, Bush's approval rating was 94% among Republicans, but just 29% among Democrats. That's among the largest gaps ever measured.

Like all candidates challenging an incumbent, the Democrats face legitimately conflicting pressures. To convince the country to change course, they must make a forceful case against Bush's direction. But they might also remember that even most Americans who disagree with a president, any president, usually don't consider him malevolent or stupid, just wrong or ineffective.

Faced with a base that loathed Clinton and Gore at least as much as the Democrats today loathe him, Bush demonstrated a light touch on the Clinton administration's ethical problems, saying only that he would restore honor and integrity to the White House. No one misunderstood his meaning. Yet he never seemed consumed by anger or zealotry.

The Democrats might learn from the man they are trying to unseat that, when dealing with a sitting president, usually less is more.

TNR - STYLE POINTS has the liberal reaction.

The relevant question is therefore how you minimize the number of centrist voters you alienate en route to winning the nomination.

Once you realize that's the question, then Howard Dean's "visceral longing" strategy doesn't look like such a disaster. There are, after all, only two ways to satisfy the party's left-leaning base. The first is on the level of policy--that is, taking liberal positions. The second is on the level of tone--that is, angrily denouncing the president with overheated rhetoric. The beauty of the latter is that it's essentially contentless: It satisfies the base without locking you into any particular policy positions, meaning you're free to fill in the details of those positions as you see fit. And in Dean's case, those details happen to be pretty centrist (with the exception of his opposition to the war; more on that below): He's a relative moderate on gun control, the death penalty, trade, and fiscal matters.

Now you could certainly argue, as Brownstein does, that Dean's anger will scare away some swing voters. But, again, the question isn't whether it scares away swing voters. The question is, how many? And, any way you slice it, you probably scare away fewer swing voters by moving to the left of them tonally than you do by moving to the left of them ideologically.

On top of all of that, it's entirely possible that Brownstein overestimates the extent to which centrist voters might be turned off by Dean's anger.