By Stephen Sears

Howard Dean is all the buzz right now. At one time this summer, he graced both the covers of Time and Newsweek. You would think Democrats would be excited that, at long last, a candidate has come along to energize the party. But come to find out they are all running away in horror. You see, Howard Dean is something very bad. He is a far-strung, off-his-rocker liberal. Dean is the front-runner right now by way of his vociferous opposition to the war in Iraq. His strident anti-Bush rhetoric has energized many liberals, who for the past two years have been mired in political doldrums. However, this “activist” campaign is scaring Democratic leaders. “Once folks start to really understand Howard Dean, his attraction as a candidate will start to fade,” Jeff Plale, a Democratic National Committee member, told MSNBC.com. “By running so far left he’s positioned himself outside the mainstream.” There is more. DNC leaders Al From and Bruce Reed co-authored a memo alleging the same point. “The fact is, ‘the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party,’ as former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean likes to call it, is an aberration, a modern-day version of the old McGovern wing of the party, defined principally by weakness abroad and elitist interest-group liberalism at home,” they wrote. All these concerns would be legitimate if Howard Dean were as liberal as everyone says he is. He touts his high rating from the NRA. He was known as a pro-development fiscal conservative who on many occasions took on the state’s environmental groups. He also supported the first Iraqi war. He endorsed the welfare-to-work program and supports the death penalty in some cases. The list goes on and it goes on to show that he is not the raving liberal he is portrayed as. What we have here is a right-wing media attack campaign to paint the moderately liberal Dean into a corner as to make him unelectable. Just take a look at some of his insane positions: -This unpatriotic cretin does not support every war waged by the government. If that’s the case, then what about the members of George I’s cabinet who agreed with him? – He supports universal health care. What a left wing nut job! I am sure if you asked any parents whether they wanted health care for their children, they would say, “No thanks. I’d rather leave it to the marketplace.” -This raving leftist would like to maintain the hugely unpopular social security program. While Bush and his pro-American heroes try their best to destroy the vestiges of New Deal socialism, Dean and his subversives will try to maintain it. Average Americans will tell you that they want their social security money in the ultra-reliable stock market. Forget about Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco … they were so long ago. The myth that Howard Dean is an unelectable liberal was quick to gain steam and convenient for his foes. It is easy to label anybody from Vermont as a Ben ‘ Jerry’s-eating, Phish-listening, Birkenstock-wearing ultra liberal. Men like Joe Lieberman, from the Democratic wing of the Republican Party, profit too. His candidacy, along with John Kerry’s, is in danger of being swallowed up by the Dean surge. Republicans, who control all branches of the government and still cannot get anything done, need someone to smear. Exhausted from blaming Bill and Hillary Clinton for everything from the extinction of the dinosaurs to the assassination of Abe Lincoln, they come out in full blast against Dean, spouting that dirty word: liberal. That one word can ruin a candidacy, they say. But despite what Fox News and the right wing media say, being a liberal Democrat is not a crime in this country. At least not yet. It also is not as scary to the average American as some might think. What were once considered extreme liberalism, like social security, Medicare, civil rights, opposition to Vietnam, are now commonplace. Howard Dean is a liberal-leaning Democrat. He is no Joe Lieberman, nor is he Paul Wellstone or George McGovern. Most of his views are accepted in Middle America. He just opposes a war and sharply criticizes Bush. He is not alone there. It is the media and his political foes who have morphed him into a crazed extremist. It just goes to show that if certain people call an apple an orange loud enough and often enough, then it will become the truth.

-Stephen Sears can be reached at [email protected].