Without yet declaring himself for one of Dean's rivals, The New Republic's Jonathan Chait is carefully de-constructing arguments in favor of the doctor on his blog, Diary of a Dean-o-phobe. Countering highly regarded Democratic Leadership Council advisor Elaine Kamarck's endorsement of Dr. Dean, Chait disagrees that Clark's electability is based soley on his biography, since he has no "record."
Chait suggests:
Even if Republicans could somehow transform Clark into, I don't know, some kind of socially liberal draft-dodging Vermonter, would he really have no domestic policy to fall back on? The assumption here is that on domestic policy, biography is everything. But there's something else he'd have, namely a platform. The second part of the Clark strategy is that, by negating GOP advantages on toughness and culture, Clark could press the advantage the party has on domestic priorities. Voters overwhelmingly prefer his plans to take back tax cuts for the rich and instead expand health care, reduce the deficit, and so on. Sure, he couldn't point to a state record. But how important is that? Bill Clinton in 1992 ran on his platform, not his record--which, in fact, Republicans turned into a liability, harping constantly on how tiny and backward Arkansas was. Sure, having a domestic record is a marginal advantage, but candidates invariably spend more time on their promises for the future than their past accomplishments. Fitness to serve as commander-in-chief, on the other hand, is more of a gut equation based on persona.This speaks, of course, to the $64,000 question: at the end of the day, will voters feel more threatened by Bush's reckless abandonment of the level playing field as regards the economy and health care, or his failure to address the root causes of our national insecurity. If the later is the case, then "Are you more secure than you were four years ago?" resonates more than "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" If the debate is framed along those lines, as I fervently hope it will be, Clark is clearly the most prepared candidate to hit the ground running: even with a hostile Congress, with whom he has had no direct experience, Clark should be able to rapidly re-configure State, Defense, the CIA, and Homeland Security in such a way as to dramatically increase our effectiveness against terrorism. Whatever Dr. Dean's innate abilities, he'll have a very steep learning curve on national security. I'd prefer Gen. Clark's relative inexperience in domestic affairs, given a choice.