Bit of a fallacy here:

But other Democrats argue that the appetite for homey anecdotes might prove limited in an election taking place against a backdrop of threats from abroad and a weak economy at home. And some suggested that voters might be recoiling from an excess of personal information that marked Mr. Clinton's years in Washington, and are looking for less confessional candidacies, which may account for some of early success of Dr. Dean..

"Howard's life is an open book, but frankly he thinks what people are more interested in is how he's going to improve their lives, rather than where he grew up and where he went to school," Steve McMahon, a senior adviser to Dr. Dean, said. "He thinks it's much more relevant and important to people to understand what he thinks the president is doing wrong for the country."

Well, I guess it might be more relevant than talking about your po' childhood, but it's still not particularly relevant, especially compared to, you know, stating your actual policy proposals. After all, a Democratic Presidential candidate criticizing the Republican President is about as surprising as the leaves changing color in the fall; both might provoke a justified emotional reaction, but they're not really "relevant" or "important."

As you can probably tell, I haven't been as up on the politico blogs lately, but FWIW I really haven't seen any of this kind of positivism from Dean--the "vision thing," if you will. Not that it's there in any other candidates either, really (and the current moderate wet-dream of Wesley Clark seems to be mostly lusted after because he can "nail" Bush on national security), but it's worth remembering that Bush was elected on a sort of "vision-oriented" version of the political; his actual life story kind of sucks, but put in vague terms, it seemed to work pretty well.
posted by Mike B. at 2:36 PM 0 comments