UPDATE: According to the AP, Edwards has canceled his appearance before the legislature. True to form, he will still attend a $1,000 per person fundraiser hosted by Montgomery trial lawyer Jere Beasley.
John Edwards, the man with the $400 haircut, will be in Alabama Thursday to speak before the Alabama Legislature, which considering the latest squabbles in the Senate, could use a lesson in style over substance. Edwards will be the third presidential candidate and the first democratic candidate to speak on Goat Hill. Previously, presidential contenders Rudolph Giuliani and John McCain spoke there. We here at the Weekly have been impatient with the former North Carolina Senator for making cash withdrawals from the local party moneybags without spending any real time talking to real voters. Let’s hope, for his sake, no reporters ask him the price of milk and bread, as they did with Giuliani.
Meanwhile in Birmingham, Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean will speak at a Democratic Party Breakfast at the Sheraton Hotel 7:30 Thursday morning. Dean is expected to speak about the impact of his “50-State Strategy” on places such as Alabama, and the upcoming 2008 election. Tickets are $50.
In 2005, the Weekly interviewed Dean about the 50-State Strategy and his attempts to make Democratic beachheads into conservatives states. Here’s the text from that interview after the jump.
Five Minutes with Howard Dean
A year and a half ago, Howard Dean was the Democratic front-runner — the presumed challenger to President George W. Bush. Unlike others in his party, Dean spoke directly and forcefully about the Iraq war and the future of the Democratic Party in America. But in one of the most dramatic and swift campaign meltdowns in primary history — after the so-called “Dean Scream” — the former Vermont Governor seemed destined for the dustbin of presidential politics. However, after his party rival, John Kerry failed to boot the president from office, Dean once again forced his way into the Democratic Party leadership. He won election to chairman of the party, and today he responsible for the challenge many consider impossible — reorganizing a national left-of-center base and breaking the Republican hold on power. On Tuesday, Dean came to Birmingham for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. While here, he spoke briefly with the Birmingham Weekly.
Birmingham Weekly: Who is to blame for George W. Bush being in the White House?
Howard Dean: I’d say the Supreme Court.
BW: Last year John Kerry never campaigned in Alabama. John Edwards spent 30 minutes at a fundraiser before spending 3 hours eating at Bottega, a white tablecloth restaurant that most Alabamians couldn’t afford even on special occasions. Then he was gone. Why should Alabamians care about national Democrats if national Democratic candidates don’t seem to show an interest in them?
HD: They shouldn’t and we are going to change that.
BW: How?
HD: By being here and not by spending all our time in restaurants that most people can’t go to.
BW: Now, my memory is failing me: Did you visit Alabama when you were campaigning for president?
HD: I certainly did. I visited Alabama A&M and I did a couple of events in Huntsville.
BW: What about local politicians running for state or national office? A visit from the principals [the presidential and vice presidential candidates] can do a lot to boost a candidate for congress, for senate. What is the Democratic Party going to be doing to help those candidates make that leap to Washington?
HD: The first thing is that we have to have a strong message — a national message — that is as appealing in Alabama as it is in Minnesota. That’s the first thing we are going to do. That will be very helpful. After that, we will have people on the ground. We are going to have four organizers on the ground in Alabama who are from Alabama. We are going to hire Alabama people to do that, and we are going to do that in every state.
BW: Local Democrats have contributed to national races in the most literal way, by making financial contributions. Are you worried about those contributions drying up over time if there is no sort of local show of strength?
HD: No. We are going to get stronger here, not weaker. That’s why I’m here.
BW: Twenty-five years ago, the GOP’s odds in Alabama didn’t look any better than the Democrats odds look today. Can Democrats learn from the GOP’s strategy that seemed to be fairly successful?
HD: We have to have discipline. We have to have a national message that people in Alabama are comfortable with. And we have to show up here. Our candidates have to come here and campaign.
BW: That leads to my next question. Is the Democratic candidate in 2008 going to visit Alabama?
HD: I’m hoping that they will, but I can’t promise that, because I don’t know who the Democratic nominee is going to be.
BW: No idea?
HD: No.
BW: Switching gears a little bit, the Karl Rove/Valerie Plame scandals seems to be losing traction right now. If the administration intends, as it has over and over again in the past, to simply outlast the public attention span, how do you overcome that? How do you keep attention on an issue like that long enough for there to be consequences?
HD: Well, there are consequences already. Only 41 percent of Americans, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, thinks that the president is honest and straightforward. So I think the Rove scandal is taking a huge toll on him and it keeps getting bigger. Yesterday two aides to Karl Rove apparently were interviewed, or the news reported that two aides to Rove … So this scandal is getting bigger, not smaller. The problem is that it effects the president’s credibility. He gave his word that he would fire anyone who released information about a CIA agent in a time of war. He hasn’t kept his word. If he is not a man of his word, that is going to affect all Republicans.
BW: With the current Supreme Court nomination, I’m having a hard time seeing a lot of public interest in that. First off, what are your concerns with this nominee?
HD: My concerns are that he wasn’t truthful about admitting or denying that he was in the Federalist Society. He said he couldn’t recall. It turned out that he was in the leadership of the Federalist Society. That’s my first concern. My second concern is that he doesn’t look very sympathetic with anybody’s civil rights. But I think there is a long way to go and we need more information about him.
BW: How do you get public attention focused on that in a way that is meaningful?
HD: I think the press will focus on him very intensely, starting when the hearings start in September.
BW: Let’s say the Democrats filibuster his nomination. What does it matter if the president is able to side-step that process, just as he has with Bolton?
HD: You can’t really side-step the process. Bolton is a lame duck the day he shows up. He doesn’t have credibility there and he can’t do his job. It is unthinkable that you would appoint a Supreme Court nominee that couldn’t be confirmed. In terms of a recess appointment, I don’t expect the president to make a recess appointment no matter what happens.
BW: So you think it will be different than it has been, for example, with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, where he nominated Bill Pryor, our attorney general, put him in that chair when the Senate had shut that process down?
HD: You mean he made a recess appointment?
BW: Uh-huh.
HD: Yeah, he did get away with that one because it was a compromise in which he had to give up four other judges who were worse.
BW: So who flinched in that fight?
HD: I don’t know. I didn’t have anything to do with making the deal, so I can’t tell you.
BW: On international issues, how can we better fight terrorism? Should we withdraw from Iraq?
HD: You can’t withdraw from Iraq. We’ve created an enormous danger there, a terrorist danger, where none existed before. So you can’t just pull the troops out. If you do, then there is a danger to the United States, as I said, that the president created by going in there in the first place. So I don’t think that’s an option.
BW: When you campaigned for president, you said the war was wrong. Is it still wrong now?
HD: Sure. The reason the war was wrong … You have to understand, I supported the last four wars, including this president’s war in Afghanistan. I didn’t support this war, because I thought the chances of failure were very high, and I’m afraid to say that it looks like I was right.
BW: On the Daily Show, Jon Stewart asked you to give specific examples of what the Democrats would do differently if elected to power. Your answer was a little mushy …
HD: I think it was very specific. What I said was that we’ll make sure that everyone in America has healthcare and we’ll stop American jobs from going overseas. Can’t get much more specific than that.
BW: What do you say now to a good ol’ boy with a gun rack in the window and a rebel flag bumper sticker on his truck?
HD: Same thing I said before. Vote Democrat and you’ll get a job — you’ll get your job back and your kids will get a better education.
BW: As a doctor what is your professional opinion of Bill Frist?
HD: You shouldn’t make diagnoses from video tapes.
BW: Why do people use a different measuring stick when evaluating the president’s Social Security plans than they did when evaluating us going into the Iraq war?
HD: I think people wanted to defend the country. Normally you give the benefit of a doubt to the president. The problem is that the president wasn’t truthful when he told us why he was going into Iraq. I think that most people want the president to succeed and want to give the president a wide latitude.
BW: Last question. Looking back at that night after the Iowa caucuses, if you had to do it all over again, would have mentioned Alabama before the scream?
HD: If I had it to do all over again, I would have excluded cable television, because the reporters who were there didn’t think it was a big deal.
BW: That’s it. Thanks very much.
HD: Thank you.
— Kyle Whitmire
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