Dean's shakedown strategy

This report (via Politus) raises some serious questions about a candidate who has pledged to support his party's nominee.

"If I don't win the nomination, where do you think those million and a half people, half a million on the Internet, where do you think they're going to go?" he said during a meeting with reporters. "I don't know where they're going to go. They're certainly not going to vote for a conventional Washington politician."

Well, no, they're probably not if they're among those who were attracted to the Dean campaign's steady drumbeat of attacks on "Washington Democrats." That's one reason that so many of us are concerned about the prospects of a national ticket led by a candidate who has ranted for over a year that the national party has no value, and no values. His analysis is demonstrably wrong, but it's a sad truth that in some cases demagogy works, and Howard Dean is nothing if not a master demagogue.

It's not as bad as he'd have us believe, though. I don't know how he counts the million voters who've apparently not shown up at his website, but there are serious doubts about the fealty of the half million who have. After all, when he called on the faithful to assist him in making what was touted as "the most important" decision of the campaign (withdrawing his pledge to remain within the public funding program), only a fraction responded. Getting on an email list is no guarantee of support, and many early adopters have long since abandoned the Dean campaign, although their registration is still counted among the supporters.

Still, even a couple hundred thousand votes is important, and Howard Dean's open refusal to encourage them to vote as Democrats, regardless of the convention outcome, is disturbing. I know he's counting on Party regulars, many of us supporters of so-called "conventional Washington politicians," to fall in line. He knows that if we don't he's sunk. Through his continual attacks on the Party he proposes to lead and the elected officials who represent it, he risks losing some, perhaps much, of that support.

I'm certain that all of his opponents in the primary contest will endorse him if he's the nominee. It's the "conventional" thing to do. But as he admits himself, in some cases, political support is "...not transferable. That's why endorsements are great but they don't guarantee anything."

Some of us just won't be strongarmed.