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January 22, 2004
Obit
So I guess I'm a little late on this front but I wanted to wish Gephardt well by noting that he truly was the last of his kind. This cuts both ways of course. On a positive note, he's the last great New Dealer. Unions brung him to the dance and he saved the last dance for his union supporters.
On a negative note, Gephardt came from an era of toned down rhetoric and bipartisanship that had the majority valuing the minority, not just using them and discarding them. Gephardt might well have been President in '88 had he the fortune to compete in the later primaries. In fact, he might have been elected any year before '94 but once the landscape changed he was the last of the former power structure to get the message.
It continued right up until last year with the War resolution. Gephardt thought going to war was the right thing to do, or at least the politically correct thing to do. But honestly, does anyone but Gephardt think Bush valued Gep's support or took any of his suggestions seriously when crafting the resolution and strategy in Iraq? To Bush, the war, or at the very least the resolution, was as much about politics as policy or security. And Gephardt, who'd spent a lifetime in politics, didn't realize it.
The highlight of his campaign may have been his coinage of miserable failure as shorthand for Bush. But by that point it was too little too late. Pragmatic supporters of Gephardt were taking a second look at Edwards, Kerry and Clark while youthful idealists were flocking to the younger Kucinich who had a better shot at building a lasting movement for the progressive goals they valued.
Posted by Chris at January 22, 2004 02:58 PM
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