SHADES OF BLUE:

The New Hampshire Debate: The Democrats split between Clinton and Gore. (William Saletan, Dec. 10, 2003, Slate)

Notes from Tuesday's Democratic presidential debate in Durham, N.H.: [...]

Clinton/Lieberman/Clark vs. Gore/Dean. The campaign is beginning to clarify the Democratic Party's fault lines. Tonight, Joe Lieberman embraced the "Clinton transformation," which he defined as military strength, fiscal responsibility, values, middle-class tax cuts, and collaboration with business to create jobs. Then Lieberman delivered the most important line of the evening: "Howard Dean—and now Al Gore, I guess—are on the wrong side of each of those issues." Boom! Just like that, Gore-Lieberman is splitsville, and Lieberman is trying to take Bill Clinton with him.

And Dean is helping. Dean said of Gore, "We both believe that the Bush tax cuts are grossly irresponsible, and they ought to be reversed. We both believe the war in Iraq was put forward on the American people unjustly." Indeed, Gore has repudiated the war far more emphatically than Clinton has. Do Gore and Clinton agree with Dean that all the Bush tax cuts should be repealed, including the parts that went to the middle class? I haven't checked it out yet, but I'm betting that Gore agrees and Clinton doesn't.

Clark, the candidate widely regarded as Clinton's favorite, chimed in on Lieberman's side of the military question: "The time has passed in America when this party can be the party of compassion and let the executive branch run foreign policy. It won't work. We have to be the party that can stand toe to toe with George W. Bush on national security."

This was the big story of the night. Dean can't afford to have Gore's endorsement of him become more evidence that he's a left-winger. He has to patch up the Clinton-Gore rift. If he wins the nomination, he'll almost certainly have to name a running mate from the Clinton wing.

Anti-war, pro-tax? It's not the Gore wing; it's the McGovern wing.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 12, 2003 1:12 PM