A funny thing happened over Thanksgiving break. My Republican uncle, who has supported Republicans in every election from Barry Goldwater's in 1964 to Bush's in 2000, confessed to us just how much he's come to dislike Bush, and how he'd like to see a credible alternative in the election. ??
His major complaint was the war in Iraq, that we've been dragged into occupying a foreign country with one lie or another given as the reason along the way. ??
My uncle, who works on Wall Street, also said that there's no guarantee the current good economic news would last. He went so far as to use various obscenities to describe Bush's job as president.
Until recently, it was incredibly impolitic for anyone to talk about these problems. As it becomes much easier, though, we need to recognize one major politician out there who was willing to say it. He didn't follow public opinion, confident that as he proved to be correct public opinion would follow him. ??This man is Howard Dean. ??
He's stood up for sensible foreign policy, for a government that believes in balancing budgets rather than bequeathing to our generation a massive debt, and he's built a campaign of small donations instead of big interests.
As Dean's gone about his presidential campaign he has achieved an unlikely level of success for someone who was so obscure because each time someone has denounced him for being extreme he has instead been proven to be right.
If anybody asks me who I support for president, I don't mind telling them that I support Howard Dean. In fact, I encourage everyone reading this column to do something I did the other day, to donate money to his campaign at http://www.DeanForAmerica.com. A campaign built on small donations can succeed with our help. Dean's success has been the biggest story of the last six months for a reason-the simple reason that he's right and deserves all our support.
