Gov. Howard Dean

[12th Doctor]

Ok lets compare Reagan in 1980 vs 2004 and Dean.

1.  Reagan had made 2 previous runs at the White hOuse in 1968, 1976 and had high name ID.  Dean does not, have the experience of running a campaign and that is more obvious each day.

2.  Reagan embraced his party and was spurred on by helping Goldwater in 1964.  Dean is ATTACKING his party.  Just the last few days Dean attacked Terry McAulliffe for not stopping Dean's opponents from attacking him.  HELLO your in a primary.  Also Dean just threatened and paraphrasing "My supporters might not vote for anyone else if I'm not the nominee"  Talk about blackmail politics.

3.  Reagan was the governor fo a major state, California, where he had to deal witha  large economy, in the turbulant 60's whereas Dean was governor of a state with the economy half the size of the city of Miami.  

4.  Both are running against incumbant Presidents, true.  However, under Carter inflation was exorbinant and the interest rates were around 20%, there were gas lines and a grain embargo.  Comparatively while the economy has taken hits from 9/11 and the corporate scandals, neither are Bush's fault and plus he gave all taxpayers a tax cut which is boosting the economy and it will be strong come election time.

5.  Carter let Afghanistan be invaded by the Soviets.  Carter then boycotted the Olympics and filed a protest at the UN.  Also Carter poorly managed the Iranian hostage crisis.   Reagan was seen as a I'm not going to take that BS kind of candidate on protecting Aemrica.

Today Bush has ousted the Taliban from Afghanistan and is putting in a democracy, Bush has ousted the murderous thug, Saddam-ended his supporting of terrorism in Palestine and in allowing training bases and terrorists safe haven; and through a show of force he has shown he is willing to remove terrorists from power and thus brought Libya to the diplomatic tables to turn in there WMDS.

Dean - would not have gone into Iraq and thus would not have had the standing to pressure Libya to give up its WMDS.  He seems to be like Carter and would have rather filed a strong protest and talk the issue out at the UN ( ie Chamberlain style).

6.  Reagan was an optimist and so is Bush thinking America will get better and its best days are ahead.  Carter said we should settle for what we have and that our best days were behind us.  Dean is angry at everything and is trying to tell us how everything is bad.  Talk about a contrast.

True, obviously there are differences, as no two elections or candidates are ever truly alike.
I don't think that people were necessarily disbelieving the polls in 1988. When Dukakis was 17 points ahead, people were surprised, but I don't think anyone was saying that Bush was definitely going to come back and win. Certainly that lead wasn't going to be sustained since it occured right after the Dem convention, but at that point things did look bleak for Bush.
Likewise, in 2000 Bush had about a 17 point lead or so over Gore after the GOP convention. No one expected that large of a lead to be sustained, but I know conservatives were awfully giddy about Bush's prospects at that point. Then when Gore went to the left during his acceptance speech, the Republicans were sure they had it in the bag, they figured he had handed the political middle to Bush...until the polls came out showing Bush's lead was gone and it was now a dead heat. Gore's most impressive performance of the whole campaign was the acceptance speech, in which he let his true self out. Yes, he actually was and probably always has been more of a liberal masquerading as a moderate, but his attempts to make himself look centrist hurt his credibility since he wasn't a skilled enough politican to make it seem believeable. He came across as phony.
I think that a good case can be made for a parallel between Dean and Reagan. Yes, of course there are many differences, but Reagan also spoke off the cuff a lot and made many miscues in his speech. And, he also was considered way too conservative to win, and was running against an incumbent candidate of the party that also controlled Congress, and thus was seeming to become the clear cut majority party in the US, and started out way behind in the polls. For that matter, Bush, like Dean, also makes verbal gaffes, was not a very good student at Yale, and got out of the draft under circumstances of questionable legitimacy.
The claim that Perot was hurting Bush is also at least somewhat undercut by the fact that Clinton was running 3rd, behind Perot, when both were in the race in the spring, with Clinton getting only 25% in the polls, and then when Perot dropped out, Clinton surged into the lead in the polls.

Exactly.  If you hadn't said it, I would have.  I'm glad your our God jravnsbo.