John Dean, author and former White House counsel, came back on The Drive with Steve Jaxon, who introduced his guest and mentioned that he had been critical of conservatives and the Republican Party as it has evolved in recent years. Dean agreed, “…I’m not even sure I recognize the Republican Party. I don’t think my former president Richard Nixon would be called a Republican today. I just finished a teaching post at Arizona State University where I was the Goldwater Professor of American Institutions. In talking to students, I said I wasn’t even sure that Barry Goldwater could qualify as a Republican today.”
John Dean
Steve asked if Dean agreed that the GOP now belongs to Donald Trump. “Well, he’s certainly brought some new voters in but no one is really quite sure what they are yet, whether they’re going to stay and play as Republicans or if they’re just protest voters this year ’round. I think it’s too early to tell. He certainly as the presumptive nominee and then as the nominee, will have the right to control the party.
“I actually did an article a couple of weeks ago, I write for Justia, their section called Verdict. I did a piece on the fact that really, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump make the point (that really has been evolving) that you don’t really need the party anymore. In fact most presidential candidates don’t even use the party anymore. What happens is that the parties, both Republicans and Democrats have great voter data information. But they really don’t have much control over who gets the nomination. We don’t have smoke-filled rooms anymore where the bosses can agree or not agree upon who it would be.
“And it’s also quite remarkable, for a long time in our history how well the back room did at getting a good candidate out there. We’ve had a lot of great presidents who came out of smoke filled rooms.”
The next logical question for Steve to ask was, “Do you really believe he can beat Hillary Clinton, assuming it’s her?”
John Dean replied, “If there is no terrorist attack between now and November, I think he’s got a rougher road than people think. He’s a novelty right now. I don’t know how well he will wear. If you’ve ever spent a lot of time in the New York market, people are kind of bored with him up there, because he’s been a feature in that market for a long time. He’s playing on a bigger stage. He did well on his television reality show, for people who are into that kind of television but didn’t play well beyond it. I don’t know how well… I think she’s a known commodity. He will try to trash her and at some point people will probably get exhausted with that.”
Asked for his thoughts about Bernie Sanders, John Dean said, “Well I’m not sure he’s a Democrat but I think he’s trying to influence the Democratic Party. I think he’d like to leave a platform behind, at minimum, which nobody will pay any attention to as soon as its written and completed. I can’t recall a party plank in either party’s platform ever having any consequence anywhere for any time beyond the convention.
Steve asked, with the conservative movement in seeming disarray, who knows who’s going to show up at the polls in November? John Dean reminded us about another important factor this year. “…the other interesting factor, this is the first year we’re going to have really a lot of new stricter voting laws. Republicans particularly in red states have changed voter identification requirements and made them much tougher. A lot of people are going to go to the polls and find that they can’t vote. What impact that will have, no one is quite sure how it’s going to play, because, in the primaries where some of those new laws took effect, they affected the Republicans as much as it did the Democrats, much to the chagrin of the Republicans.
Steve observed, “Man it’s fascinating and it’s going to be a crazy ride for the next 6 months,” and John replied, “I’ll tell you, it’s probably the most good theater we’ve had in a long time in a presidential campaign. The primaries were certainly that. Trump is a master of the media in knowing how to draw attention to himself. No one really knows what he believes. He’s been on both sides of most issues…and he flips position. One day he was going to turn over his tax returns. Now he’s saying it’s none of your business!”
Dean asked Steve if he thought Bernie can carry California and Steve replied he thought he could but probably would not, then he turned the question back to his guest, who offered, “If he can somehow marshal young people, new voters, … I think he could probably squeak out a win. But again, we have proportional voting for the primary, so it really won’t advance him that much further.”
For John Dean’s articles in the Verdict section of Justia.com, visit this page https://verdict.justia.com/author/dean