Meet The Press; Ken Mehlman, Chairman of the RNC (aka think Dems May Want to change?)

After listening to the rantings of Howard Dean, DNC Chair, two weeks ago on “Meet The Press”, it was certainly refreshing to listen to a normal interview. Gone was the vile hate, the insults and the look at me I’m Howard Dean that was the interview with Dean by Russert. Ken Mehlman, Chairman of the Republican Party is a class act and a man that gets the job done. Without having to grab all the attention and make an ass out of himself Ken Mehlman is running circles around Howard Dean in substance, class and fund raising as the national Democratic Party raised about $18.6 million in the first four months of the year, compared with $42.6 million for the RNC. Hear what a normal interview sounds like from a class act. Here is the full transcript from Meet The Press.

Here is just one of the exchanges.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to Social Security. NBC News and The Wall Street Journal has gone out and asked voters what they think of the president’s plan for personal private accounts. Good idea, 36 percent; bad idea, 56 percent. This is after the president has embarked on a campaign across 26 states. It’s day 92 of a planned 60-day tour. People are simply not buying the president’s prescription to deal with Social Security.

MR. MEHLMAN: Well, Tim, there are a number of polls that have shown other things as well. I would respectfully disagree with those numbers. Here’s what I think with respect to this question. The fact is five months ago this was an issue that people weren’t really talking that much about. Because of the president’s leadership, because he’s brought it to people’s attention, it’s now a top issue. That same NBC News poll showed that a plurality of Americans believe that Congress is moving too slowly on the question of dealing with Social Security.

So what we have is a president that has brought this issue before the American people. We now understand that we can’t wait.

Hmm … Where were the hateful Dean-like comments during the interview? What a breathe of fresh air. From the looks of the Liberal comments and whining about the interview looks like they wish they had a Mehlman on their side and not a Dean.

It even appears that many Democrats are tiring of Howard Dean’s comments and antics. Its one thing when those of your party say things as an anonymous source and quite something else when they go public. Thus was the case with Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) Distancing yourself from the spokesperson of your party? Where is that unity that Democrats were talking about?

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) distanced themselves over the weekend from remarks by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who is facing criticism for the pace of the party’s fund raising.

Dean, who inspired a passionate following when he ran for president in 2003-04 and showed the potential of Internet fund raising, has been as unpredictable with his public remarks since becoming party chairman in mid-February as his Republican counterpart, Ken Mehlman, has been on message

Biden made his comment on ABC’s “This Week” after the host, George Stephanopoulos, played a clip of Dean saying Thursday that perhaps Republicans can wait in line to cast ballots because a “lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives.”

Asked whether Dean is doing the party any good, Biden said, “Not with that kind of rhetoric. He doesn’t speak for me with that kind of rhetoric. And I don’t think he speaks for the majority of Democrats. . . . I wish that rhetoric would change.”

Edwards, the party’s vice presidential nominee last year, said at an annual party fundraising dinner Saturday in Nashville that he disagreed with Dean’s comment. “The chairman of the DNC is not the spokesman for the party,” Edwards said, according to the Associated Press. “He’s a voice. I don’t agree with it.”

John Edwards not only disagreeing with Howard Dean but also showing the reason why the political novice lost the Presidential nomination for the Democrats in 2004 and was made to look sophomoric in the 2004 Vice-Presidential Debate, “not the spokesperson for the party? Really?

This may have been the quote of the week if it were not for Ken Mehlman’s effort from Meet The Press.

“I’m not sure the best way to win support in the red states is to insult the folks who live there. I think that a better approach might be to talk about the issues you’re for.”

I cannot wait for the future interviews of the side by side confrontations between Mehlman and Dean on “Meet The Press”, if Dean is still DNC that is.

Video of Ken Mehlman on Meet The Press from Trey Jackson

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