The True ANTI-Bush

Why Howard Dean is going to be the candidate.

In 2000, Al Gore lost to George Bush by the margin of Ralph Nader's campaign. I worked for Ralph Nader in 2000, and the result of our protest has been the worst thing that could have happened to the progressive community: military tribunals, faith-based initiative, an attorney general who doesn't dance. In 2000, Democrats and progressives unwilling to compromise on a law-and-order candidate we saw as weak on the environment scuttled Al Gore's presidential hopes. Most of us regretted that as soon as the Bush administration tore up the Kyoto Accord, refusing even to recycle the paper it was printed on. With private prisons packed to bursting and welfare gone the way of the dodo bird, we thought a protest vote was the only option. What can I say? It seemed like a good idea at the time. We're ready to compromise now.

It should have been an easy win. A vote for Gore was a vote for the status quo. But I saw it all over the campaign trail in 2000. Gore's workers were apathetic. Nobody loved Gore, or not enough to make a difference. The Bush supporters were fanatic. They loved their candidate and despised Clinton with an anger that can only be described as apocalyptic. One could say that their anger wasn't enough to win the popular vote, but that hardly matters. They shook the walls of Florida polling places, and if they had to they would have burned them down. The winner is the one sitting in the White House. This time the shoe's on the other foot, minus the peace and prosperity.

Dean accurately pointed it out himself, early in the campaign: You can't beat Bush by running as 80 percent of Bush. You can't be kind of pro-war, kind of pro-tax cuts. Because the voters are going to say if we're going to get 80 percent of Bush let's just take 100 percent and call it a day. In other words, the lessons of the Clinton candidacy no longer apply. Howard Dean has defined himself not by being Bush-light, i.e. supporting the invasion of Iraq, signing off on the Patriot Act, but as the anti-Bush. He was against the war, against deficit spending, and he was against the Patriot Act. He is in favor of something similar to universal health care and he says so. Even people like me who don't agree with his positions on gun control, capital punishment and the Middle East recognize him as something other than the status quo, an outsider storming the gates of Washington ready to return us to a time when we at least paid lip service to separation of church and state.

As CEO of his campaign, Howard Dean has shown himself to be something of a business genius. Unlike most campaigners in recent years, Dean runs a bottom-up candidacy, allowing and encouraging staffers at all levels to take initiative. His nimble organization has raised more than $25 million with an average contribution of $106, crushing his competitors, who are livid over his refusal of public financing. What they don't want to accept is that it's no longer about them, it's about Bush, and the refusal of public financing is about trying to compete with the president, who has already turned it down.

In July I called the Kerry campaign to ask what his public schedule was for the day. This information should have been on his Web site and surely the secretary would know. I was told a press liaison would call back. I was not asking for top-secret information. It took me 24 hours to find out information the campaign wanted me to have, and I had to get it from a senior staffer when I should have been able to get it from the shlub who answered my call.

Here's another example. I asked an Edwards worker in New Hampshire why he got involved with the campaign.

"You're with the press," he said, hiding behind a shorter, thinner campaign worker.

"In a way," I responded. "But I'm just asking you about yourself."

"We're not allowed to talk to the press," he said. I thought he would cry.

Compare this with my visit to Dean headquarters, where the person answering Dean's e-mail gave me her phone number and urged me to call her if I had any questions. Everyone in that office was willing to talk to me. The reason meetups and things like that didn't happen early for Edwards and Kerry is because their campaigns weren't structured to allow them to. They were afraid to take the damage that inevitably would accompany the benefit of allowing their workers to take initiative.