Return of the Angry Man?
"Dean represents 'loony left redundancy,' says former RNC chair Rich Bond, who also calls Dean's ascent 'a disaster' and 'a joke.' Former House speaker Newt Gingrich has said Dean represents 'a true death wish' on the part of Democrats.
But Dean is also the guy who made speaking up fashionable again for Democrats. And that is one reason his party is wagering on him. If Dean says things that are ill-considered, he also remains his party's leading rebel -- one with enough fresh fight in him to take on not only Republicans but also those change-resistant Democrats who would rather be titular heads of a dying party than less relevant figures in a renewed one. The hope for Democrats is: Dean will be the antidote for a party that is lacking a strong message and that needs somebody, anybody, to say something. Dean likes to quote his political hero, Harry Truman. 'I don't give 'em hell,' Truman said in 1948. 'I just tell the truth, and they think it's hell.' And the truth, as Dean sees it, is that mushmouthedness is killing the party, and so is voter neglect. 'Somebody has to take those right wingers on,' he says, 'and I enjoy doing it.'"
In fact, it was another blunt statement that helped him get this job. Dean has vowed not to run for president in 2008, "and one of the reasons I'm not running," he told DNC delegates, "is because if we don't change this party, it won't matter who the nominee is."
In his first four months, Dean visited 23 states, 10 of them Republican "red." A testament to the mileage he has covered, and to his Yankee frugality, are the loafers he is balancing against a desk. Two perfect half moons have been worn deep into the heels. The shoes suggest the man.
He is an old-fashioned Yankee fiscal conservative with moderate social values, the strictly reared son of one of New York's first families, whose anti-Republican rhetoric comes from a genuine loathing of deficits and resentment of governmental intrusions. "They're undermining American values," he snaps. At times, he resembles the kind of Democrat that existed pre-Great Society, in the mode of Truman. Dean so identifies with Truman that he used to read from David McCullough's biography to his children, Anne and Paul, at bedtime. "He stood for common sense, common decency. He spoke the common tongue."
Then again, sometimes he doesn't resemble a Democrat at all. Sometimes he sounds like a Rockefeller Republican, who preaches individual rights "but also responsibilities." It's a Deanian irony that the only people he angers more than conservatives are liberals. In fact, Dean resists simple ideology or box politics. What to do with a pro-choice, civil-unions, fiscal-conservative, antiwar, NRA-endorsed law-and-order-pro-death-penalty Democrat who won't keep quiet? He's a maverick.
According to former campaign manager Joe Trippi, spontaneity is Dean's great strength and weakness. It lends him sincerity, but it proved his downfall as a candidate, because it obscured his abilities and more moderate convictions, allowing opponents to paint him as extreme. "He was caricatured, but in the end a lot of the caricature was ammo that he provided," says Trippi, who believes Dean almost reflexively defies any attempt to Washingtonize him.
"It almost got to the point where, if you wanted him to go out through that door," Trippi says, "you had to point to the other door."
Dean rarely speaks from a prepared text, preferring to jot thoughts on an index card, which he then barely refers to. Exasperated aides urge him to stick to a script. "Give the speech," says media consultant Tom Ochs, a member of Dean's DNC transition team. "That's why it's called a 'speech.' " But Dean gives speeches only on his terms. If Dems thought they were hiring a servile functionary, they were mistaken.
A young man stood up and asked what he could do to help the party, other than give money, which he didn't have. Dean bobbed on his feet, delighted with the question, because it allowed him to show off his best side -- the side that grew a presidential candidacy from a small Vermont operation with seven employees into a national campaign with 600,000 supporters.
"The number one thing you can do is run for office."
[Class giggles]
"I'm absolutely serious. I am not kidding."
The class grew quiet. Here was Dean as a Johnny Appleseed, sowing civics in the young. While Democrats have conceded parts of the country considered hostile, Republicans have left no office untested, he pointed out. The result is that Dems have no farm system, no ability to find young political talent in red states and groom it.
Run, he urged the students. Run for county road commissioner. Run for city council. "If you don't have people running for offices like county commissioner, who do you think is going to run for Congress a generation from now?
"You may not win the first time," he said, "or the second time or the third time . . . If you lose, so what? It's worth the investment if we can have somebody there who gives the message, who's articulate and thoughtful, and respectful of the voters, because they'll get a better impression of Democrats than they would otherwise if there was no opposition whatsoever. That's the great failure, one of the great failures, of the party. Because we were in power for so long, we didn't think we had to appeal to places like that. Well, we do. And we will." More...
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