Are Voters in the Mood for an Angry Democrat?

Time Online ^ | 07/16/03 | Joe Klein

[bedolido]

That’s the main question at the center of the Dean-Kerry showdown

It's the independence day parade in Amherst, N.H., and John Forbes Kerry, the elegant Senator from Massachusetts, is wearing a button-down, long-sleeve tattersall shirt, khaki pants and topsiders. He is surrounded by about 100 supporters, many of them young people toting signs. There is a Kerry truck blaring music. "It doesn't get much better than this," he says, a statement meant to convey enthusiasm but which comes off as Kerry's awkward guess at what a politician ought to be saying in such circumstances.

Other candidates—Joe Lieberman, Bob Graham—are in the parade, but you would hardly know it. This event is mano a mano: Kerry vs. Dr. Howard Dean, the former Governor of Vermont. Dean has about the same number of supporters as Kerry—but they're younger, more enthusiastic and much more creative. Some are wearing white doctors' coats, brandishing stethoscopes and passing out tongue depressors with the words "Rx for America: Howard Dean." The Governor, however, seems unprepared for parading. He's wearing navy pinstripe suit pants, a blue business shirt and his perennial black penny loafers. When we shake hands, he blurts the first thing that comes to mind: "It's good we're not right behind the horses. That always happens in Vermont—it's a message, I guess. You have to watch your step, which is a pain because you want eye contact with the people." When the parade begins, Dean takes off—running, and I mean sprinting—from clump to clump of parade watchers. His face grows red; he sweats; people hand him Dixie cups of water as if he were in a marathon. John Kerry, by contrast, occasionally breaks into a stately jog, from one side of the street to the other.

Beware of parade metaphors. And yet ... Kerry jogging artfully, Dean running artlessly—that's pretty much where the race stands in New Hampshire these days. There are other candidates and other states. Congressman Dick Gephardt has support in Iowa and could easily win the nomination, especially if Kerry and Dean murder each other over the same subset of white, well-educated voters. And so Kerry vs. Dean has become the preliminary bout before the Democrats' main event. It is a struggle that revolves around a single issue that mixes style and substance. The issue is Iraq. The style question is, How angry should Democrats be about what George W. Bush has done there?

Dean is winning on both counts. His opposition to the war is looking less radical every day. His style—his imprudence, his plain talk—just doesn't sound like the other guys. At the Dems' winter meeting in Washington, he arrived at the podium and, instead of lapsing into the usual thank-you blather, blasted off like a rocket-propelled grenade: "What I want to know is why so many Democrats in Washington aren't standing up against Bush's unilateral war in Iraq." This was followed by several more withering "What I want to knows" and then the introduction: "My name is Howard Dean, and I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." The crowd went nuts.

[Redbob]

Are voters in the mood for a loony Dimocrat?

There's always Kucinich!

[TrebleRebel]

Angry Democrat -- is there any other kind?

[Support Free Republic]

50,000 people go to a baseball game, but the game was rained out. A refund is then due. The team is about to mail refunds when the Congressional Democrats stopps them and decrees that they send out refund amounts based on the Democrat National Committee's interpretation of fairness. After all,if the refunds are made based on the price each person paid for the tickets, most of the money would go to the wealthiest ticket holders. That would be unconscionable!

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[Semper Paratus]

My name is Howard Dean, and I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." The crowd went nuts.

Blue pencil went to were.

[Huck]

Were or was?

[Nonstatist]

If Dean gets the nomination , it would be an amazing early acknowledgement that they cant win in '04. I find it hard to believe that Democraps who give money will allow it. But who knows? Life is a rip.

[ReleaseTheHounds]

"Are Voters In The Mood For an Angry Democrat?"

Joe Klein and all his buddies at Time (and CNN, and the NYT, and CBS/ABC/NBC/MSNBC/etc.etc.etc. can only hope... Their sympathies are so transparent...

[mabelkitty]

Clinton is pushing for Wesley Clark - he's putting Edwards out there as a distraction.

[bedolido]

Blue pencil went to were.

Were or was?

I don't understand either comment.

[Gothmog]

"The crowd went nuts." Correction -- that crowd is nuts, ha ha ha.

[Semper Paratus]

Were or was?

DOH!

[Enterprise]

"My name is Howard Dean, and I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." The crowd went nuts.

Take a blue pencil and alter the phrase "The crowd went nuts" and cross out the word "went" and insert "were." It would read "The crowd were nuts." The other posted suggested it should read "The crowd was nuts."

[mr.pink]

I find it hard to believe that Democraps who give money will allow it.

I don't think the big money Dems will allow it. But Dean's already gotten big enough that it will be hard to get rid of him without alienating a substanial percentage of their grass root activists/footsoldiers.

If the big boys decide to squash Dean, the only candidate who could placate the radicals and also satisfy the big money folks would be the Ice Queen.

[Koblenz]

That same day, Dean attempted presidentiality. He demanded the resignations of those in the Administration who had misled the President on his State of the Union assertion—since retracted—that Iraq had acquired uranium from an African country.

THIS IS TOTALLY FALSE: The SOTU did not say that Iraq had acquired uranium, but that it had sought to. Don't these guys know the difference?

[Vinomori]

The other posted suggested it should read "The crowd was nuts."

The other posted was right and you are wrong.

[NautiNurse]

Angry Democrat -- is there any other kind?

Yes--the ones that whine and plead for handouts.

[Enterprise]

What was I wrong about?

[Huck]

"Blue pencil" is an editor's term. It means line out. He was saying crowd went nuts should be crowd were nuts. I was suggesting it should be crowd was nuts. Get it?

[Between the Lines]

Such sentiments have been misinterpreted by assorted Beltway savants as a leftward lurch by Democratic Party activists; it seems more a reaction to the rightward lurch of the Republicans America in general.