Dean Country
Earlier on Sunday, Howard Dean drew the largest crowd of his campaign to date when over 4500 people turned out in Portland. That record lasted less than eight hours. On Sunday evening as he stepped to the podium in Westlake Center in Seattle, Dean looked out at a sea of at least 10,000 (estimates range from “over 8000” to 15,000) wildly cheering, sign-waving supporters.
This is August, 2003, folks. We’re more than 15 months from the general election, and 10,000 people took three hours out of a beautiful Sunday night in midsummer to hear a candidate give a political speech.
And what a speech. Dean, obviously himself astonished at the turnout, was energized to deliver not just a denunciation of the stupidity, incompetence and destructiveness of the current Administration, but an affirmative and compelling vision for the country under his leadership. For a stump speech at this early date, it struck a good balance between partisan red meat, policy specifics and big themes, and it left no doubt where the differences lay between him and the current President.
Anyone looking for a candidate to support owes it to themselves to check out Dean in person. He’s not just a good orator. He projects that certain kind of charisma that only comes from being comfortable in your own skin. Clinton has it, Mario Cuomo has it, maybe Reagan had it (though I never saw Reagan in person, and don’t trust TV because he was such a creature of the camera). Bush doesn’t. Neither does Gore (at least he didn’t in 2000), and neither do any of the other major Democrats, with the possible exception of General Clark. And if you don’t have it, there’s no amount of fakery that will get you by, especially when you’re standing on the podium next to the real thing.
Dean’s humor, passion and curiosity appear to be simply natural and spontaneous, and people in touch with their own humanity will recognize the difference between a candidate like that and a scripted automaton. As a result, what comes out of Dean’s mouth matters less than the confidence and thoughtfulness he projects when saying it. His views on the issues are actually fairly complex, and he does not reduce to the knee-jerk liberal stereotype as readily as his opponents seem to think.
But issues will not decide this election anyway. If the Democrats have a hope, it is by offering an entirely competing narrative to counter the Bush mythology: Hope versus fear; calm and steady leadership based on good American pragmatism versus blind ideology and the lies necessary to cover up its shortcomings. Dean, and/or Clark, are the men to do it, because it’s real in them.
Republicans who savor a Dean candidacy as a way to marginalize Democrats to the left may be spinning themselves into the ground. It’s true that a Dean candidacy offers the clearest contrast to the current government, and if you see the status quo as equivalent to goodness and right, then the farther out the opponent, the better. But that’s a fool’s game.
Turn the sound off on the TV and you can picture Dean as President, unlike most of the other shopworn or no-hope faces in the Democratic race. It was this appearance of Presidentiality more than any particular stand on the issues or strength of character that made Bush appealing when he was making his run in 1999 and 2000, and now, in the cold light of reality, he no longer possesses that same freshness and luster. Bush is the President, so he has nowhere to hide. The responsibilities of office have flushed him out on the issues and revealed his hard edges and limitations. Dean, on the other hand, is still a blank canvass on which supporters can project their own hopes and aspirations.
Turning out 10,000 or 15,000 in Seattle sounds impressive, but it’s just an ante at the table for Dean. Outside of Burlington, Vermont, there is probably no more fertile territory for his message, his style and his values. Now he knows, and we know he knows, and we can expect that whenever he needs an energy boost or a big success, he’ll be back to see us. Meanwhile, the Northwest got its first look at President Bush in person this weekend – two and a half years into his presidency – as he made a perfunctory speech on his way to a 200-person fundraising event held by billionaire Craig McCaw. He knows he’s going to lose Washington by 20 points, so why bother? His priorities are elsewhere, and the urban sophisticates, bohemians, and unruly entrepreneurs of Seattle don’t have a place in his America.
He doesn’t seem to realize that our little enclave here didn’t rise out of the sea. We are the sons and daughters of suburban empty-nesters of the East and Midwest, the younger brothers and sisters of soccer moms and office park dads in swing states, friends and confidants of the old classmates who never left home in Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas; cosmopolitans, yes, but not rootless by any means. Dean has connected here – bonded, even. If he wins, he will be our President in precisely the way Bush isn’t, and that’s worth a lot.
10,000 on a Sunday night in August in Seattle isn’t much in the big picture. But it’s a start.
8:16:21 AM 
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