Who the hell is Howard Dean? Since many of us young liberals
prostrated our bodies into a human drawbridge to the White House
for him in the primaries, perhaps we should re-examine the man who,
as the newly crowned head of the Democratic National Committee,
would be king of our hopes and dreams. And why he was deemed
crown-worthy.
Born with a silver spoon in his mouth from the Wall Street
fortune inherited from his father, this FDR-esque New York
aristocrat knight-in-shining-armor has somehow become the
Democratic Party’s last great hope. Or hype.
But before delving into his voting record ““ which we
can’t, because he sealed it for a decade upon leaving Vermont
as five-time undefeated governor ““ let’s examine the
superficial reason why we love dear Dr. Dean.
The man has star power, rivaled in caliber only by aging Bill
Governing-From-the-Center-and-a-Little-More-Down-and-to-the-Left-Oh-That’s-the-Spot-Baby
Clinton. Try to remember the name of the last DNC chair, or even
hearing of his ascension ““ CSPAN geeks disqualified.
You can’t, because you don’t care about
behind-the-scenes party bureaucracy. Yet somehow you’ve heard
of Dean’s new post.
Think back. Why is Dean famous in your mind? He was the first
Democratic primary presidential candidate to speak out
unequivocally against Bush’s invasion of Iraq before it
became popular.
Having the luxury of not being forced to actually cast an
authorizing vote, somehow this obscure governor of a tiny state of
600,000 people (less than a tenth of Los Angeles County’s
population) worked up the balls to challenge the president.
A ballsy move, and it is for his balls that we remember him.
Face it, our enthusiasm has nothing to do with his progressive
ideas about taxes, education, health care or the environment. We
love Dean for his balls, not his mind. (Bush did not return my
phone calls requesting comment.)
He was launched by the 2000 signing of the nation’s first
state-sanctioned same-sex civil union law. That catapulted him onto
The New Republic’s front page in the summer of 2002, nearly a
year before the Iraq invasion. From there, the Deaniac phenomenon
exploded.
His rolled-up sleeves, that groggy East Coast-GM assembly line
worker voice, the shoot-from-the-hip straightforwardness all built
the picture of the heroic populist we liberals have been waiting
for to replace the meek, spineless Democrats on the Hill ““
the ones who predictably abandoned us in the Congressional roll
call before the Iraqi invasion.
And then he screamed.
Let’s neglect the fact that having shown the Dean scream
an estimated 633 times in just four days following the incident,
the cable and broadcast news networks forgot to mention it was
recorded by a unidirectional microphone that drowned out the
screaming crowd he was screaming over.
He’s still the Wolfman Jack of the Democratic Party, and
the Democratic Party is due for some serious wolfing out.
“Dean shows passion,” said Bruin Democrats President
Kristina Doan. “And that resonates with people, young people
especially.”
Dean’s passion even resonates with some Republicans. A
surprising number of them cite his Bush-like defiance of popular
opinion as the source of their respect for him, even though they
fear he will bring the party too far left.
“That’s a fear, but I don’t think it’s
valid,” said Doan. “Before we can alienate our middle,
we need faith in our base; that’s were Dean could bring
people in, to pull those people from the middle over. We
haven’t stood for any issues that touched people ““
people look for a party that stands for something.”
Therein lies the paradox of Dean. People love his passion, but
are simultaneously afraid of him because of it ““ a conundrum
that Commander First-Class-Status-Quo John Kerry did not makes us
contemplate.
But that is exactly why Kerry was chosen for duty, and the same
reason, oddly enough, that John McCain was pulled from the
frontlines in the 2000 Republican primaries (Bush’s
slanderous attack on McCain’s military record
notwithstanding).
Yes, neither fit their party’s rigid public image. Both
were too independent, too off-the-cuff, too human.
But it’s not the failure of the parties, it’s the
failure of the electorate that seems to prefer robotic, bloodless
puppets over men who have independent minds and balls enough to
scream for them.
Using the DNC platform, Dean will scream, like a dog from Hell,
barking out things elected liberals only wish they could, if only
the voters would ease up on their leash.
Maybe with Dean pulling the party to the left, rhetorically at
least, we might actually get a contender for the White House in
2008.
It’s either that, or the party lets Bush pull them to the
right ““ and into the doghouse for another four years. At
least with Dean I feel I have a dog in the fight, and an underdog
at that.
So in a nutshell, this is what I think of Dean’s DNC
promotion: Eeeeeaaaagggghhhhh!
Lukacs is a third-year history student. E-mail him at
olukacs@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.