Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock
Friday, Jan. 23, 2004. I like Howard Dean. I didn’t care one way or the other before the night of the Iowa caucuses and that speech of his, Jan. 20. Now I don’t know if he should be elected president or even the Democratic nominee; if he’s still a candidate by the time of the Arkansas primary I don’t know if I’ll vote for him myself (I will support the Democratic nominee whoever it happens to be in November, unless he’s a total nitwit, then the best third-party candidate, if one shows up).
But I do like Gov. Dean and I think he is presidential. By now we’ll all heard his yell to supporters in Des Moines. Lots of times. I found it endearing.
Presidential candidates good and bad are stage-managed, which is to say they obey their keepers. The second-worst example is Al Gore. I heard his debates with George W. Bush. Big Al won the first one: The quick-witted intellectual was just what the U.S. needed. But the media — and I hate to do the lumping — declared Bush the winner. So Gore began dumbing himself down. Even if the Florida chads broke the other way, even if the Supreme Court made him president, Gore still is a loser to me. He could have won decisively if he remained himself.
Bush is the worst example. You want a Yalie, he’s a Yalie. You want an aw-shucks Texan, he is one. Bush is neither, really. (Dean is truly a Yalie, and a preppie, and open enough to be himself, which means "yeee-hah" like a cowboy, which he did not try to be; he’s an American, probably an American original.)
Clinton could be the ultimate chameleon, but as much as he adapted to whatever crowd he addressed, he never lost sight of himself, and I don’t think Americans did, either. He was elected twice; he beat an impeachment conviction.
But every other candidate is soft. They want to win so they flex.
Democrats want to offer real alternatives in 2004, to be distinctive. This is a difference from 2000 and before, when both parties met in the middle. Bush’s plans came out after inauguration; they’re still coming out. But Democrats overall don’t want to go too far on the limb. Even Dennis Kucinich, the alleged true liberal. Kucinich must have been in Congress too long. The vegan environmentalist is timid on agricultural issues, at a time when he might not lose much farm vote by noting FDA and EPA hypocrises.
Dean is a moderate, but I wish he looked at agribusiness. He won’t. I can live with that. Because his moderate-ness has specifics that don’t waver. He has flare. If he doesn’t "look presidential," it’s because the importance of that perception is a sham to begin with. There’s a dozen Ken dolls up there now, including Bush and Cheney. It doesn’t tell me a thing. (Though Dean as a young man wins the Ken lookalike contest, followed by Edwards.)
Dr. Dean says that at heart he is a manager, and I believe him. He is not a robot. America can use a man to run the country. He is his own man. -30-
