Nation & World 2/9/04
By Gloria Borger
He was too good to be true
Let's face it: insurgent candidates make for great stories. Guy comes out of nowhere, with absolutely nothing, no one behind him. He preaches passionately to anyone willing to listen. He's a novelty at first. Then, all of sudden, he's a movement. He gets lots of press, then lots of money. Throw in the legions of blogging and Googling Internet introverts, and he's a virtual phenom. It's boffo stuff, this story line: Maverick topples Establishment. Beats all odds. Gotta love it. Too bad it hardly ever happens.
Exhibit A: Howard Dean. All that early anger against the war in Iraq, against the "Washington Democrats," all that talk about "taking our country back," and who ends up the golden boy? John Kerry--a 19-year Senate veteran handpicked by the Washington Establishment. And to whom does Dean then turn to reactivate his stalled insurgency? None other than Al Gore's former chief of staff. A Washington insider! An Establishment eminence! Or is it emigre?
If the Deaniacs are outraged, they should look at their own hero. A successful insurgency requires a dominant mood in the party and a candidate who can express it skillfully. Dean began like gangbusters, but pretty soon he wasn't the only guy out there calling to take the country back. Establishment candidates excel at sailing with the prevailing winds, so they out-Deaned Dean. By the time folks voted in New Hampshire, Kerry sounded positively antiwar, even though he had voted for it. "Everybody on this stage . . .
now embraced my message," Dean whined at last week's South Carolina debate. "The truth is, I stood up for that message when nobody else would."
snip/
Dean lost his message, too. The maverick became the dissonant candidate--endorsed by Gore, blessed by Jimmy Carter, embraced by Iowa favorite son Tom Harkin. Then he battled down and dirty with Dick Gephardt, and both lost. When he turned to the domestic issues voters care about--healthcare, jobs, the economy--others had already beaten him to the punch. Worst of all, the insurgent caricatured himself with his post-Iowa rant.
more at: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040209/opinion/9glo.htm
Mods: Please note that the columnist, not I, used the nickname for Dean supporters. Click on the link to see her column.
Edited to remove a paragraph for 4-paragraph limit.