As the Race Turns Hot, What About Dean's Collar?
By RICK LYMAN
he closest that Howard Dean has come to truly exploding in public anger during his presidential campaign, top aides say, was at a network television interview after a rally in Boston this fall. When a local news crew tried to muscle its way into the interview, its cameraman banged into someone in the network crew.
Dr. Dean "stopped the interview and started yelling at the guy," said Bob Rogan, who was deputy chief of staff when Dr. Dean was governor of Vermont and is now a top official in the campaign.
That Howard Dean has always had a temper is beyond dispute. He mentioned it himself in an essay he wrote for his high school yearbook. And stories abound from his days as governor of his snapping at Statehouse reporters or blowing up at political opponents.
"Howard gets angry," said one longtime friend, Thomas R. Hudspeth, a professor at the University of Vermont. "He doesn't suffer people being unfair or duplicitous. In the heat of sports events with his kids, for instance, I can remember him yelling, red-faced, his neck muscles bulging," if, as a spectator, he saw dishonesty among his children's opponents or poor calls by referees. "And there were a couple of reporters who were always really good at getting his goat."
Now, as the Iowa caucuses approach and he shoulders the relentless scrutiny that comes with being the candidate in the lead, Dr. Dean's opponents in the Democratic field are jumping on every wayward off-the-cuff remark, trying to make his temperament an issue. They are questioning whether he has the judgment to be president, and trying to feed the impression that he is a man with lots of anger, an attribute that repels many voters.
His displays of temper are of a kind with political blunders he has made during the current campaign: in either case, they stem from what aides concede is an occasional tendency to speak his mind too quickly.
Just this week, one campaign rival, Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, declared that Dr. Dean had made a "series of embarrassing gaffes," which, the congressman said, underscored "the fact that he is not equipped to challenge George Bush."
In the last two weeks, Dr. Dean has seemed to criticize the policies of President Bill Clinton and complain about the way Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic national chairman, runs the party. Both times, his campaign had to exercise damage control, with the candidate forced to backtrack and explain.
Before that, it was Confederate flags on pickup trucks. Or a suggestion in an interview with The Concord Monitor that Osama bin Laden deserved a fair trial. (Dr. Dean quickly followed with a statement that said Mr. bin Laden deserved the death penalty.)
"He needs to stop and think before he speaks sometimes," said State Senator Dick Mazza, a longtime political ally. "It got him into trouble in Vermont sometimes."
The Burlington Free Press, for instance, reported about a meeting with officials early in Dr. Dean's tenure as governor where he responded to an unwelcome discussion about a local highway project by slamming his fists on the table and storming out of the room. At the close of one legislative session, television cameras caught the governor angrily jabbing his finger into a legislator's chest. He has compared congressmen to cockroaches, referred to opponents as boneheads and called Republicans racists.
So there is plenty of fodder for those hoping to turn Dr. Dean's temperament into a campaign issue, much in the way Bush strategists took aim at Senator John McCain in the Republican presidential race of 2000.
Friends and former employees of Dr. Dean say his temper can indeed flare, although of greater concern to campaign aides is the occasional crisis created by his speaking too quickly on the issues. Even that, he and his top aides say, is not as detrimental as his opponents might hope: as long as he talks straight and from the heart, he said in an interview in Iowa not long ago, voters will overlook a little roughness around the edges.
"What people are responding to is that I believe in what I'm doing and it's not calculated," he said. "That's a quality you can't fake. People can tell the difference."
The greater danger, a number of aides say, might be trying to muzzle him. Dr. Dean maintains that one reason many Democrats have not connected with voters in recent years is that they allow their message to be filtered through layers of focus groups and skittish pollsters.
"He hasn't yet got the filter completely in front of his face," Mr. Rogan said. Though some of those around him are urging that he do so, "his attitude is, `If I do that, I'll be just like them.' "
Friends and colleagues say that Dr. Dean's temper is almost never directed at subordinates and that he never erupts out of vanity or petulance.
nytimes.com |
