The crowd chanted: HOW-WARD! HOW-WARD! It was like old times in Seattle yesterday when people lined up
three hours b4 the doors opened for a chance to see Howard Dean at a town hall meeting.
The New York Times thinks it is only the 19 and 20 year olds who are Howard's fans, but
Howard charmed people of all ages, and if he doesn't make it as the nominee it will be many
years b4 another sincere politician turns up.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Come Back, Little Deaniacs
Editorial
The New York Times
February 1, 2004
However he fares in the coming primaries, Howard Dean has
already touched more than a few young lives. Around the country - campus by
campus, computer by computer - thousands of teenagers and 20-somethings
have fallen hard for his campaign. They're lucky. It's a wonderful
experience to lose one's political heart for the first time, as did
the college students who sacrificed long hair and beards to be "clean for Gene" -
Eugene McCarthy - in 1968, or the young men who stood bare-chested
waving placards for Bill Bradley in the New Hampshire snow or followed
the banner of Senator John McCain in 2000. The newly enchanted
of 2004 bring a rush of young blood into the nation's old campaign arteries.
Unfortunately, the nearly inevitable conclusion of these first heady
forays into presidential campaigning is political heartbreak. "Don't you lose
some essence of life when you really can't give your heart?" asked Kate DeBolt,
an 18-year-old Floridian who says she could "go to the ends of the
earth" for Dr. Dean.
Her candidate is still very much in the race, and his campaign's pioneer
work with the Internet is going to transform grass-roots politics. But ever
since the Iowa returns, his more innocent followers have been grappling
with the shock of discovering that it is possible to be pure of heart, fired
with dedication, and still lose overwhelmingly. Many of the young people
who heeded Senator McCarthy's antiwar message in 1968 spiraled away
from politics forever when Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic nomination.
The young Deaniacs could easily add to the near majority of eligible
voters in America who find politics a waste of effort. One of the most
important missions of the Democratic nominee this year is to help keep young
people interested when the campaign boils down to the deeply pragmatic politics of the summer and fall.
Already, after losing in Iowa and New Hampshire, some of the Deaniacs
are beginning to adjust, slightly. Chris Zychowski says whatever happens,
this campaign has "changed the course of my life." Mr. Zychowski,
a software expert from San Francisco, says he's going to law school, a better
route to fighting for the issues. As for politics, "I'll vote for anyone but
Bush, but I'll only devote my life like this to Howard Dean."
If the product of the Dean movement is thousands of young people who
are slightly hardened to the lure of a charismatic candidate, but
determined to keep on fighting for a better world, it will have been
a success no matter what happens to the former governor of Vermont. That is
the way politics, at its best, works. First you discover that your paragon
of a candidate is all too deeply human. Then you realize that the real
heroics come from you and your friends with the pamphlets, stolidly going door to door.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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