Howard (Anti-Bush) Dean
Dean blazes a trail as the anti-Bush
By Steven Thomma
INQUIRER NATIONAL STAFF
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - Howard Dean was running late, but the college students waiting for him on a brisk gray morning had props to keep themselves entertained.
First came a young man working his way to the front row, drawing knowing nods and smiles as he showed off his black T-shirt with a picture of President Bush and the large-lettered caption proclaiming him an "International Terrorist."
Then came the blue, foot-high foam-rubber hands, with white lettering boasting, "Dean's Number 1." When Dean leapt onstage to kick off a daylong tour of college campuses, he could look down on one picture of the enemy and dozens of waving arms welcoming him as the conquering hero.
More emphatically than any other candidate for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, Dean is the anti-Bush. And that is propelling him toward winning the leadership of a party that increasingly defines itself by its loathing of the President.
The combative, finger-waving Dean decided early on to adopt a risky but potentially high-payoff strategy - flatly opposing virtually every one of Bush's major initiatives at a time when many Democrats supported the President, especially in the days between Sept. 11, 2001, and the Iraq war, when Bush enjoyed record-high approval ratings.
The former Vermont governor opposed the war in Iraq when many Democratic rivals supported it. He proposes to repeal all of Bush's tax cuts, while many rivals want to keep those that go to the middle class. And he rips Bush's education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act, which was widely supported by Democrats, as the No School District Left Standing Act.
Having thus carved out his ground, once the broad post-9/11 support for Bush washed away and the nation's 50-50 partisan split reemerged, Dean became the champion of all who never really liked Bush.
Part of his appeal is style. He is direct, even blunt, to the point of sometimes giving terse one-word or one-sentence answers in conversations and interviews, often followed by awkward silences.
That is refreshing to some voters; it reinforces his image as an against-the-grain outsider who would stand up to politics-as-usual in Washington. "He just doesn't tell people what they want to hear," said Katie Devlaninck, 19, a sophomore at Iowa's Coe College. "We get too much of that already."
But the root of his appeal stems from his unqualified condemnation of almost everything Bush has done as president.
For example, Dean wants to repeal all tax cuts enacted under Bush, totaling $3 trillion by his count. Some rivals, including Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, argue that some of the tax cuts helped working-class people and that repealing them would unwisely raise taxes on them.
Dean dismisses the complaint.
"What tax cuts?" he asks, telling audiences that any tax savings under Bush were lost to rising college tuition or property taxes.
"He's got people all riled up," said Lin Prinsberg, 21, a senior at Coe College. "I was for Kerry, but then I heard Dean speak at Iowa City in October. A lot of it was the intensity. The other candidates don't have that."
One neutral Democratic strategist said on condition of anonymity: "He's figured out how to run on a mood, how to turn his campaign into an emotional appeal to Democrats. He appears strong to Democratic-base voters. Democrats have felt stepped on ever since the [Florida] recount."
Dean indeed feeds off renewed anger among Democrats about the 2000 election, when Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College with a narrow, contested defeat in Florida.
Now, Democrats cheer when Dean proclaims, "This time, the person who wins the most votes is going to the White House."
The main catalyst that reinflamed anger at Bush was the war in Iraq. When that started going badly, anger at Bush rose, reservations about all his policies gained credence among Democrats, and Dean's popularity rose.
"He has touched a nerve, a raw nerve," independent pollster John Zogby said.
But Dean faces a formidable challenge should he win the Democratic nomination - how to win over independent-minded voters who neither hate nor love Bush. If Dean wins the nomination, Zogby suggested, he will need to build the kind of optimistic, personal bond with voters that Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton forged.
"When push comes to shove," Zogby said, "voters ultimately vote on values rather than hard things like the economy or Social Security. In order for a candidate to sell values, he has to present himself as a likable character. The emotion that Dean tweaks is the anger gland. At some point, he has to start shutting that off."
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Contact reporter Steven Thomma at 202-383-6042 or sthomma@krwashington.com |
