Squished Cupcakes And Polls
By MAUREEN DOWD
NASHUA, N.H.
Howard Dean's bark was missing its bite. And his socks were missing their warp. Not to mention their woof.
He was flashing his ankles, his old black socks threadbare above the heels, showing beneath the same old gray suit he wears day after day.
Speaking hoarsely to an appreciative overflow crowd at Martha's Exchange restaurant here on Friday, the doctor was doing his usual dancing on the head of the president, charging Mr. Bush with fighting the wrong war, appealing to the worst in Americans, dividing the country by fear, etc.
But he looked a bit sheepish and hangdog at his drop from larger-than-life to smaller-than-life. He seemed lost without his manic Jack Nicholson eyebrow-arching anger and devilish smile, an Oreo cookie without the filling, not sure how to proceed in a race where suddenly everyone was acting so nice, so measured, so blah.
Asked by reporters about his morph to subdued policy wonk from fire-breathing, red-meat guy, the man known on his campaign bus as "Dr. Dean and Mr. Howard" protested: "I can't talk very loud but I think the passion is still evident."
I felt a little sorry to see the declawed, de-clenched, de-Deaned Dean. Where's the delight in watching the Defiant One, who never needed anybody's advice, suddenly afraid of his own shadow, practically holding down his hands so he wouldn't seem too emotional? What's delicious about seeing the decapitated front-runner grovel, cuddle and muddle through TV appearances, striving to be self-aware and self-deprecating, but often ending up looking self-conscious?
He did his best, in the wake of his Iowa caucus cacophony, to be humble, even though he clearly did not think the problem was in himself or in his stars, but in the schadenfreude of his rivals and sensationalism of the press. Trying to be game, but looking a bit awkward, the former newsmagazine cover boy ate crow on David Letterman, finishing up a Top 10 list of "Ways I, Howard Dean, Can Turn Things Around" with "Oh, I don't know — maybe fewer crazy, red-faced rants."
The flagellation peaked with Diane Sawyer prodding the Deans and making them watch the yelping tape and the Bill-and-Hillary "stand by your man" tape until you thought he would leap at her buttery throat. Dr. Dean, who has not practiced medicine in 12 years, entwined his fingers with those of Mrs. Dean, as Dr. Steinberg said she preferred to be called when she's not at her medical office.
It's impossible to know how her style of being a style agnostic would wear during a campaign, and some reporters thought that thrust into her first national television interview, Judy Dean seemed as fragile as Laura in "The Glass Menagerie."
At moments on ABC, the couple seemed so far from mainstream American life and so disconnected from each other's careers, they were like characters who had walked into the wrong play.
Howard Dean suddenly talking about "leading with my heart" and being "a dad and a human being" was a bit much. But I found Judy Dean, gussied up with unfamiliar lipstick and blush, charming. She seemed as antithetical as possible to the notion of a first lady — and that ain't all bad.
I'm not sure I believed her assertion that her high-spirited husband doesn't ever blow his top at home. And it still seems strange that she is so oblivious to the major moments of his campaign: She told Diane Sawyer that she had not seen The Scream the night it happened, which means she wasn't watching his big speech on election night in Iowa. But in a culture of Botox and conspicuous consumption, where everyone is panting to get on TV, it was refreshing to hear Mrs. Dean talk about not caring what she wears and confessing, to Diane Sawyer no less, that she hardly ever watches TV and doesn't want her kids to be too drawn to it.
She said she doesn't care about presents, but would rather take a family bike ride "with squished cupcakes in a knapsack. . . . I'm not a very `thing' person."
When he was chairman of the National Governors Association, Dr. Dean got what he called a "surrogate spouse" for the social events his wife shunned, escorting Evan Bayh's wife, Susan. Maybe he could do the same if he wins the White House. Let Dr. Judy open an East Wing medical clinic, and give Martha Stewart a pardon if she'd do all the ceremonial folderol. Keep Martha away from those squished cupcakes, though. She might lose her famous temper and utter the second scream heard round the world.
E-mail: liberties@nytimes.com
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