Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is the Democratic Party's indie rock star. He lacks big production values. He's individualistic. He can be sullen and defensive. Sometimes he even dresses strangely. But when he turns it on, lays into one of his riffs and flashes that heart-melting smile, he drives the girls wild. And he makes you feel like you've been waiting your whole life for someone to say what he says, even though you didn't know it.
By comparison, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards is a member of O-Town.
Wednesday night's presidential cattle call sponsored by the Children's Defense Fund made one thing clear: Dean is the candidate creating the framework the others have to respond to. And he is going to give the money men a run for it.
The question is, can the indie star with his grassroots campaign become the breakout hit of the season and change the kind of bands all the studios sign -- or does he just have too much attitude to succeed?
Dean, in his opening remarks, described the race ahead as "a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party" and reiterated his mantra (originally the late Sen. Paul Wellstone's) that he's in the race to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.
Within minutes Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry noted in his opening that the candidates "are not just here for the soul of our party but [for] the conscience of our country."
And so it went, with each candidate trying to prove to the assembled crowd of about 2,500 social-policy advocates and party faithful why he -- or she -- was the real face of the Democratic Party.
As the anointed front-runner, Kerry was surprisingly unimpressive, given previous performances, and seemed almost listless. Much of Kerry's strength comes from his graceful bearing and remarkable gravitas. The finesse and expertise with which he can handle serious, weighty issues can make him seem very appealing. But he does have an awfully patrician voice, and when he boasted of having visited a YouthBuild USA program on 118th Street in Harlem, it sounded so condescending that it was almost painful to hear.
For the first time, it seemed like a boon to have the Rev. Al Sharpton in the race. Whatever his faults (and they are considerable), the man knows the problems facing troubled Harlem youth and probably talks to more young people there in a week -- and with greater respect for their dignity -- than Kerry does in a year. Noblesse oblige may play well in the parlors of Boston, but it ain't going to cut it in the real world.
(That said, Kerry has still done more, from a programmatic perspective, for the youth of Harlem than Sharpton has, though that's partly due to the power difference between a United States senator and a big-city rabble-rouser.)
As usual, Edwards didn't lack for carefully thought-out, politically savvy and economically reasonable proposals. The man sure dots his i's and crosses his t's. But somehow he just never appears comfortable on stage. While Dean doesn't seem to care if he resembles a turtle at times -- notice how he scrunches his head back when he's being serious or defensive -- and Kerry and Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt have the comfort level of two men long accustomed to the limelight, Edwards always looks like he's trying to act comfortable while reminding himself not to pick at his nails.
His closing remarks about how "life is precious, children are hope and families are the future of America" -- or maybe it was "children are the future and families are hope," by that point I was having trouble keeping my clichés straight -- were exactly the sort of cloying, pre-fab phrases that make him sound like anything other than "regular people."
Sharpton, as usual, got off some of the best lines of the evening, and he distinguished himself by calling for "a new Constitution" and asking the assembled to fight the emerging scourge of "childhood obesity," a topic close to his heart. (And I'm not just being catty here: The man developed adult-onset diabetes in part because of his weight, and he's managed to get it under control by slimming down.)
Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, as one member of the press corps put it, got a new haircut "so that he doesn't look so much like a Beatle." Or a maybe he meant "beetle."
Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman's crowd pleaser of the evening needs to be repeated loudly and often, and especially by him: "I want to tell you why I know we can beat George W. Bush," he said. "Because Al Gore and I did it in 2000." Otherwise Lieberman's remarks were, by and large, platitudinous. The silence that greeted his support for the war on Iraq could be described fairly as stony. Behind the scenes, there's much speculating that his low fundraising figures, his decreasing poll numbers in the early primary states and the lack of enthusiasm with which he is greeted by party activists all point to one thing that so far everyone has been too polite to say: Lieberman, despite his decency and his legislative record, has no chance of winning the presidency.
Though the conventional wisdom about Gephardt in January was that he was a has-been who had angered too many with his stance supporting the president on the Iraq war to be a serious contender, those actions look like they may matter less and less in the days ahead. The man simply never makes a rookie mistake. He's a pro. He's comfortable, he's smart, he knows every issue backward and forward, and he's been consistently good in every appearance that I've seen. In short, he's like an old friend who did something really annoying and who you cut out of your life for a few months, only to rediscover, upon seeing him again, why it is that you've been friends all these years.
On Wednesday he put forward some intriguing proposals, some nice anecdotes and generally speaking acquitted himself well. If there will be a slow and steady in this race, it will be Gephardt.
He also managed to take what should have been Edwards' best line -- about Bush being the beneficiary of "the oldest preferential legacy, the family legacy" -- even though Edwards was the first to make that attack, in a speech last winter that called for the elimination of legacy admissions to college.
Florida Sen. Bob Graham, as expected, was particularly well-spoken on foreign-policy issues. Like Gephardt and Kerry, he's a professional and therefore consistently articulate and reasoned. He'll need a breakout moment, though, if he's going to, um, break out from the pack, and Wednesday night wasn't it.
Former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun played the gracious gentlewoman, never raising her voice or speaking with too much passion. Prim as a schoolmarm with her hair slicked back, she reminded the crowd that she was "the only candidate in this race who has borne a child." Braun could potentially be an appealing protest candidate, though it seems unlikely that anyone would feel the need to cast a protest vote in a race with so many real choices. But when she said, "I am really proud to be a Democrat" up on stage with all the rest, because "we are touching on the issues" that matter, I couldn't help but be glad that she was up there, too.
Dean answered many questions charmlessly and exclaimed, "This is like being on Tim Russert's show!" when pressed on critical remarks he'd made some years ago about welfare reform and event host Marian Wright Edelman. But he finished off on a high note with what should become known as his "I am a liberal" speech. It was a thing of beauty and should be emblazoned across T-shirts, postcards and buttons in the year ahead. And I hope he puts it up on his campaign site as soon as possible, because I got so wrapped up in listening to him at that moment that for the first time all evening, I forgot to take notes.
Garance Franke-Ruta is a Prospect senior editor.
