The end of an era. A surefire sign that former Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.) successfully repositioned himself as a mainstream centrist (for at least one hour): A journalist attending yesterday's local, audio-only transmission of Dean's third major foreign-policy address, given in Los Angeles, was spotted falling asleep. As the afternoon sun poured into the National Press Club's First Amendment Lounge, a steady torpor crept across the seated Washington audience. Even a Dean supporter in the back of the room wearing an "I'm empowered by Howard Dean" button began to look anything but; his eyes glazed over and drooped shut while Dean's team of foreign-policy experts carried weightily on about the seriousness of the situation in Iraq. In short, Dean finally held his first true Washington event.
Perhaps, too, the foreign-policy speech finally signaled the emergence of the real Howard Dean. At least it was supposed to. Most of it was considered, careful, nuanced and detailed enough to be soporific -- the last being a characteristic of Dean's speechifying over the years in Vermont. But the two lines that made news from the speech not only weren't on the official text handed out to journalists, they undermined the carefully vetted nuance of what came before. "The capture of Saddam [Hussein] is a good thing," said Dean. "But the capture of Saddam has not made America safer." Dean had just said as much in the sentences that preceded this insertion, but in such a way that he did not open himself up to direct attacks: "The capture of Saddam does not end the administration's difficulties from the aftermath of the administration's war to oust him . Nor, as the president seemed to acknowledge yesterday, does Saddam's capture move us toward defeating enemies who pose an even greater danger: al-Qaeda and its terrorist allies."
All of which makes me wonder: Given all the grumbling from other campaigns about Dean's "flexibility," perhaps the real question is not, "Will the real Howard Dean please stand up?" -- as the Rev. Al Sharpton has asked -- or "which Howard Dean?" was endorsed by former Vice President Al Gore -- as Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) has. Rather, it is, "Will Dean be able to be flexible enough to adapt to the changing terrain before him as the campaign moves into both the homestretch and a post-Hussein world?" The problem, over time, may not be that Dean is too flexible and changeable but, rather, that he will not be changeable enough.
"You gotta understand: Howard is a Boy Scout and he's a real pragmatist -- be prepared, be practical. And he does whatever needs to be done in order to get the job done," one Vermonter who's known Dean for two decades told me earlier in the fall. "He's going to become president of the United States because he can mold himself into whatever he needs to be in order to get done what he needs to get done. Running for the presidency, he needed a whole different style and a whole different approach, and he's been able to do that." The question is whether he can keep evolving and really reposition himself as the more centrist figure he will need to be in order to win.
In particular, the self-originating spontaneity that's had made the Dean effort such a success is starting to become a bit of a problem, and the freedom that's characterized the campaign is becoming an issue. Already, the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign has turned last week's Dean campaign fund-raiser in New York -- where even Dean was incensed by some of the comments made by other speakers -- into campaign propaganda. George W. Bush's campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, sent out an e-mail to Bush supporters yesterday linking to a New York Post story on the subject and imploring backers to donate to compete with the "[l]iberal billionaire George Soros, who has compared President Bush to the Nazis" and to fight the "[a]nti-war comedians [who] gathered in New York to raise millions in campaign cash and make angry X-rated personal attacks on the President."
Everyone into the pool! Gore's surprise endorsement of Dean last week opened up a floodgate of donations and endorsements for the former governor -- and for the other candidates as well. News of Gore's endorsement conveniently happened to break the very afternoon U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), one of Dean's earliest congressional endorsers, was hitting the floor with her pro-Dean colleagues for one last pre-recess push to convince congressional fence-sitters who leaned Dean to back him officially. About 10 or 15 of them will soon be endorsing the former governor, said Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign manager. First up was Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), head of the Congressional Black Caucus, who threw his weight behind Dean in Georgia over the weekend. And now two more have endorsed Dean: Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) and Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.).
But for every political action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and already by the end of last week the other candidates' campaigns were whispering about the rise of a "Stop Gore" movement. "It's not as good a get as it was the day before they announced it," said an aide to one of Dean's competitors about the Gore endorsement. "What it's done is remind people of all the reasons they don't like Al Gore."
Indeed, even before Hussein's capture upped the intraparty criticism of Dean, the Gore endorsement looked certain to intensify attacks against the front-runner and strengthen his opponents even as it boosted Dean's support in the polls. Everyone who had been planning to wait a bit longer in the political season to make endorsements or donations is now being forced to take sides and lay his or her chits on the table -- weeks and maybe even months ahead of when he or she had planned to do so. Some former Gore donors and supporters who were going to wait until later to support a candidate are now talking about whether to back retired Gen. Wesley Clark right away. Other candidates have also seen supporters coming out of the woodwork. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) said the Gore endorsement spurred his current supporters -- and some former Gore donors -- to bequeath upon him an unexpected financial windfall and the best fund-raising day his campaign has had this quarter.
The endorsers are laying it all on the table, too. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the single most influential black politician in South Carolina, had long been expected to endorse fellow Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.). The Gore announcement forced his hand, and he thus endorsed Gephardt last Wednesday. On Thursday, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), a supporter of Clark's who had been waiting for the right moment to officially endorse, decided that moment is now. And on Friday, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) announced he would campaign in New Hampshire for Kerry. The candidates started bringing out their big guns.
Will it work? Post-Gore endorsement, Dean shot up 11 points in Iowa to 42 percent of likely voters, while Gephardt dropped 3 points to 23 percent in a Survey USA poll. And in a Rassmussen Reports head-to-head matchup between Dean and Gephardt, 43 percent of Iowa Democrats said they'd prefer Dean, who earned 32 percent support -- a jump of 7 points from the pre-endorsement numbers, "Stop Gore" grumbling be damned. "Does someone want to switch places with us?" asked Trippi at the New Hampshire debate in Durham of those who dismissed Gore's importance.
But the capture of Hussein may yet switch that answer from "yes" to "no."
The debate. After a year of having every misstep and malapropism cataloged and distributed to every consultant and colleague who can type "subscribe," the Democratic field lashed back at its great unifying enemy in the final debate last Tuesday night, sponsored by ABC News and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The candidates went after the press itself, and, more specifically, the portion of it that reposes at ABC News, producer of The Note -- which catalogs every tick and flicker in polls, momentum and endorsements -- and home of debate moderator Ted Koppel. The post-debate wisdom among the candidates' staffers in the spin room went like this: The "Dustup in Durham" was the second ABC debate (the first was the "Collision in Columbia," South Carolina, last May) that led candidates right into a thicket of insidery questions likely to be more of interest to the so-called Gang of 500 than the average New Hampshire voter. It's got to be something about ABC, said the staffers. Or maybe it's just, as one quipped, that Ted Koppel is no Mark Halperin.
Otherwise, the last officially DNC-sanctioned debate of the year was notable chiefly for its comity. "I love [Sen.] John Edwards [D-N.C.]," declared Kerry. "I agree with Howard Dean," said Edwards early on, later adding at one point, "What Gov. Dean said about George Bush and what he's doing to keep ordinary people's voices from being heard in Washington is correct." Dean himself started off the love-in by declaring, "I think John Edwards is right." Though offered plenty of opportunities to go after front-runner Dean, the rest of the gang largely declined to launch novel assaults upon him in New Hampshire and instead simply ran out the clock.
Afterward, everyone insisted that whatever strife there is will last only until the nominee is selected. "Primaries are about differentiation," said Steve Elmendorf, chief of staff for Gephardt, whose campaign has been responsible for most of the criticisms of Dean that have caused the former governor difficulty. "At the end of the day the party -- particularly, I think, this election -- the party will be more unified than ever. The intensity in the party of feeling about beating George Bush is such that I don't think there will be any problem unifying the party."
Was it something in the New Hampshire water? Debate fatigue? The debate setup? Or perhaps, despite protestations to the contrary, Gore's admonition to cool it might have had a one-day impact? "We don't have the luxury of fighting among ourselves," said the former vice president, announcing his endorsement of Dean that morning. But longer term, the Gore endorsement seems to have simply sped up the pace and intensity of the anti-Dean attacks.
These attacks will be especially awkward for Dean because, while he is inarguably the front-runner and well-placed in Iowa and New Hampshire, his path through the primaries that follow those two early contests is less assured. That means that he'll be under attack from the first moment folks are conscious of him in some states, and that he won't have any time to define himself strictly on his own terms, as he did in Iowa and New Hampshire. Further, the attacks from the self-styled centrist Democrats have increasingly aped the critiques Dean faces from the Republican side of the aisle. Which means that Dean's in the especially awkward position of effectively having to fight off general election-style nastiness before winning a single primary.
