Another thing I'd like to add is that I love the title card, lol.
The Windows 98 aesthetic really brings everything together.
The Windows 98 aesthetic really brings everything together.
All the Way to Washington: Howard Dean and the Fight to Take Back America
- Thread starter Oliveia
- Start date
PART 1: WE HAVE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT
PART I:
WE HAVE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT
"We will not quit now or ever. We’ll earn our country back for ordinary Americans."
- Howard Dean
- Howard Dean
With special thanks to @Sweet Basil for recreating the donkey-and-rider-body in Inkscape
Chapter 1.1: Why Not?
Chapter 1.1:
Why Not?
Why Not?
“Howard will win. He is smarter than
everybody else, he works harder than
everybody else, and he's luckier
than everybody else.”
- Unnamed gubernatorial advisor
everybody else, he works harder than
everybody else, and he's luckier
than everybody else.”
- Unnamed gubernatorial advisor
September 5, 2001
Governor Howard Dean stood before the Vermont State House, gold-domed and white-walled. In front of him the loyal press corps of the second-smallest state in the Union. The weather was a little bit warmer than average, a few overdressed journalists awkwardly adjusting ever-so-slightly hot collars. Governor Dean would not run for reelection in 2002.
His reasoning was simple—time. He had been Governor of Vermont since 1991, the longest serving governor in the state’s history (well, if ignoring Vermont’s brief period of post-Revolution independence; then the honor would go to one Thomas Chittenden). “The baton has to be passed some time,” he said—why not now? He had won, after all. He prided himself—and would continue to for years to come—for fulfilling the tropes of public office: he balanced the budgets, conserved hundreds of thousands of forested acres of the Green Mountain State, helmed a healthcare program that provided coverage for over 90% of Vermont children. He had fought controversies and won them, wrangled a General Assembly that in equal parts respected him and hated working with him.
So, what was next? Dean himself dismissed the chance of returning to his previous line of work as a physician: “Twelve years is a long time to be away from medicine.” A senate run in 2006? The presidency in 2004? He was mum on the next step, but stressed concerns with Bush’s attempts to hammer through a trillion-plus dollar tax cut [1].
Kate O’Connor had a good idea what was next for Dean, though. She was a bit of an everywoman—aide, advisor, confidant, and friend in equal measure. She had been with him since he first was hoisted into the position of Governor following the death of his predecessor, and was herself the daughter of a one-time candidate for the gubernatorial slot and the first Democratic speaker of the house [2]. She knew which way Dean was considering because she had been there when he considered it—he first confided in her shortly after his contentious reelection in 2000 about his pondering of running in the next presidential election [3]. And, hell, many of the veteran Vermont journalists knew which way the wind was blowing, too: they remembered ‘97.
Back in 1997, Howard Dean was the Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, and although a single-year position he still took it seriously, criss-crossing the country to speak to governors, gubernatorial hopefuls, the works. And somewhere along the airplane seats and dinner parties, a bug bit him: the presidential bug. The truth slipped through the cracks, at some point—a desire to run for president in 2000. (Some conspiracy theorists would go so far as to say that Al Gore leaked that information to the press, to get another nuisance out of his hair [4].) Dean had denied interest at the time, especially as the story was picked up as a novelty among news-hungry journalists with an eye set towards an upcoming presidential primary likely to be a coronation for V.P. Gore. This denial, however, had more to do with home than abroad—in Vermont, the idea of Governor Dean stepping up as a presidential contender briefly did damage on his approval ratings. It simply wasn’t the right time [5]. But now, though… why not?
Dean hadn’t fully committed himself to a presidential run, of course, but he was starting to warm up to the idea over the months. Kate O’Connor knew this as well, because she was there when he first had begun window shopping for a campaign manager, only months after his reelection in 2000.
It was April 7th. The office of Trippi, McMahon, and Squier was a suite large, beige building in a neighborhood otherwise comprising of beautiful brick-faced houses [6]. Up to the third floor Governor Dean and Kate O’Connor went, to visit political wunderkind Mike Ford—a suggestion from Steve McMahon, one of the namesakes of the consulting firm. McMahon had a long past working with Dean during his gubernatorial reelections, and a trusted ally within the governor’s circle of friends. As they approached Suite 350 and knocked on the door, Mike Ford opened. Heavyset and bespectacled, Mike was dressed unexpectedly: a baseball cap on his balding head, a comfy enough sweater and some khaki pants. He made no attempt at small talk, and their first meeting was more a two-hour debate between the Governor and the Consultant, about any policy position the Consultant could think of [7]. (Ford got a distant look in his eye when Dean denounced the Bush tax cuts so fervently—as if he was being visited by the Ghost of Mondale Yet-to-Come.) After that grilling, Dean and Ford agreed to get back in touch in half a year, to see just how serious Dean was.
Now, six months—nearly to the day!—later, it certainly seemed like Howard was serious. And that made Kate uncomfortable. As they walked back from the press conference, she felt her stomach drop lower and lower. Howard, bless him, seemed to notice. “Worried?”
“I suppose,” Kate said. “It’s just—bittersweet, leaving all of this behind.” She gestured vaguely to the Pavillion, the complex housing the Governor’s office, only a minute away from the State House. Dean nodded—a little quickly, as if if he thought too long on the choice his chipper demeanor would crack. Instead he said simply, with a heavy dosage of hope: “It’s not the end! It’s just the beginning” [8].
November 15, 2001
Dean had committed himself to a run. He had no true campaigning apparatus behind him—he had a PAC, sure, “Fund for a Healthy America.” That was a week old and had no money to it, though. He wanted it to be important, though, to support politicians who espoused “the principles of fiscal stability, universal health insurance, better environmental protection and equality for all Americans” [9]. That’s what he had written down on a notecard on Kate’s desk a week previous. And, yes, that described him to a tee. But perhaps it could be something bigger—he had envisioned it as a sort of training ground for himself, to build up credentials and maybe even generate some name recognition.
That was not why he was in Washington, D.C., though. His purpose here was simple—to come out of the closet, so to speak, to Vermont’s two senators. Although speculation of a potential presidential run had slowly started swelling in the Vermont news circuit and into some of the national papers, he hadn’t made anything official yet. With Senators like Joe Lieberman, Tom Daschle, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and John Edwards all considered viable candidates (presuming Al Gore’s will-he-won’t-he speculations ended in a negative), Dean considered it important to tell “his guys” in the Senate where his mind was. Not to change their minds, obviously, but to give them the fuller picture—they might prefer to endorse Dean over Daschle, who was to say?
Jim Jeffords was amicable, nodding along as Dean explained his goals. The recent turncoat, the Republican-turned-Independent, he seemed to understand what Dean wanted—power. No, not like a dictator—like the captain of a ship. Jeffords had taken the reigns of his fate, taken the balance of the Senate with him. Dean wanted something like that for the country. Well, probably not the country. The party though, definitely the party.
Patrick Leahy, too, seemed receptive to the idea of Dean running. He nodded along, made idle chit-chat on the topic, made a joke or two. But as Dean and Kate chatted, they were interrupted by a cough. Luke Albee, Leahy’s tall goateed chief of staff, interrupted the conversation. “Are you kidding?” he asked, putting to words the invisible thoughts of everyone who knew of Dean’s aspirations [10]. “You have, from what I can tell, no money. And I know you don’t have name recognition.”
“Um,” Dean managed before Albee cut him off again. “I just don’t know if you’re joking or if you’ve lost it.”
“Why not both?” Dean said with a wisecrack smile. “I mean, with the way the country’s going, I think a guy who’s lost it is the perfect candidate!” Everyone in the room had a good chuckle about that.
Getting out of Vermont was a bit of a trouble for Governor Dean. As his desire to work towards that seemingly impossible finish line hardened, he started to feel trapped in the Green Mountains. Using Fund for a Healthy America he was able to cross the Atlantic to discuss AIDS at an international conference [11], but state-to-state was a lot more difficult. Slipping across the border to New Hampshire was one thing, but New Hampshire wasn’t the first big showing of the Democratic primary season—Iowa was. But early 2002 brought him the first members of the Dean coalition: Docs. He got a letter from an Iowa hopeful, a physician, asking Dean how he used his career in health to aid his career in politics. She had just wanted written pointers, but he eagerly phoned her, saying he would be more than happy to help her in-person [12]. Get some time to scope out the Hawkeye State in the process, too.
But, through this all, as he began to campaign more visibly (his previous trips to New Hampshire were a sort of invisible campaigning, relegated to donor meetings and conversations with state candidates) and as he began to campaign more fervently, he was running up against a problem—organizational issues. Despite making the rounds in Iowa and New Hampshire—and, shortly thereafter, beginning to show up down south in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas [13]—he didn’t have a campaign manager. He had talked with Mike Ford on and off, absolutely, but he still didn’t really mesh well with the guy. Ford was abrasive, knew a lot but didn’t like to teach. He was used to working for heavyweight champions, not struggling newbies who needed to be shown the ropes. But, Steve McMahon trusted him—gave him rave reviews whenever the conversation arose—so it was only a matter of time before Dean settled with the guy. Not without hurting some feelings, though.
Unbeknownst to Dean, there was an entire campaigner culture that the Vermont governor had never seen. The Governor and soon-to-be Manager did meet up, February 8 of 2002, for breakfast at the Sheraton Hotel of Burlington. As O’Connor would later describe: “According to Howard, he asked Mike to manage the campaign. According to Mike, he didn’t” [14]. Within the ecosystem of managers and staffers and campaigners, there was a complicated romance that Candidate and Manager needed to perform, a sort of mating ritual. Dean, though, had ignored the proper decorum—saw the position as a job, not a commitment. Joe Trippi, friend and coworker to Mike, told O’Connor that asking someone to chair a campaign was like trying to hook up with them. (This metaphor O’Connor would sanitize into “marriage” in later retellings [15].) According to Trippi, Dean was supposed to bring Mike through first and second base before he could score. The crudeness of the metaphor, plus the perceived disparity between the campaigner reality and the envisioned one by Governor Dean, created an awkward scenario. Ford would continue to haunt the campaign like an estranged lover, never quite reaching the mantel of campaign manager but, being the closest anyone could come to that position for the time being, continued to act as if he was. It was an unfortunate situation that neither party had a real answer to.
News wasn’t all down for Dean, though. While technically manager-less, Fund for a Healthy America had managed to slowly rake up dough. It was modest amounts, but for a PAC with two members and no high-tech machinery beyond manila folders and a decade of connections, the meager earnings of some $110,000 dollars made Dean and O’Connor proud—proud enough to eschew the courting of Mike Ford, at least [16]. ($110,000 seemed like nothing to cough at for the layman, but in the greased machine of national politics it was basically chump change.)
Mike Ford, though, still begrudgingly tried to help. Why was anyone’s guess—maybe it was for want of a paycheck; maybe he saw something in Howard Dean that nobody saw yet. Most likely, it was because Steve McMahon kept asking so nicely of him.
Sorry, Steve, Mike probably said some time. It’s not happening.
March 5, 2002
“Look,” Mike Ford said with an exasperated sigh, “I really think we should get on this.” It was a conference call—Ford, McMahon, and Trippi on one side, Kate O’Connor and Howard Dean on the other. (Sue Allen and Sarah Buxton, Dean’s press secretary and scheduler, respectively, also listened in.) Mike was making his major pitch, the first big publicity stunt—netting the endorsement of Denzel Washington in his new movie, John Q [17]. “I mean, look. This movie—it’s practically made for your message! I mean, the movie is about the healthcare system and all its injustice! Get his—Washington’s—endorsement, and then you can embark on a grand tour together, screening this big provocative movie and spreading the word that, hey, here’s this guy running for president!” If Mike knew that the movie was getting slammed by the movie-going crowd, with Variety’s Todd McCarthy labeling it as “blatant political propaganda” for a Hollywood major motion picture [18], then he made no mention. Hell, if he did know, then the logic probably followed the old motto—any publicity is good publicity.
From their side of the room, Kate gave a glance over to Howard. He looked uncomfortable—Mike had made these proposals before, a couple weeks previous, and a noncommittal response on the Vermont side of things got the topic kicked down the road. Kate had hoped it’d be postponed indefinitely, but evidently not. She nodded to Howard, and coughed a little to gain the attention of the consultants on the other side of the line. “No,” she said bluntly. “We’re not going with the John Q. plan. It’s—demeaning! Howard doesn’t need to prove himself on the healthcare front. He’s a doctor. He fought for this here in Vermont. We don’t need to prove any of this stuff, the record speaks for itself!”
Ford, on the other end, felt something come dangerously close to snapping inside him. He muttered to the half-interested Trippi next to him, “Fuckin’ amateurs,” before he addressed the phone in his normal speaking tone. “The issue, Ms. O’Connor,” he grumbled, putting weighty emphasis on the name, “is that—respectfully—nobody goddamn knows who the Governor is. This is about sending your message out.” He enunciated syllables like he was explaining it to toddlers—frankly, because he felt like he was.
Kate made a noise of defiance from her end, but with that laying down of the battlefield the conversation more-or-less ended. Ford and Dean attempted, lightly, to continue the regular meeting but the air of hostility was just too much. The conversation was curt and strictly professional, and ended far before it was scheduled to. Turning to Trippi, Mike aired those built-up grievances: “This job is goddamn impossible—everyone is too green up there!” [19]
He paused for a minute, and then wisecracked to Trippi: “Hey, wanna tap in for me here?”
“Go fuck yourself, Mike,” his coworker responded, a smile and joking expression belying a genuine sort of venom in his voice. “I’d rather kill myself.”
Ford tapped out. He sent an email out to the Dean team shortly afterwards announcing his leaving from the “Starship Howard” [20]. But that didn’t mean things were all downhill for Dean—there was still hope! Dean would continue to receive requests for campaign appearances, especially in Iowa where he would be invited to motivate his base of “the gay… community and doctors” [21]. But his reach was going farther. He was visiting Minneapolis and Boston. And in Boston was where he would woo his first powerful supporter, an honest-to-god party bigwig.
Steven Grossman was not a household name by any stretch of the imagination, but to party insiders he was a familiar face; he was a former National Chair of the Democratic National Committee, serving under Clinton in the second half of the ‘90s. Too, Democrats in Massachusetts would be familiar with the name—he was campaigning for governor, seeking to succeed ever-unpopular incumbent Jane Swift (so unpopular that she had been overthrown by the State Republicans in favor of one-time Senate candidate and GOP dynast Mitt Romney). So insider-friendly was Grossman that, before he dropped out of the governor race, Bill Clinton himself had endorsed him (a slight against rebellious ex-cabinet member Robert Reich).
As a Massachusetts politico, the record would seem to indicate that Steve was going to back likely contender John Kerry—a man he had endorsed in past. However, Steve had expressed interest in Dean’s campaign, and had even asked to meet the “brain trust” and discuss the campaign’s message and progress with them. The fact that the Howard Dean campaign did not actually have a brain trust didn’t seem to deter him, though that may have been because another friend and aide of Dean, Bob Rogan, agreed to meet Steve with both Dean and O’Connor [22].
Although his polling stayed firmly at 2%, Dean still felt like there was upward momentum to it. 2% was small, yes, absolutely, but it wasn’t nothing—especially for the governor of such a small state. In June, he would receive the first magazine headlines about him, although calling him the “Invisible Man” perhaps was not the most glowing endorsement from The New Republic (it did call him “The Most Intriguing… Candidate You’ve Never Seen,” at least) [23]. Still, it engendered in Dean a sort of self-assuredness, as he began to see himself as a figure who could, at least, bring change to the Party he so loved that seemed to be kowtowing on most issues day by day. Someone had to stick it to the man, and why couldn’t that be Dean?
July 18, 2002
Terry McAuliffe was visiting Vermont. Not for Dean—not really—more to bump shoulders for a state fundraiser, as was his prerogative as Chair of the Democratic National Committee. It just so happened that Howard Dean, in his capacity as the Democratic governor of the Green Mountain State, was there too.
They weren’t unacquainted. McAuliffe and Dean had met back in March, part of the formalities of a speech Dean was invited to give to the nations’ Democratic attorneys general. As Howard approached Terry, he vaguely remembered a little nugget of information a staffer had told Kate back in March—that when Terry asked a room full of college Democrats who they preferred, they overwhelmingly backed one Howard Dean [24].
The two hit it off well enough, chatting in the middle of this fundraising event. They had plenty in common, after all—both found their political starts on the back of Jimmy Carter’s 1980 reelection run; McAuliffe becoming a Carter financial director, Dean becoming a delegate to the 1980 Democratic National Convention. The topic, then, naturally floated to the current election cycle—more specifically, the big one right around the corner. “Found any luck, Governor?” Terry asked with a smile. He wasn’t intimately familiar with the troubles of the fledgling campaign-to-be, but it wasn’t hard to guess. Howard returned back with a grin, “We’re trying like hell!”
“Well, listen Governor,” Terry said. “This is something I’ve been saying to everyone expressing interest—don’t take it personal.” Howard’s eyebrows knitted together a little with concern. “I need you to know that we will be expecting you to drop out, by—well, you know how the schedule is?” It was a rhetorical question, anyone paying attention to the primaries had paid some comment on the schedule—in a word, breakneck. Twenty-odd primaries in the month between Iowa and the start of Super Tuesday; then a Super Tuesday of an extra dozen states. With that level of front-loading, the primaries would likely be over by the first week of March [25]. For that reason, after the Governor’s courtesy nod, Terry continued: “Well, by March 10, if you’re not the nominee, you get out” [26]. Howard’s concern did not evaporate, and after a second to swallow the information, his chin disappeared into his neck and he gave a somewhat stern “No.”
“What?”
“Well, my thinking is this: sometimes you nominate somebody because he’s the favorite and has lots of money and then you have buyer’s remorse. Remember back in ‘76, when they had those Anybody-But-Carter guys? Jerry Brown, Frank Church, how they got a second wind because people weren’t feeling too hot about Jimmy Carter anymore? That’s how I see myself.”
And Terry just kind of stared, almost in awe. It’s gonna be a long primary.
But was Dean going to be the buyer’s remorse candidate? Even he wasn’t too sure. The cards were against him, absolutely. Even a blind man could see that. But that didn’t stop that little part of him from hoping. The buyer’s remorse candidate wasn’t the first guy to hop in—even the archetype Dean cited, Jerry Brown, lost to Carter in part because he waited too long to hop in the race. Buyer’s remorse candidates typically were conscripted, not actively hungry for it; they were dragged into it, not willingly criss-crossing the country to impress state party leaders and rally support.
He was getting his hopes up. The asterisk wanted to be treated like a serious contender, despite it all. He sat with no campaign manager, with an atrophying apparatus, and a support base that was more of a hypothetical than a voting bloc. But, there was still that promise. Deep down inside, despite the sheer immense impossibility of it all, he still wanted to win—to become president. He didn’t want to be the next Jerry Brown, the next Frank Church; he wanted to be the next Jimmy Carter. The underdog, the no-name, who came out of nowhere and despite all odds and a party that turned his back on him, still won out at the end. He kept campaigning, visiting states in almost a frenzy. He just needed an opening.
Priorities were different between the two camps in the campaign—the battle lines forming between O’Connor and McMahon & Co. Their next steps seemed unclear; was it fundraising or was it organization? Dean and O’Connor wanted a manager, someone who’d help man the storm. They thought they had found the guy, in the form of Rick Ridder. Ridder was a consultant from Colorado, who’d worked for a laundry list of campaigns—including consulting both Gary Hart and Al Gore in ‘88. The Vermont duo had approached Ridder without consulting McMahon, but when they returned with a strong maybe they met resistance from McMahon, who felt that manager hunting was a waste of time when Howard Dean was still lagging miles behind in terms of funding. Wait until 2003, he had urged, that’s when having a manager would really matter [27]. Although Dean would get Ridder to move up to Vermont and chair the campaign in November of ‘02. Only a week later, Steve Grossman finally came out to wholly endorse the Vermont governor—an endorsement that, to Dean’s delight, was almost something of a snipe at John Kerry [28]. Even though in the grand scheme of things it seemed a ripple, to the small-time governor of a small-time state it felt gargantuan, a massive shift of the tides. He just needed an opening—and soon he’d get one.
It was December 15, 2002 and Howard was so kinetic that despite being buckled into a car Vermont-bound, he seemed to be pacing excitedly. While doing his rounds in a New Hampshire restaurant reception, there came a new revelation that would permanently upset the landscape of 2004—it had to do with Vice President Al Gore. Any liberal would talk about the stolen election of 2000 at the drop of a hat. It was the great specter that haunted Liberal America—that that damned Dubya, with the help of his cunning brother Jeb, had disenfranchised would-be Democrats and then stopped Gore from recounting the Florida ballots with Supreme assistance. In the two years since it had formed the cornerstone of liberal mythos. He had won the popular vote, after all!
Because of this, Gore was seen as the shoo-in for the ‘04 nomination. The field was still buzzing with potential candidates, absolutely—the least of which was Governor Dean, who didn’t particularly mind one way or the other if Gore dipped his toes in. And, for his part, Gore did tip his toes in the pool. But he seemed to think the water was too cold, because he went onto 60 Minutes to announce he wasn’t going to run.
Although Dean hadn’t cared one way or the other, Gore not running was objectively a great thing—it freed up a lot of would-be endorsers and allies. Dean, on a ninety-minute return trip to Vermont, spent every moment glued to the phone, calling whatever numbers he could for the press and for Iowa [29]. To a CNN journalist, he stated his mind simply: “What [dropping out] does is make sure there's no front-runner” [30]. What Dean didn’t tell that journalist was that there was a beautiful quirk of scheduling—he and Kate had already planned to spend a few days out in Iowa, and Gore tapping out right before made the prospects of backing Dean seem ever-so-slightly more feasible. There was movement under the surface, he just needed a chance to break through the murky depths.
February 21, 2003
Speaking at the Democratic National Committee was going to be tough—though it obviously was not the only important speech that Dean had given in the invisible primary; already he had generated some attention the month prior at the Roe v. Wade anniversary dinner, hosted by NARAL-Pro Choice America. There he had talked about abortion rights, his experience as a physician, and told a story about a young girl who was getting an abortion who might have been being sexually abused by her father—the kind of heavy, uncomfortable situation that Republicans like George W. Bush skirted around when they talked about parental consent, said Dean. (He would have to backtrack that story in future, as in reality the girl’s father did not turn out to have been responsible for the pregnancy. It was not a lie outright, rather one by omission [31].)
This was different. NARAL-Pro Choice America was a major part of the Democratic Party, absolutely—but now Dean would be sharing a stage with McAuliffe, with House Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi, with other parts of the DNC machinery. This was him actually platforming, getting out and reaching out to the Democrats who hadn’t been loitering around Iowa and New Hampshire on the prowl for presidents-to-be. This wasn’t about an issue, this was about all of the issues. It was about, fundamentally, why Howard Dean should be president. Obviously, Dean had to touch on the biggest defining things—in particular, healthcare, his bread-and-butter. As strategists and campaigners huddled around the hotel room with half an hour to go, ever-orbiting Joe Trippi finally piped up with a suggestion. “I’ve been walking around, talking to these DNC members for a couple days. They’re waiting for someone to walk up to that podium and ask What the fuck is going on here? What the fuck happened to our party?” [32]
Though Dean would not use that kind of language, the sentiments became a core part of the argument. He walked on stage to the music, in his pocket a few pieces of scrap paper with bullet points jotted down. Standing at the podium, he started by stating his hopes that the fine guests were enjoying “the maple syrup and the cheese and all that stuff” that had been set up by Dean staffers at the last minute, sparser than the robust gifts of Kerry and Lieberman, the previous candidates to speak. It also served as a reminder to those who hadn’t found the goodie bags yet, a subtle nudge for those interested after his speech. As he walked onto the stage, a crowd of young Dean followers loudly made their presence known by chanting long and hard; spelling his name, calls and responses, whatever it took to generate the attention needed to sustain this underdog.
With the introductory fluff about the goodies out of the way, Dean immediately jumped into the heart of his candidacy. “What I want to know is why in the world the Democratic Party leadership is supporting the president's unilateral attack on Iraq.” And down the list Dean went. Tax cuts, healthcare, No Child Left Behind (legislation that instead left “every child behind, every teacher behind, every school board behind and every property taxpayer behind”). He discussed depressed turnout in the young but also the old as well. And with a proud proclamation, and a nifty repurchasing of a late senator’s old expression: “I’m here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.”
He transitioned to his fiscal conservatism, stating proudly that while Governor of Vermont, he balanced the budget of the state—no thanks to the “two Bush recessions—that’s what they were!” He extolled the Democrats as the party of fiscal restraint and rejuvenation, noting that “Republicans cannot manage money,” noting that they hadn’t balanced a budget in over thirty years. That, as governor—and being the only governor in the Democratic primary to that point—his ability to balance the budget was a unique accomplishment (with a grin, he added that “In Texas, the lieutenant governor's in charge of balancing the budget”). He moved onto healthcare, proudly proclaiming that in Vermont virtually every American under the age of 18 had health insurance, that he had made Medicaid a “middle-class entitlement,” and if only he were elected to that highest office in the land, he would finish the battle that President Truman started: “bring[ing] health insurance to every man, woman and child in America!” He talked about environmental protection, railed against Bush’s statements about racial quotas (he would talk about race in the election, he said, because the Republicans had been using race to galvanize racial resentments since Richard Nixon). He promised to be the candidate for everyone, even “White folks in the South who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals in the back,” who should still be Democrats, “because their kids don't have health insurance either! And their kids need better schools too!” As the audience applause continued, loud and long on the back of Dean’s passionate declarations, he kept the energy up by promising “We’re not done yet, rah!”
He talked about his work promoting civil unions, giving gay couples the same legal rights and protections that heterosexual couples got through marriage. How that was unpopular, 60% against—but he never thought about it like that. “I never got a chance to ask myself whether it was a good idea to sign this bill or not. Because I knew that if I were willing to sell out the rights of a whole group of people because it was politically inconvenient for some future office I might run for, then I had wasted my time in public service.”
Dean was not running for himself, he was running for change. He had always been a candidate for change, even back in Vermont. And the first stop, he said, was the Democratic Party. “This party needs to look in the mirror, and ask itself if it’s about the next election or if it’s about changing America?” The audience roared. He went further. Starting—stopping as the audience’s ovation continued—starting—stopping (and he punctuated this one with a point to the audience, bellowing a proud “I know!”). Finally, the audience quieted. He continued—changing the party, finding itself, that was the way back to the White House. And here, feeling the energy of the audience, his voice rose to a crescendo: “I want a party that stands unashamedly for equal rights for all Americans! I want a party that stands unashamedly for health care for single American!” Chasing the emotion, he started tripping over his words, all the hopes and dreams for the Democratic Party temporarily tying his tongue while the audience roared in approval. Those dreams spilled out, faster and faster. “I want a party that stands unashamedly for balanced budgets and taking care of poor kids and voting together and healing the divides,” (his voice cracked here, slightly, almost like these wants were too powerful for his voice to contain them,) “instead of expressing the divides and exploiting them the way the Republican Party has so shamelessly done since 1968!”
And the audience erupted once more in another round of applause. Winding down, he stated the next steps simply—he needed help. The help of the Democratic voter. And with that help, “We're going to bring hope to America! Jobs to America! Peace to America! We're going to bring pride to the Democratic Party!” As he waved goodbye to the crowd, again on their feet as the candidate began to leave—the diehards in the back chanting HOW-WARD DEAN, HOW-WARD DEAN, HOW-WARD DEAN—he had excised himself from the margins [33]. Asterisk no more, the speech would become the first thing pointing the media’s attention in the direction of the no-name Vermont ex-governor.
Dean had been staring at the crowd, internalizing his hastily-drawn bullet points as he rattled through his powerful condemnation of The Way Things Were. O’Connor wasn’t, though. Trippi wasn’t, either. And they both saw that which Dean had only seen from the periphery. That look in the eyes. The way that Chairman McAuliffe swallowed as he stood up to applaud with the crowd while Dean was calling him Republican-Lite. The way he nervously nodded along when the audience roared. The hesitation in his applause. The nerves, the fear, and one single phrase carved into his face: Oh, he’s a fighter.
[1] “Vermont Governor Won’t Seek Re-election,” Fox Butterfield of the New York Times; Sept. 6, 2001.
[2] “Kate O’Connor, former Dean advisor, eyes House seat,” Olga Peters of the Commons News; May 30, 2012.
[3] Do The Impossible: My Crash Course on Presidential Politics Inside the Howard Dean Campaign by Kate O’Connor, pp. 7.
[4] Burning at the Grassroots: Inside the Dean Machine by Dana Dunnan, pp. 65.
[5] O’Connor, pp. 7.
[6] Yes, this seems entirely innocuous but I had to hunt for twenty minutes to find out where McMahon, Squier & Associates (as it was later known) was located. Thank you to the Internet Archive for preserving the MSA website!
[7] O’Connor, pp. 12.
[8] O’Connor, pp. 13.
[9] O’Connor, pp. 14-15.
[10] O’Connor, pp. 16.
[11] Ibid.
[12] O’Connor, pp. 24.
[13] O’Connor, pp. 38.
[14] O’Connor, pp. 28.
[15] Ibid.
[16] O’Connor, pp. 21.
[17] O’Connor, pp. 41.
[18] “John Q.,” Todd McCarthy of Variety; Feb. 7, 2002.
[19] The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything by Joe Trippi, pp. 68.
[20] O’Connor, pp. 42.
[21] O’Connor, pp. 43.
[22] O’Connor, pp. 48.
[23] O’Connor, pp. 52 & 475.
[24] O’Connor, pp. 42.
[25] One-Car Caravan: On The Road With The 2004 Democrats Before America Tunes In by Walter Shapiro, pp. 145.
[26] Ibid.
[27] O’Connor, pp. 73.
[28] O’Connor, pp. 74.
[29] O’Connor, pp. 76.
[30] “Gore says he won’t run in 2004,” John King and Dana Bash of CNN; Dec. 16, 2002.
[31] Shapiro, pp. 173.
[32] Trippi, pp. 66.
[33] Speech wording and audience reaction adapted from C-SPAN coverage and speech transcript provided by the Washington Post.
Welp, now that I finally finished that chapter I can reply to all the fine folks here!
I won't get too further into it, for obvious reasons, but West's pretty on the ball here.
Now, the million dollar question: When's Chapter 2?
Answer? I have no idea. This chapter is kind of weird, honestly -- it's the most breakneck-paced chapter in my mental map, and it spans the longest period. Chapter 2, meanwhile, is probably only going to be the span of a couple months. I suspect Chapter 2 will, to degrees, be easier for me to write. It's way narrower in scope. That being said, my next semester is starting up tomorrow -- this means, in all honesty, that Chapter 2 could take anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months to finish, based on passion, attention, and procrastination.
Now that the chapter's up, I'll be a bit more talkative in-thread, ha.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. W. definitely seems to be piquing interest in the early-2000s again, which I'm very grateful for! I've played it a fair bit, it's really good -- I didn't get it at first, but the more I understood it to be more about the culture of the early-2000s than a realistic exploration of a Bush Without 9/11, it definitely warmed on me a ton! Exceptional work to those devs.
Oh it was a whole thing, yeah. Let me put it this way: It was easier to game out Dean winning the general election than it was to game out him winning the nomination. Granted, this is because I didn't want to change foreign events around too much. If Saddam avoids capture it would've been a lot easier, but that's not quite the direction we're going -- you'll see
As you can now see, since Chapter 1 is up -- the POD is firmly within 2003. The Democrats winning 2002 is absolutely a fascinating TL idea, but it doesn't quite fit my vision. I'll get into some more examples elsewhere, where good ideas popped up but felt too distant from the goal of Dean winning. And if the Democrats grew a backbone in the early-2000s, then there really wouldn't be a need for a Dean, would there?
I won't get too further into it, for obvious reasons, but West's pretty on the ball here.
Aw, thank you so much! It was one of the first things I really finished for this, ha! And thank you all for the congrats, well wishes, and screams!
Now, the million dollar question: When's Chapter 2?
Answer? I have no idea. This chapter is kind of weird, honestly -- it's the most breakneck-paced chapter in my mental map, and it spans the longest period. Chapter 2, meanwhile, is probably only going to be the span of a couple months. I suspect Chapter 2 will, to degrees, be easier for me to write. It's way narrower in scope. That being said, my next semester is starting up tomorrow -- this means, in all honesty, that Chapter 2 could take anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months to finish, based on passion, attention, and procrastination.
Now that the chapter's up, I'll be a bit more talkative in-thread, ha.
Yep! Republican Jim Douglas beat both Democrat Doug Racine and Republican-turned-Independent "Con" Hogan!
Figured that someone else probably got the job. Nice to see confirmation.
There's really nothing like a chapter with thirty-three footnotes.
Glad Dean didn't go with the John Q plan - that seems like it would have been disastrous once he got to the general election and had to clarify he did not, in fact, support taking hostages as a route to healthcare reform.
Would I be correct in saying that the PoD has not happened yet?
Glad Dean didn't go with the John Q plan - that seems like it would have been disastrous once he got to the general election and had to clarify he did not, in fact, support taking hostages as a route to healthcare reform.
Would I be correct in saying that the PoD has not happened yet?
The John Q. plan is so funny to me. Both Ford and O'Connor were 100% right and 100% wrong it's incredible.
Indeed you would be! There will be a minor POD in Chapter 2 -- something with no connection to Dean and more just to create some interesting dynamics once we get to the Dean Presidency. The real POD is gonna be in Chapter 3, methinks, and I'll draw close attention to it.
sellout #NotMyCandidate
Good stuff so far--the combination of enthusiasm, optimism, and inexperienced ineptitude in actually campaigning does really highlight the similarities with Carter. Excited to see how we get over the detriments.
Enjoying this so far. Very interested to see where this timeline goes. Can't wait for the next chapter
Honestly I do feel a little bad about this, but also O'Connor's memoir is the most detail-heavy account of Howard Dean's activities before Joe Trippi became campaign manager, so....
Oh, it was definitely a decently big deal. Gore was an odds-on favorite for 2004 -- enough so that Joe Lieberman held off on campaigning until Gore officially announced he wasn't running. This isn't a big deal, but after Gore endorsed Dean it came up at the only interesting Democratic debate.
Brilliantly written! Love all the details you included. Can't wait for the next update 🙂👍
Deeply ashamed to have missed this on Saturday, only to have to wait at minimum another two years for chapter 2 - tragic. All the same it’s a delightful start with all the minute detail promised and more, hyped for Jimmy Carter‘s second, equally doomed, term!
@Oliveia
Excellent opening, captures the positives and the negatives of Dean and introduces his character in a strong and fun manner.
It’s kind of funny how Dean campaigned as this Populist type figure with a message that also includes Fiscal Conservativism, the 00s were a strange time. Additionally, I do wonder if we’ll see more Colorado/Southern West stuff because I can see Dean’s message resonating with that wing of the party (Wellington Webb making an appearance?)
Excellent opening, captures the positives and the negatives of Dean and introduces his character in a strong and fun manner.
It’s kind of funny how Dean campaigned as this Populist type figure with a message that also includes Fiscal Conservativism, the 00s were a strange time. Additionally, I do wonder if we’ll see more Colorado/Southern West stuff because I can see Dean’s message resonating with that wing of the party (Wellington Webb making an appearance?)