Howard Dean made the cover of Newsweek, Jan. 12 issue

WilliamPitt

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Mon Jan-05-04 11:47 AM
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Howard Dean made the cover of Newsweek, Jan. 12 issue

Edited on Mon Jan-05-04 11:48 AM by WilliamPitt

The Dean Dilemma

ALL THE RAGE: His blunt talk's propelled him to the top, but some Democrats worry that Dean's shoot-from-the-hip style and shifting views might doom him in November. The doctor's ills—and how his foes plan to exploit them

By Howard Fineman
Newsweek

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3869798/

Jan. 12 issue - The murmurs of doubt are faint, barely audible above the background hum of the Internet cosmos, but they are worth listening to at the moment, for the doubters don't seem to be "trolls"—provocateurs in digital disguise—and they express concerns about their favorite son, Dr. Howard Dean, in the bosom of his own blogosphere.

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"Dammit, tell him to get his mouth under control!" says "WVMicko" on a forum conducted by Dean's official Web site. "He's been all over the map on a lot of things, and the way he shoots off his mouth is a big reason why." A poster to the site named "Lancaster" frets that his wife is put off by Dean's confrontational personality. "Her initial reaction to Dean? 'That guy scares me.' Now, I'm not a full-fledged Deanie, but I'm strongly leaning that way ... but she's still not convinced that Dean is the right guy for the job." A writer named "irmaly" also views Dean's personality as a vulnerability. "I am a strong Dean supporter," irmaly declares, "but I think the campaign is missing this most important point—the need to focus strongly on getting up over the perception of 'mean, angry Dean.' Dean is portrayed as a man who, rather than share a beer in a local hangout, will fight you for yours. I realize this isn't true, but Bush and Company knows perception is everything, and they have already had some success at seriously hurting Dean on this perception. I don't know how you get up over this, but you have to, or we will lose."

Like the meteoric Internet start-up he in many ways resembles, Dr. Howard Dean is poised to merge with—or conduct a hostile takeover of—an "old media" conglomerate, the Democratic Party. For now, the country doctor and former Vermont governor remains the odds-on favorite to win its presidential nomination in a voting process that, technically, began last week when the Michigan party began accepting e-mail requests for e-mail ballots. The first events in the physical territory of politics take place later this month: the Iowa caucuses on the 19th, the New Hampshire primary on the 27th. Of the nine candidates in the race, Dean has raised the most money, claims to have the most cash on hand and has the lead in all the national polls and in those early-voting states, too.

Yet no one since Jimmy Carter has risen to front-runnerhood in quite the way Dean has: as a largely invisible outsider catapulted to a commanding position without so much as a nod from the Beltway political kingmakers. Dean's blunt, combative persona—and his opposition to George W. Bush's war in Iraq—allowed him to rocket to the top via the Internet. But, on the center stage of traditional politics, he's a controversial figure, launching attacks but airily refusing (especially now that he's ahead in the polls) to answer charges of his rivals; given to fights for their own sake, not-so-subtle adjustments of positions, sloppy statements and seemingly self-inflicted wounds. Thus far, the resulting dust-ups haven't hurt him. In fact, they may have done the opposite, inspiring team spirit among Deanies and branding him vividly as the kind of anti-establishment, hell-for-leather, shin-kicker who grass-roots Democrats want to lead them into mortal combat against the presidential imperium.

Still, there are doubts about Dr. Dean—and a desire to get a second opinion before accepting his diagnosis. The occasional whispers on his blog are amplified to a deafening roar elsewhere—by rivals on the campaign trail who are honing strategies (and sometimes plotting with each other) to stop him; by Beltway insiders, especially Clinton loyalists, who fear (correctly) that Dean represents a changing of the guard, and by Republicans in and out of the White House who cannot wait to get their hands on a man they—and many Democrats—see as a composite reincarnation of big-time losers such as George McGovern, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis.

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