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The 2008 Howard Dean Fantasy |
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By Byron York
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Posted: 10/19/07 06:20 PM [ET] |
I remember traveling around Iowa a couple of weeks before the 2004 caucuses.
Howard Dean was flying high, probably at his highest point. He could make mistakes, gaffes, funny noises, whatever, and it didn’t seem to hurt his commanding position in the polls.
It got so bad that the other Democratic candidates were constantly irritated because the only thing reporters wanted to ask about was Howard Dean.
“We haven’t gotten to the first vote,” Richard Gephardt told a small group of reporters at a café in Creston, Iowa.
“We haven’t had one vote cast in this country. Now, you all do a great job, but the real deciders of this are not the media but the people. You’ve got to be a little patient, and you’ve got to let the people decide this.”
Gephardt turned out to be right (although the real deciders didn’t decide on him).
Dean melted down, let out a scream, and his campaign fell apart.
Everyone moved on. But now the episode has given rise to something new: the 2008 Howard Dean Fantasy.
This time, the fantasy goes, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is Dean.
On Wednesday night, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), playing the role of Richard Gephardt, said on “The Tonight Show,” “We’ve got a long way to go before the first vote is cast.”
“Four years ago, you know, President Howard Dean was coronated, and that didn’t work out. And so really until those folks start going into the polling place, these races end up being very fluid.”
OK, sure, the race is theoretically fluid. But can a candidate who runs on the hope that the Clinton campaign will implode end up in the winner’s circle?
Well — anything’s possible. But he better have a Plan B.
“She’s the robot candidate,” one Democratic strategist said recently of Clinton. “She doesn’t make mistakes. She’s getting better. She is regarded as warmer than I thought possible.
“Barack is still just as good, but she’s just picked up her game.”
The problem is the “still just as good” part. Ten months after declaring his candidacy on a freezing Illinois day, Obama is still pretty much in the same place he’s been all along.
He established himself as Mr. Hope and Change, and now, stuck in distant second place, he’s trying to take the offensive against Clinton.
But that’s hard for Mr. Hope and Change to do. And the truly scary thing, for him, is that he might be this year’s Howard Dean.
“In some ways, his problem is like the problem Dean had,” the Democratic strategist continued. “To most people, Barack Obama represents an idea. He’s an aspirational candidate — like, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if what Barack Obama says was possible?’ There’s no rationale for the candidacy other than hope and change, and what the hell does that mean?”
Back in late 2003, a number of Republicans were hoping and praying that Democrats would choose Dean.
My magazine, National Review, published a cover with a picture of a wigged-out looking Dean and the message “PLEASE Nominate This Man.”
Alas, it wasn’t to be, and looking back it seems that in the back of our minds we all knew that.
Now it doesn’t feel that way at all.
The Robot Candidate seems too strong, and, just as important, her rivals seem too weak for a massive shakeup to occur.
But that’s no fun. So enjoy this moment — at least we’ve still got a few more weeks to indulge in the Howard Dean Fantasy.
York is a White House correspondent for National Review. His column appears in The Hill each week.
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