Article
published January 22, 2012
Dean's
‘impossible' Presidential run
By Neal P. Goswami
Bennington Banner
MANCHESTER -- In late
2003, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was a front-runner in the Democrat's race
for the presidential nomination.
Crowds that could once
be counted on one hand had grown into thousands, and "Deaniacs" would
roar with approval when Dean would deliver the signature line they craved:
"You have the power!"
Kate O'Connor, a
longtime aide who first worked for Dean in 1990 when he was lieutenant governor
of small, largely inconsequential Vermont, in terms of presidential politics,
at least, was by his side for the meteoric rise. She was there for the
campaign's collapse, too. A disappointing third-place finish in 2004's Iowa
caucus would seal the campaign's fate.
O'Connor, who kept
copies of Dean's hectic schedule throughout the campaign, has now chronicled
the campaign for posterity in "Do the Impossible," a journal-style
book that provides details of the day-to-day activities of Dean and senior
campaign officials. The book is blunt and makes no effort to hide the naïveté
of Dean and campaign staff.
"We were clueless,
which I think helped us keep going," O'Connor said alongside Dean in an
interview Friday at the Northshire Bookstore before speaking to about 150
people.
Dean agreed. "We
were clueless. We just kept moving forward no matter what," he said.
The book's title is
derived from the wild notion that a small-state
governor like Dean, with
little national name recognition, could run for president. He first broached
the idea with O'Connor in November 2000, shortly after being elected to a fifth
two-year term as Vermont's governor.
"If I didn't know
him, I probably would have assumed that he was either joking or delusional. After
all, Howard run for president of the United States? But I did know him and no
matter how absurd the idea may have sounded, I knew he was serious,"
O'Connor wrote in the book.
Three years later, after
countless days meeting voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and other states, Dean's
message would resonate with part of the electorate desperate for an
unconventional candidate. His face would grace the covers of "Time"
and "Newsweek" and he would lead a main rival, Massachusetts Sen.
John Kerry, in polls.
In it to win it
"I always thought
we could do it, because you can't get into this unless you think you can do it.
Otherwise, what are you doing? You've never worked so hard in your life,"
Dean said. "There were a lot of epiphany moments, but the big epiphany
moment was in Seattle. We did this tour and the crowds kept getting bigger and
bigger and we got to one in Seattle in an outdoor square with about 10,000
people."
Dean's rise may have
been unlikely. And it may have been in spite of internal politics within the
campaign. Throughout the book, O'Connor, who was on the road traveling with
Dean, details a terse relationship with campaign manager Joe Trippi, a newer
member of Dean's inner circle.
While stories included
in the book highlighting the tug-of-war between O'Connor and Trippi are
humorous, it also depicts a rudderless operation that was perhaps destined to
drift in a long, national campaign.
"It was simple and
complicated, both at the same time. I think Joe and I were just very different
people and approached things in a very different way. We were looking at the
campaign from two different perspectives. He was in the Burlington office,
really Internet driven. We were out. I was out seeing what people, actual live
bodies, were thinking. It became sort of stressful on the campaign,"
O'Connor said.
Dean, known during the
campaign for speaking his mind, is more direct.
"I'll be a little
more blunt. Joe is a very complicated guy. He's very smart, but what Joe was
doing was principally about Joe. You probably really shouldn't run a campaign
like that," Dean said.
Despite those issues,
Dean claims full responsibility for the campaign's failure to secure the
Democratic nomination.
"The real problem
was that this is a deal big deal to run for president and there were a lot of
things I didn't know about at the beginning," he said. "Yes there
were a lot of office problems, and it was mostly growth problems. When you grow
that fast it's hard to get your legs out from under. We didn't have the vote count
we thought in Iowa, and I made a lot of mistakes as a candidate, which is to be
expected given that I hadn't been on the national scene before."
The outspoken candidate
admits to a bad habit of "crossing out stuff in speeches and putting other
things I thought would be better in."
"I have a long
history of being right, but I also have a long history of not having my timing
be exactly too good. You just can't do things like that. You can't take stuff
in and out of speeches without telling somebody on the campaign what's going
on," he said.
O'Connor recounts
several instances when Dean spoke his mind, only to find trouble later. On
April 23, 2003, U.S. forces took control of Baghdad. Dean told CNN's Wolf
Blitzer that same day that it remained unclear if the Iraqi people would be
better off. In fact, he said it was possible the Iraqi people could find the
post-Saddam Hussein era worse.
A couple of weeks later
Dean said during a campaign event in New Hampshire that the U.S. may not always
have the strongest military.
The comment was picked
up by media outlets and Kerry seized on it as a way to hurt Dean.
Dealing with the press
on the campaign was a different beast, Dean said.
The ‘beast' that is the
media
"The national media
was pretty awful. I mean, they're really tough, they're not nice and they're
not terribly professional. Here there is a respectful air between the press and
the subject and everybody gives a little and you've got somebody like Sue Allen
(spokeswoman for current Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin) managing so that people
are straightforward with each other," he said. "Media I consider one
of the failed institutions in America, along with Wall Street and the political
system. I think that's why we're in so much trouble. I don't blame reporters,
particularly, because the pressure on them to do things foolish is
enormous."
The stumbling on the
campaign trail was his own fault, Dean said, and is one thing he would have
liked to change. "I would have been much more disciplined. I wasn't
terribly disciplined as governor, but I was very undisciplined on the
campaign," Dean said.
O'Connor's book also
shows Dean's discontent with his schedule. The two often spent 18-hour days
meeting voters and attending events. They would often visit multiple cities and
states in the same day.
Dean eventually demanded
a change in pace.
"It's not
sustainable, that pace. I've got about as much stamina as anyone I know on the
planet, and I was so dead after the campaign I barely could leave the plane and
get to my house, where I stayed for about three weeks cleaning out the garage
because nothing had been done in a year," he said.
O'Connor said she, too
found it exhausting. But even after working for other candidates -- none who
were running for president -- and for herself as a consultant, nothing has
measured up to the experience of the Dean campaign.
"You can't ever do
anything that's like working on a presidential campaign. But again, it's
exhausting. There's nothing like it. Unless you do it you can't understand that
there's absolutely nothing like it," she said.
Eight years after the
campaign, after a successful stint as chairman of the Democratic National
Committee and frequent appearances on cable news shows, Dean is now teaching a
course about politics at Yale. Had he secured the nomination and gone on to win
the presidency he could be wrapping his second term. Although Dean is
disappointed, not all share his sentiment, even within his own family.
"I'm sorry I didn't
win. Very sorry I didn't win. But, my wife isn't sorry. Every year she says,
‘You know Howard, the country really could have used you. You would have been a
terrific president, but I'm really glad you didn't win because every time I see
what Michelle Obama has to do I think, Oh my God, that could be me,'" Howard
said.
Could there be a reprise
of Dean's presidential aspirations? Dean says not likely, but it can't be ruled
out entirely.
"You can't say that
in politics. We'll see. I think the odds are against it," he said. "I
would never do it again the same way we did it."
And would O'Connor be
along for a second ride? She simply smiled, so her former boss answered for
her.
"You know I'd rope
her in," Dean said.
The book, self-published
through the Northshire Bookstore's Shires Press, is available at the Northshire
Bookstore, the Bennington Bookshop and will soon be listed on Amazon.