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WHEN YOU HEAR a sentence like that, the only thought a rational person can have is, “What have I gotten myself into?”
Well, I am that rational person, and I had that very thought the other day when I attended Howard Dean’s “Sleepless Summer Tour” rally in New York’s Bryant Park. Full disclosure: I sent Dean $100 earlier this year because he opposed the war in Iraq. Now I wanted to see if my $100 was well spent—and, more important, to see whether Dean was just the Bush-bashing bomb-thrower he’d been depicted or a responsible thinker who really could win the right to be defeated by President Bush in 2004.
As a liberal, I had to be there, but I’m not exactly the typical flag-waving political activist. True, while other people were dabbling in experimental drugs during college, I had my own hallucinations and became a huge supporter of Gary Hart’s presidential run. My contribution? On Primary Day, I stood on a corner with a HART FOR PRESIDENT banner. Four guys in business suits in an Audi gave me the finger. I decided then and there that I lacked the stomach for political activism.
The nature of political discourse in America has changed little since those businessmen flashed me the bird. Today, shouting matches on talk radio, “fair and balanced” name-calling and demagogic grandstanding masquerade for genuine discourse in a country where people can’t even pay attention long enough to read to the end of this.
For most of the summer, I have been trying to figure out how a Democrat could beat—forget beat, just mount a serious attack on—President Bush. It’s not that the president is unassailable on the issues—in fact, he is doing a lousy job on the deficit, job creation, health care, the environment, winning the peace, etc. etc. But how does a Democrat make the anti-Bush argument in the current climate of sound bites and patriotic platitudes?
Argument 1: Bush lied to the American people about Saddam Hussein’s supposed links to Al Qaeda, his chemical and biological weapons, his nuclear aspirations and his connection to 9/11. Bush’s answer: What, should we have waited until he actually got nuclear weapons or murdered another 10,000 Iraqis?
Argument 2: Having won the war, we’re in danger of losing the peace. And because we alienated the entire planet by going to war pre-emptively, no other country except Britain is helping us with the $1 billion a week cost of peacekeeping. Bush’s answer: Those who question our mission in Iraq lack “the will” and would “retreat” from the war on terror.
Argument 3: The economy stinks because the Bush tax cuts have eliminated the budget surplus that was spurring investment. The Bush retort: Congress didn’t give me a big enough tax cut.
Argument 4: We wouldn’t need to go to war at all if we would conserve fuel by tightening regulations on automakers and getting Americans out of their gas-guzzling SUVs (instead of giving tax breaks to the people who buy them!). The Bush answer: Clearly, Americans prefer bigger cars and who am I to tell them what to drive? I’m their president, not their dictator.
Argument 5: Bush has chosen corporate polluters over clean air by reducing regulations on power companies that upgrade or expand aging plants. The Bush argument: I’m just trying to keep power and fuel costs down so the economy won’t stagnate.
Every argument that the Democrats throw up has been deftly turned back by the Bushies. But perhaps Howard Dean could restore my faith.
In Bryant Park, I noticed that he certainly has lots and lots of fresh-faced volunteers, which is interesting only if you want to date a fresh-faced volunteer. As a measure of a candidate’s strength, it is no more significant than polling well among Hasidic single mothers. Every candidate has armies of fresh-faced volunteers. Even President Bush—whose idea of a fresh face is when Don Rumsfeld comes to a Cabinet meeting freshly shaven—has fresh-faced volunteers at rallies, eagerly handing out leaflets about how important it is to allow power plants to pollute the air so our electricity bills won’t go up a single cent per kilowatt-hour.
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While we awaited the candidate, a team of graffiti artists painted a funky backdrop (nice touch; can you imagine Dick Gephardt standing in front of anything besides a generic “Taking Back America” backdrop?). And a jazz ensemble performed, which is a nice change from the typical patriotic garbage or, worse, “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow,” that you generally hear at political rallies.
The music ended and it was time to get down to business. Dean’s New York campaign manager, Ethan Geto, began the parade of hacks. “Assemblyman Dick Gottfried! State Senator Tom Duane! Assemblyman Pete Grannis!” There was no time for any of these minor figures to actually speak, so they stood off to the side like a Greek chorus. “Now, here’s a guy you’ll recognize,” Geto said. “A man who fought to prove that the EPA under George Bush lied about air quality in New York.” The crowd began to stir. Faint chants rose to a fever pitch. “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! (I hadn’t heard this particular cry since that Dead concert in ’84). Of course, it was Jerry Nadler, U.S. congressman to the Upper West Side. The crowd was actually going nuts.
“There is one thing that is critical to the health of the United States,” Nadler said. “The retirement of George W. Bush!” Big applause.
Next, a Dean volunteer started her speech, “My mothers’ names are Joan and Nora, and they raised me well.” Most of the crowd was eating it up, but I was thinking two words: “Oy” and “vey.” Is supporting gay marriage going to win back the White House in a country that passed the Defense of Marriage Act—signed by Bill Clinton, no less?! And the next speaker, U.S. Rep. Major Owens, did little to raise the level of discourse. “My constituents in Brooklyn need Howard Dean! New York City needs Howard Dean. America needs Howard Dean!” Oh, don’t worry, Owens eventually got substantive. “Stop the war!” he yelled. Yeah, that’s substantive.
Just when I’d lost hope that I’d hear any legitimate political discourse, the candidate finally emerged, his sleeves rolled up in the same sloppy way that my wife hates. The young Dean supporters started screaming like the candidate was a Beatle. He thanked a few people (“Ladies and gentlemen, Dick Gottfried!”) and then got down to business. He mentioned the just-issued numbers from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that predict a $480 billion budget deficit for next year—and that doesn’t even count all the money we’re spending in Iraq. “This president cannot manage your money,” Dean said. He assailed Bush on job creation and education cuts (“You cut Pell grants to pay for those tax cuts, Mr. President”). He explained his reasoning for opposing the war despite his approval of the first gulf war (“An ally of ours was attacked”) and the war in Afghanistan (“They killed 3,000 people and would have killed more. We have the right to defend ourselves”). But Bush lied about Iraq, Dean said. “As commander in chief, I will never hesitate to send our troops to defend the United States, but as commander in chief, I will never send [them] to die without being truthful to the American people.” And he gnawed on one of Bush’s many Achilles heels: “Our oil money goes to the Middle East where it’s converted into money to teach kids to hate America,” Dean said. “Mr. President, how about standing up to the Saudis instead of covering for them?”
In the 40-minute speech, I never saw Howard Dean the bomb-thrower, but did see the emergence of Howard Dean the giant-slayer. This speech wasn’t about mindless attacks on the president (he left those to Congressman Owens), but about pointing out that the country is going in the wrong direction on peace in Iraq, preserving clean air and water, balancing the budget and health care. He’s Bill Clinton without all the lower-lip biting and all the pain-feeling.
And, most important, he impressed Dick Gottfried. That’s good enough for me.
Gersh Kuntzman is also a columnist for The New York Post. His Web site is www.gersh.tv
© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.
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