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The Dean Factor
Loo
The most watched and feared candidate of the moment may be rewriting that plot. It is true that Dr. Howard Dean, the testy ex-Governor of a speck of a state, fits the profile of the doomed insurgent, the Eugene McCarthys and John McCains who have come before. He is not only running outside the Establishment; he is attacking it at every opportunity.
But at a time when money talks louder than it ever has in politics, he is raising cash in unprecedented ways and in impressive amounts for a Democrat at this early stage. In a large field of candidates that has yet to produce a front runner around whom the party can rally, he's the only real excitement that the Democrats have to offer. And come February, if he pulls off wins in both Iowa and New Hampshireboth of which appear increasingly possiblethe fast-forward campaign calendar of early primaries could catapult him to the nomination.
DEAN'S LEGIONS
A little more than a month ago, insiders were saying the Dean
movement had all the resonance of a temper tantrum. Even activist
Democrats, the line went, would eventually come to their senses and
realize that this antiwar one-noter from liberal Vermont was out of
synch with the politics of a post-9/11 world. And what about the
Internet-driven rabble that packs his events, those 68,000 who have
signed up for yet another of Dean's "Meetup" events at 340 spots
across the country this Wednesday? Too young, too alienated, too
inchoate to matter.
Then Dean's forces burst from their blogs (weblogs are the jungle drums of the Internet age) and made themselves heard in the old-fashioned language the political establishment understands: money. They deluged his campaign with $7.6 million in the second quarter (ended June 30), which was $1.7 million more than presumed front runner John Kerry, $2.5 million more than poll-topping Joe Lieberman, $3.1 million more than glamorous newcomer John Edwards, $3.8 million more than seasoned Dick Gephardt. As for the rest of the fieldincluding a Senator, a Congressman, a former ambassador, a civil rights leadernot one raised even a third of what Dean had.
A year ago, Dean, 54, predicted he would come in "dead last in fund raising." Now he's ahead, and he has done it the hard way: $20, $50, $125 at a time. Half of it, he claims, came from people who had never before given to a politician. Small individual contributions have leverage because only the first $250 gets federal matching funds. And donors who haven't hit their $2,000 legal limit can be tapped again. So there's more where that came from.
Of course, what it takes to get the nomination is in many ways the reverse of what it takes to actually win the White House. Which is why Dean worries as many Democrats as he excites. However impressive his fund-raising abilities may look against a cast of untested rivals now, they would surely get him nowhere near the quarter-billion dollars that George Bush is likely to have for his campaign. Bush won't have to spend a penny of it until after the Democratic pick exhausts his bank account getting the nomination. Bush political strategist Karl Rove is making no secret of how he would relish using that money acquainting swing voters with a shrill Northeasterner who is antiwar and pro-gay union. And the Republican National Committee (R.N.C.) says it has only begun exploring Dean's record. "We'll be spending a lot of time in Vermont this August," says an official at the R.N.C.
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