My big fat mea culpa
I haven't decided to vote for Howard Dean, but after 10 days watching his campaign, I promise never to say he's unelectable again

Choice moments--because they get to the heart of what so many thick-skulled journos keep missing:

You can't get his charisma without seeing him in person. . .

What did I learn? I got enough to let me refute some of the latest media stereotypes about him. He was pretty nice to me for a brusque guy some folks call "mean," given I approached him with a lot of skepticism and I didn't have a scheduled interview. . .

I didn't need alone time with Dean to shed my cynicism about his electability as much as I needed to see his effect on other people. And I saw that at his two San Francisco speeches and the Meetup the next week.

I think this captures something really important, too. The press is obsessed with him being too lefty, and then alternately worried that lefties will discover his a moderate. (A few commenters here voice the same concerns.) They're missing the point. They still don't understand what's driving his appeal. This leftie does:

I ran into Well co-founder, entrepreneur and activist Larry Brilliant, the only other person besides Amy Rao I knew personally, and he was beaming. "Look at this crowd!" he said, marveling at its size and diversity. Later, he explained Dean's appeal in an e-mail. "Liberals like myself may be disappointed to find out he's a fiscal conservative, in the mold of Clinton not FDR, and a moderate on most things -- except this obscene ideological 'coup' of the Bush crowd. But I'm surprised how happy I am that someone is finally calling the emperor on the fact that he has no clothes. I was afraid Bush's deceptions would go unchallenged. That alone makes me love Howard Dean. I also happen to think he can win." ...

 

And here is the flipside:

Of course, Larry Brilliant is exactly the kind of guy you expect to love Howard Dean. Casey Williams isn't. The stocky, friendly meatpacker from tiny Friona, Texas, voted for Ross Perot twice; he was undecided about a candidate for 2004 until he saw Dean at the UFCW's healthcare forum with me at the end of July. He decided right there Dean was the man to beat Bush. "I really didn't know about Dean except from reading the papers a little," Williams explained. "But I liked what he said. He's honest, and he's tough."

But the best of all comes near the end. (Comments from me in brackets.):

Democrats who are dissing the phenomenon are crazy. [Thank you! You don't have to embrace him yourself, but the denial about it happening is just lunacy.] One rival campaign aide called the get-togethers "the bar scene from Star Wars" in the New Republic. Kerry campaign manager Jim Jordan came close to dismissing the whole Dean Internet campaign in Time last week: "It's like watching my 13-year-old daughter instant-messaging," Jordan said. "It's not particularly about politics and policy. It's almost like a reality show." God forbid someone should make politics fun again. [Exactly.]

Finally, an op-ed from someone who grasps what the Dean phenom is all about. Of course it's not by a uninalist, but a poly sci prof. From this morning's Baltimore Sun:

But why Dean? What is it about politicians like Dean and McCain that so excites voters and the media?

Part of the answer is authenticity, a characteristic evident in so few elected officials that citizens find it refreshing, almost intoxicating. Authenticity should not be equated with novelty, likeability or even honesty. An altogether different political trait, authenticity requires a bit of explaining.

...Politicians often pepper their speeches with "the American people want this" or "the American people believe that." Words like these suggest that politicians are not revealing what they really think, that instead they are just responding to polling numbers.

Authentic politicians are different. Not because they listen better or understand America intuitively, but because they lead with their beliefs and their chins - and let the voters and pundits be damned. Authenticity is the political antidote to duplicity and phoniness.

...Many of McCain's followers, when polled, disagreed with a lot of the Arizona senator's votes in Congress. They still liked him.
...Inauthentic politicians who give circuitous answers to avoid offending anybody end up inspiring nobody. Authentic leaders inspire. Instead of pandering, they unapologetically disagree with voters and openly admit they don't know it all - and still ask for their votes. Voters appreciate candor and humility because it's politically authentic.

Then he comes to the key question. Can candidates brandishing the aura of authenticity actually win?

...in 2000 McCain's "Straight Talk Express" ran out of gas against Bush, a governor from a major state with a presidential surname and loads of money. ... Winning candidates need cash and character.

Dean is running as a major party candidate, so he won't have Perot's problem. And thus far he has shown that he can use his authenticity to generate resources even better than McCain did. In fact, every time Dean boldly challenges the prevailing wisdom of his own party or the president's credibility, his poll numbers and campaign contributions shoot up.

And he concludes on a very different note, raising an idea I've been pondering for awhile. Pundits and Dean opponents can't help laughing about a certain Karl Rove crack, but was Rove really dumb enough to show his hand? Rule #1 in his position is to do anything you can to get the weakest opponent nominated:

Karl Rove, Bush's political guru, has let slip that the White House believes Dean would make a weak opponent. Did Rove leak this story line to damage Dean in the primaries because Bush's team views Dean as the most formidable threat to re-election? Maybe Rove recognizes a familiar characteristic in Dean, and knows an authentic challenger when he sees one.

______________

The Baltimore Sun is also home to columnist Jules Witcover, who has broken with the pack and written a string of insightful comments about the Dean campaign which don't rely on the same old conventional wisdom that always lets us down. I have been posting them each time on my Dean News Clearinghouse, but you can find them all in one place here.

Time/CNN/Gallup released the first big poll on the California gov race this morning. Expect it to look a lot different than the final poll, but it's very welcome as a snapshot of the opening positions. Now we know what everyone is up against, how far they have to rise or fall to win or lose.

First, it shows Davis going down in a recall 54 to 35%. He's got a lot of work to do.

And after watching the focus group on This Week, things look a lot more bleak. ABC said they got a representative sample, and if they did, he's in big trouble. They are incredibly angry and just plain out of faith.

Ahnuld is out ahead on the list of who should replace him, but not nearly as far ahead as a lot of people have been suggesting. It goes like this:

25% Ahnuld

15% Lt Gov. Cruz Bustamante

9% State Sen. Tom McClintock

7% Former Gov. candidate Bill Simon

4% Peter Ueberroth

4% Arianna Huffington

4% Larry Flynt

4% CA Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi

Early polls are most effective at measuring name recognition, so of course Ahnuld is ahead. But because of that celebrity candidates tend to have their best day on the first day, and it's all downhill from there. (They do have the power to prove turn that around if they turn out to have a real knack for politics, but that's the exceptional case.)

Given that, ten points doesn't look like a whole lot. I think we'll know a lot more in a week or two. If he's really good at this right from the start, he might hold that lead. If he's inept, he will squander it quickly. It's really up to him.

I was a bit surprised and sad to see Arianna so far back. I know I am very aware of her, but I guess cable shows and columns and even books, sadly, are niche markets today, and the bulk of the electorate may still be unaware of her. (Or they just not like her, but my instincts say that quite a lot of people aware of her do like her, along with a lot of detractors, of course.)

The one think she has going for her is political skill, though. She's been at some version of this for years now, and she's damn good at it. And so far she's been good at getting her face on TV.

Still, Bustamante entering the race may prove her undoing. The state is pretty solidly Dem at the moment, and a lot of people are pissed off about the recall, and they may gravitate to the safest Dem to keep the gov mansion out of R hands. The more that looks like Bustamante, the worse for her.

But it's early, and anything can happen. I sure am enjoying watching already. I just wish the tabloids like Time and Newsweek could look beyond their celebrity instincts.

Time and Newsweek picked the same cover story again this week, but it's dumbed-down even further this time, even by their sad standards.

It would be one thing to whore their covers out as a way to sell some real meat on the inside. Celebrity covers work for Vanity Fair and Maxim, so these guys might have slapped Conan on the outside and provided real depth on the on the inside: the full California recall story. Nope. All about Ahnuld in there. Time even piles on the celebrity profiling with a sidebar on Kennedy scion and TV newsmodel Maria Shriver, possibly the least-necessary potential-first-lady profile ever. What are they, People?

Yet they still put Newsweek to shame. And I'm no fan of Time, but they look positively intellectual going head to head with Newsweek for the second week in a row. Jonathan Alter only gets half the Newsweek byline this week, but it's his typical cutesy clichefest with almost nothing to say.

Both outlets dredge up the tired old reality show cliche--Newsweek actually leading with it--apparently that would make them Jeff Probst.

Time at least provided a good behind-the-scenes play-by-play of how and possibly why Ahnuld convinced the press and even his own "top adviser" George Gorton that he was at the Tonight Show to announce his withdrawl. They speculate that he may have duped Dianne Feinstein into pulling out by convincing her he had.

George Butler, a co-director of the Schwarzenegger film Pumping Iron, said that if Feinstein dropped out because she believed Schwarzenegger wasn't running, then she fell for the same tactic the bodybuilder used when he wanted to make his opponents believe he would stay out of the competition. "It looked to me like an old-time Arnold maneuver," Butler says. "What you're dealing with is one of the canniest operators who ever walked across the road in America."

So maybe he is wily. He was definitely unscrupulous in those days.

The one public service either mag did in all this was Time's poll in the state, though they screwed up their links so I can't link to it. (More on that soon.)

Ahnuld upstaged Arianna Friday, and she upstaged him back 24 hours later.

She had Friday planned as her big day, carefully orchestrating an announcement designed to get her lots of TV coverage, starting with an announcement on the Today Show. But Ahnuld jumped in the same afternoon and grabbed all her headlines, squeezing out major world developments to lead the national news.

So Saturday she turned the tables. From the San Francisco Chronicle (thanks again to Michael Bedwell for the email):

Arnold Schwarzenegger fought for center stage in California's chaotic recall Saturday, after independent pundit Arianna Huffington effectively stole his media show . . .

The horde of potential candidates on Saturday, the filing deadline in the recall election, created a media circus at the Los Angeles County registrar's office -- the state's largest. Fans of Schwarzenegger showed up as early as 2 a.m.

Screams and cheers greeted the actor when he emerged from a black GMC Yukon . . . Schwarzenegger appeared to be unsettled by Huffington, who timed her entrance just as he emerged from his SUV. The media pundit and author of "How to Overthrow the Government," Huffington -- dressed in an elegant tan pinstriped suit and spike heels -- glided in front of the actor before the dozens of TV cameras and microphones, then held her own news conference when he went inside.

"Arnold Schwarzenegger is a Bush Republican . . . and Bush's policies have been a disaster for California," she told reporters.

Nice. This lady is well known as a pit bull and Conan may be in for more than he bargained for.

with Californians given only seven weeks to make up their minds, "it's going to be guerrilla politics, absolutely," she promised.

Meanwhile, the goober doesn't appear to have prepped very well for the race yet:

The action hero and now candidate -- under increasing pressure to outline his positions on issues ranging from gun control and family leave to gay rights -- said nothing about them, only promising to "be the people's governor."

If he were going to be really good at this, you would think he would have nailed that silly issues stuff day one, pre-empted charges that he's a lightweight.

And he played right into her hands showing up in an SUV, when she led the TV-ad campaign against them.

Huffington said she and Schwarzenegger were outsiders running against professional politicians, but that was about the only thing they had in common. As an example of their differences, Huffington cited the cars they arrived in: Schwarzenegger rolling up in an SUV, she in a Toyota Prius hybrid.

He's got the star power, but she's got the political acumen. Can't wait to see which proves more powerful.