According to one of the polls, there's a slight lead by Sen. Kerry over Gov. Dean in Iowa. One point, I think it was, which is in the range of too close to call, but... But it's not a good sign for Dean!
They way I see it, this is what you get when you 1) sit on your lead and stagnate; 2) can't actually speak from your heart; 3) can't even manage to get Supporter #1 (your wife) out there; 4) fail to give even the basics of policy on such things as tax cuts, national security, terrorism, a vision; 5) fail to connect to our heritage.
ONE - Sitting on your lead. While the other candidates are out there scratching and clawing (think all these debates), we have reticent Howard Dean, a pin cushion, a punching bag, not punching back, not giving as good as he gets. My counsel would've been to be all over them. Sure, you don't believe in preemptive war, but a little preemption in the campaign and, at the very least, a little defense is a good thing.
TWO - Can't speak from the heart. The first time I heard his stump speech, I thought it sounded OK, a good beginning. With repeated hearings we've worn a deep groove. A few phrases have come and gone. Supposedly this was likened to a Grateful Dead concert, where you hear the same tunes but with some variation, jamming. Music and speeches, however, I probably shouldn't be the first to tell him, are two different things. If you heard a comedian tell the same jokes every night, you might appreciate his/her craft ability, but you wouldn't be laughing. That is, if humor has anything about the element of surprise to it, and of course it does. The same thing about speeches. If you're just riffing on talking points that were sketched out a couple years ago, that doesn't do much for me. I want someone speaking from the heart, engaged with the material, putting it together in some kind of sincere way, connecting with the people's hopes, desires, needs, and dreams.
THREE - Can't get his wife to go with him. It's kind of nice in a way that the other Dr. Dean goes on with her career. I always think of Pat Nixon as the ultimate pushed-around political wife, and it's good that Dr. Dean isn't in that mold. But really, we're getting nothing. In an article I saw today -- Maureen Dowd -- she pointed out that having Judy out there once in a while would soften Howard's image. Point 3 of my points here is really the least important, but still valid.
FOUR - Fail to give the basics of policy. I wrote about this the other day after the debate, why can't the man give any details about tax cuts and tax policy and what he's planning? The inescapable conclusion I've come to is: there aren't any details because there is no plan. Simply negating the Bush tax cuts by talking about the cost of healthcare, tuition, and property taxes may sound like something, but it's not. Yes, Bush cut taxes and shifted around the burden so that we are paying more for other things. That leaves us with Net Zero on tax policy except to repeal the Bush tax cuts. Now what? And what other policy points, promises has Gov. Dean made? To be fair, there probably are some, if you get into the fine print at the website. But for the 99.9% of us who aren't reading that, what are they? If you don't tell us, then as far as I can tell, these speeches are empty calories.
What about national security? What about defense? What about terrorism? What would you do? We're getting nothing. We've heard a lot about "Ken Lay and the boys at Enron," but nothing about "Osama bin Laden and the boys at Tora Bora." I for one haven't heard anything about defense spending, what he'd do really about much of anything.
FIVE - Fail to connect to our heritage. Dean has made a few piddly connections to our American heritage, what we've shared in common the last couple centuries and more. Abraham Lincoln's "Of the people, by the people, for the people"; Martin Luther King; Civil Rights movement. These things are referred to, but unfortunately only in passing and as a way of building the stump speech to a rousing and broad finish. But I'm not seeing any kind of looking back to draw on an understanding of what has gone before or to promote a vision of what is to come. And as far as religion, religious allusions, which are powerful and important, he comes up way way short. I don't think it'd kill the guy at least to refer to "Endowed by our creator with inalienable rights," at least that kind of general reference. I imagine there are scriptural references that could be worked into speeches, you know, like "without a vision the people perish" or "love your neighbor as yourself." Something!
Because of these things lacking and because of an unwillingness to do much about it, Gov. Dean is not doing as well as he could have. Supposedly "We have the power" to take this country back. He keeps saying, "I need your help!" Here's a message to Gov. Dean: "We need YOUR help, too!"