Dean, Party of One

[DoveTurnedHawk]

<...>

The unofficial rules for the young staff who work the New Hampshire primary have always been thus: By day they are rivals, press secretaries out-spinning each other, field directors fighting for every vote, interns standing at busy traffic corners holding their campaign posters, shouting each other down. But half an hour from midnight, they are fellow partiers, bumming cigarettes, buying each other beers, bound by the weird facts of their daily existence: long, long days, addiction to campaign adrenaline, month-to-month leases.

This year, however, the rest of the staffs complain that Howard Dean's people don't play by those rules. Stop by the Strange Brew or the Wild Rover in downtown Manchester late on a Friday or Saturday night and you're likely to find any combination of Democratic staffers drinking, letting off steam, talking about anything other than work. But to the great annoyance of everyone else, the Dean people are almost never there.

"Off the record, none of the Dean people are coming," staffers from three campaigns make sure to point out in the hours before the New Year's Eve party. This is not technically true. Two Dean staffers, including Delana Jones, the candidate's regional field director, who rooms with someone from Sen. John Edwards's staff, did show up early. But still the perception, expressed at one Friday night drinking fest after another, remains: "I have friends from all the other campaigns, but I don't know anyone from Dean's," says a press secretary for a rival campaign. "The Dean people don't party with us."

In campaigns past the comity thrived for a practical reason. Everyone knows that only one candidate will get the nomination, and whoever he is, staffers for the other candidates might want to work for him. So hanging out together serves as a casual form of networking, a tacit understanding that rivalries fade and ultimately staffers for rival campaigns have more in common than not.

But this year seems different. "I've done a cursory survey of my staff," says one campaign official. "None of them would go work for Dean. They hate the guy. His arrogance. The things he says. The way he insults us, like he's the only one who's a real Democrat."

<...>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8439-2004Jan11.html

DTH

[Born Free]

1. Tradition didn't work

It appears the real complaint is Dean doesn't follow the traditions set by previous democratic candidates. However, some of us believe the democrats need to break with the good old boy network to change America for the good.

[shance]

3. BINGO!**

Couldnt have put it any better myself.....

:)

[killbotfactory]

2. Dean is bringing in newbie's

This is a good thing.

[Clark4VotingRights]

4. Slow news day at the WP, huh?

Oh, and like Lieberman has been so civil...?

Don't think so.

[Guaranteed]

5. This isn't LBN.

It's an editorial.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

7. It's Not an Editorial at All

It is, to quote the WP, "One in a series of reports on the New Hampshire primary campaign." It has primary sources and reports on an interesting behind-the-scenes phenomenon that is occurring in New Hampshire.

DTH

[bowens43]

9. Guess you didn't read it.....

[Democat]

6. The right wing media will bash Dean over anything, or nothing

We need our own mainstream media or we are always going to lose.

[bowens43]

8. Read the posting rules......

1. NO opinion pieces, editorials, or other stories that are not news.

[He loved Big Brother]

10. Boo hoo, the Dean people won't party with us

REAL issues, please. Thanks.

[felix19]

11. Interesting

perspective.


It really does demonstrate what election politics is supposed to be about -- to the "insiders." It's supposed to be about bonhomie and conviviality, mugging, nudging and hooting among one's own kind -- which to the insiders means everyone except the public -- and a friendly kind of rivalry that is set aside in social circumstances.

In other words, to the insiders, politics is just a game and a parade and a party with no discernable purpose or consequence except to get on. A private train to nowhere.

Dean people are not so well limned, in part because what the Dean campaign is cannot be grasped by many "insiders." Because the insiders are really mostly interested in themselves, not in any greater good or higher purpose. The Dean people seem strange, off on their own, unlike those few, those happy few whose world this rightly is. To the insiders, a Bush victory in November is no great loss. There will be more campaigns.

In this article, the Dean people are portrayed as consumate "outsiders" -- and determinedly so, what with all their squalor and beer and that "funk" the writer has such a problem with. Note, though, the writer gained access to the private quarters -- such as they are -- of the Dean volunteers, but only brushed elbows with the other campaigns at the bars. Note the Dean people were very forthcoming for the writer, open, willing.

She was out to do a compare-contrast story, though, that was meant to distinguish the Dean campaign on the one side and all the rest on the other. Her efforts resulted in a piece that made the Dean campaign out to be an alien and unpleasant, anti-social and unwashed effort by crazed amateurs, love-blinded youth, unreconstructed hippies and various outcasts of society whereas the other campaigns, lumped together as one, are the realm of the backslappers, cheerleaders, and professional political consultants who chuckle mordantly and cynically dismiss whatever is not them...

[sendero]

14. yes....

... I think a lot of people are having a lot of trouble getting their heads around why Dean is so popular.

Everyone thinks those 'off the cuff' remarks are hurting him a lot. I think he would be no where without them. Folks are damn sick and tired of listening to politicians who blather endlessly and take a stand on nothing.

If you take a real, definite stand, you will have detractors. Not everyone will agree with any given policy position.

And while I can understand how the 'insiders' in the Dem party are scared of the 'outsider' coming in and calling them on the carpet, they'd do well to look in the mirror rather than shoot the messenger. Because they are failures, one and all. If the useless Congressmen who now want to be president had done their f*cking jobs, Dean would not have a chance. Too bad.

[WatchWhatISay]

12. From what I saw when I went to Manchester campaign HQ

They probably are home sleeping. These people work their asses off. Plus they party as they work all day long.

I rather like the fact that they are not training themselves to become part of the "sellout" system that eventually replaces the idealism most young political operatives start out with.

[Stuckinthebush]

13. Good!

It means those staffers are focused and hard at work. Good for them.

[JNelson6563]

15. From first hand reports I've gotten

Indeed they are working very late into the night. While other campaign workers have knocked off and areout enjoying a cold one with folks from various campaigns, the Dean folks are still working.

Then when the work-till-the-midnight-hour campaign realizes successes, those out partying whine "They get all the breaks!"

I experienced this first hand in the business world a long time ago. What's that saying? The harder you work the luckier you are...(??) Something like that.

Julie

[DemExpat]

16. Locking......not LBN

Please post this in the appropriate forum.

Thanks!

DU Moderator