Passion more than policy separates Dean, Kerry

[dajabr]

DOVER, N.H. — Not a bad event for Sen. John Kerry on the banks of the Piscataqua the other night.

Three hundred Democrats, maybe more, sitting on lawn chairs on a park bluff high over the river laughed politely when he said that “the only jobs George Bush has created are the nine of us running for president” and nodded in agreement when he said, “There is nothing conservative about driving up deficits.”

They listened attentively, asked polite questions and crowded around the Massachusetts senator as the last wisp of sunlight faded and he walked to the van that would take him to his next stop. They were impressed. Considering that it was still 186 days before New Hampshire’s fabled first-in-the-nation primary, the turnout and the reaction were impressive.

Except that eight days earlier and just a few miles downstream, at least a third again as many folks had come to hear Howard Dean of Vermont at the Portsmouth Harbor, hard by the shops and pubs of the city’s old-fashioned Strawberry Banke neighborhood. And they did not laugh politely or nod in agreement. They roared enthusiastically when Dean told them their “property taxes go up so George Bush can send tax cuts to his friends.”

They howled in approval when he said, “Democrats are almost as angry at the Democratic Party in Washington as they are at President Bush.”

They were impressed, too, but they were also having fun.

And this excerpt, which shows the "GOP wants Dean" meme may be fading (like so many others):

Even the Republicans are puzzled, and though they claim to be delighted, they also seem concerned. Not long ago, Bush political mastermind Karl Rove saw a band of Dean supporters march in a parade in Washington and said, “Yeah, that’s the one we want. …Come on, everybody! Go, Howard Dean!” When a political strategist says, “This is the guy we want to run against,” he often means, “This is the guy we’re worried about.”

http://rutlandherald.nybor.com/News/Story/69599.html