The other day 600 people, give or take, showed up in Portsmouth, N.H., to see Dr. Howard Dean III talk about why he wants to be President. True, they were plied with bowls of coffee cake and just-melting ice cream, but it's still something for so many to rally on a hot weekday six months before the New Hampshire primary. At first the former Vermont Governor couldn't talk for all the cheering. Finally he was able to utter just one word before being drowned out: "Zounds!"
Zounds? Zounds is an old word, a fine word, a word with a pedigree. Iago says it in the opening lines of Othello; it was the 17th century's whoa. But it's not the first word one expects to hear from the "maverick" (USA Today), "insurgent" (Los Angeles Times), "fiery" (New York Observer) self-proclaimed leader of "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," the great repository of hope--and donations--from the antiwar, anti-Bush, pro-gay, Michael Moore left. Even so, the Anglophile locution sounded quite natural coming from Dean's thin Wasp lips.
A year ago, Dean was the outgoing Governor of the 49th largest state, a bewildering new presence on the campaign trail. Today he has a shot at winning his party's nomination. What's unclear is whether he has surged because contributors and poll respondents think he is a new kind of Old Democrat--a candidate who will finally revive the left--or because those contributors and respondents know the truth--he is a rock-ribbed budget hawk, a moderate on gays and guns, and a true lefty on only a few issues, primarily the use of U.S. military power, which Dean seems to regard with a mixture of contempt and suspicion.
At this early stage it's likely that Dean enjoys support from those to his left who don't know the fine points of his proposals as well as they know the fine volleys of his rhetoric. In that sense, it's hard to imagine Dean's glorious season ending without disappointment. Either he will alienate the mainstream by tacking left in order to keep his troops in their combat sandals, or, more likely, they will shed a tear when they learn who he really is. Last week I asked Dean's mother Andree Maitland Dean of East Hampton, N.Y., whether her son is truly a liberal insurgent. "He's not really," she said. A beat passed, and she added with a chuckle, "I hope they don't find that out just yet."
That's a great thing about the Deans: they are funny, they are quick, they are direct. The investigative reporters and opposition-research folks in other campaigns have only just begun their spadework on the Deans, on how the family made its fortune, on what deals Dean cut as Governor of Vermont, on where his straight talk grows crooked. Dean told me his bachelor party was so raucous that it helped persuade him to stop drinking 22 years ago. Quite sensibly, he wouldn't provide details of the night's festivities, but--eventually, ineluctably--someone will. Still, Dean practically squeaks today: he doesn't drink alcohol or even caffeine. The good doctor also doesn't smoke.