Deaniacs in action

My post on Dean’s Deaniac problem (The Stupid Campaign) has made the rounds, and I’ve encountered some predictable push-back from Deaniacs who don’t like my claim that they’re basically nuts. So let me clarify the claim and then back it up. I’m not saying that everyone who ever thought about voting for Howard Dean is a loon, and I’m sure there are many people who approve of his policies and background who’ve thought through all the implications and simply prefer him to the alternatives, on balance. But these don’t seem to be the people who’ve formed the core of his volunteer effort. The first to jump into the Dean campaign are apparently the purple-haired loners who lack social skills and emotional balance, and these first movers effectively built a wall keeping the others from taking volunteer positions in the campaign.

This is evident when you read the following account of Caucus Night in Iowa on the Daily Kos, a notorious far-left blog, by Dean supporter Tom Schaller:

At Precinct #63, which caucused at the same, East High School as Precinct 37, there were ample Dean signs. The precinct captains had the super-looking yellow T-shirts that with blue lettering that read “Dean Precinct Captain, January 19, 2004.” On the back it read “It starts here, it starts now.” The Dean campaign had not one, not two, but three observers in the room. Amazingly, Kucinich had two, but neither Kerry nor Edwards nor Gephardt had any. But so what? What counts are the people in the caucuses, not the ones watching from the sidelines.

More damning, the Dean precinct captain on the floor was ineffective and diffident. I watched with amazement as a more-motivated, more-mature Edwards captain named Susan Voss (sans T-shirt, sans sideline coaches) went over to the Gephardt folks in Precinct 63, who at that point had only seven members but needed nine for viability. Susan sat down at their table, looked them in the eye, appealed to them about how Edwards is an “articulate, bright, caring person.” You can tell not only that she meant it, but that she could personalize it. She didn’t have any training, and it showed – it showed as authentic, that is.

Then, with grace and aplomb, she got up and said she would make room so a guy named Arturo, from the Kucinich group (also non-viable, and hoping to move Gephardt’s people to them to achieve viability), could have his turn.

Meanwhile, the Deanies are sitting with their hands folded. They are not even talking to each other. No comity, no motivation. The precinct captain eventually comes over, unsure of what precisely to do with himself or how to speak to people. The Geppies are still sitting at the school library’s tables at the far end of the room.

The Dean captain meanders over, stands over the Geppies, providing physical distance that is conveyed in a non-verbally and dismissive way. Worse, his main message is little more than, “C’mon, don’t you want to join us?” or “Are there any questions or issues you have about the Governor?” The Geppies are literally staring at his navel, because it’s hard to make eye contact with somebody whose head is three feet over your own with craning your neck.

There were six delegates to be assigned by the 60+ people who turned out at Precinct 63. Dean had 16 of the caucus-goers at the start, and ended up with 14. Kerry didn’t budge much, but Edwards gained strength. Gephardt managed to cobble together the two defections from Kucinich he needed, and got one delegate, as did Dean and Kerry. But Edwards left with two, and he can thank the dynamism, assertiveness and tact of Susan Voss for that second delegate.

No training, but none needed.

Of course, you can’t teach basic social skills to your volunteers in a couple of hours, so perhaps the final lesson about the Dean Campaign was that it was always an illusion, built on a foundation of overblown promises, wild claims, and ferverish expectations, like the Dot Com Bubble.

Howard Dean looked to me like a much better candidate before he met the Internet than he ended up being after he was Trippi-ized, so it’s kinda sad that he’ll go off into the sunset as one of those “we hardly knew you” guys. But don’t blame the media for this, blame Howard and the Internet, where nobody knows you’re a dog.