Burning
at the
Grassroots

Inside the
Dean Machine

FAQ's

Dana Dunnan answers a few frequently asked questions (FAQs) about his new book.

What is Howard Dean's political future?

Noam Chomsky said to me that the reason Dean has been demonized in the media is that, unlike Eugene McCarthy, Dean isn't just going to go away.
Dean is building a political network with Democracy for America. Nader had said he would build such a network, but, as Tom Hayden said when we were on Pacifica Radio together, Nader has not done that.
Dean's future in Vermont is not clear. Polls show his popularity in the Green Mountain State to be somewhat diminished, but he did win the Democratic primary in his home state. People I talk to who speak ill of Dean in Vermont often rail on him for his having run for President while still in office as Vermont's governor. At the same time, such people still often point out that he was a good governor. He could run for governor again, as Richard Snelling did after a period of being out of office. He would need to do the kind of cathartic campaigning that he did to heal the wounds after the civil union battle.
However, Howard has now had a taste of the national stage, and appears to have enjoyed it. One possibility is that he would run for Senator from Vermont. Jim Jeffords, who got disgusted with the Bush administration and left the Republican Party to become an independent, might not run again, given his health. This would open the door for Howard, who has a long history of being in the right place at the right time.
Howard could also end up with a role in a Kerry administration, if such a thing occurs. Dean is often mentioned for Surgeon General, even by right-wingers like William Safire. There might be other positions for him, such as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Howard's support of Kerry, even as he takes positions that should be antithetical to Howard, do make you wonder what kind of discussions he has had with John Kerry.

Will Kerry get elected President?

Kerry makes some amazingly ill-thought-out statements at regular intervals. Such a response to a question I asked him on C-SPAN provoked me to write the book.
Walter Shapiro at USA Today said a press release I put out condemning Kerry's saying he would still, today, give Bush authorization to go to war provoked him to write a column on Kerry's penchant for equivocation.
Kerry's got the advantage that he is not George W. Bush. While this is true of all but one person on this planet, it still helps when the ABB (anybody but Bush) sentiment is so strong.
Kerry is also known as a strong closer. When Bill Weld was running neck and neck with him in the race for Senate in Massachusetts, Kerry finished Weld off in the final weeks like Ali off the ropes in Zaire.

Was Howard Dean undone by the Iowa scream?

If it were that simple, I wouldn't have written a book.
Dean was largely finished by the time of his "scream", which certainly did have a primal aspect to it. And it wasn't perfect timing for such a performance, but the yodel wasn't as over-the-top as the media made it out to be. Major Garrett of Fox pointed that out to me, as I describe in my book. The media knew, at least those who were in the ballroom in Iowa, that there was a great deal of noise, and Dean was responding to the crowd.
The media used sound from directional mikes that screened out the enormous crowd noise, and made it seem like Howard was screaming out of context.
Imagine that- media manipulating images.

So what undid the Dean campaign?

To simplify what took dozens of pages in the book, arrogance, poor staffing, lousy advertising, lack of true responsiveness to the grassroots, poor speeches, the absence of Judith Steinberg Dean as Howard's moderating influence, poor strategy from Joe Trippi and other decision-makers, the media, and most of the powers-that-be in the Democratic Party. Now you see why the book runs almost 400 pages, even with judicious editing (something Bill Clinton should have used; he wasn't writing War and Peace).

Was Dean too liberal?

When Howard began his political career in Vermont, there were many who thought he might as well have been a Republican. He was always pro-business, and much more a conservationist than an environmentalist. Ultimately, he is a pragmatist, although his judgments in the presidential run weren't always tempered with pragmatism.
Because of the traction he got, world-wide, from speaking out against the Iraq war, he was easily seen as a liberal. Insisting on universal health coverage aided that view, as did civil unions in Vermont. It was poor political strategy that Dean did not manage to tack more toward the middle once he emerged as a legitimate national contender. He had always tended to reside in the middle anyway. Howard got away from who he is, maybe because Judy wasn't there to provide his center and sounding board. He also probably saw Trippi as the Svengali behind his meteoric rise, and placed too much trust in his judgement.

What about Dean and civil unions in Vermont?

Civil unions came about because of the people on the State Supreme Court, some of whom Dean had appointed, and many courageous legislators in the state. Dean did send an encouraging message when he indicated he would sign a civil unions bill, but the court had left open the option of gay marriage, and Dean directed lawmakers toward the more winnable political battle.
He wasn't exactly front and center at the frontlines of that battle either. However, he did sign the legislation, and then courageously took the heat, as the most obvious target. The battle cost many lawmakers re-election, and Dean's last run for governor was actually very close.
Howard took to cue, and moved to the national stage. There, he did sometimes benefit from the perception that he was a spearhead of a movement in Vermont. However, the movement that produced civil unions in Vermont is as much a reflection of Vermont culture and politics as of Dean being a political trailblazer.

Joe Trippi looked like he would be the next James Carville. What is his future?

Trippi doesn't have a lengthy history of working with winning campaigns. When the Dean campaign looked like it had enormous momentum, Trippi was often front and center getting media coverage. This may not have been a good thing. There are probably more people who can name Trippi as Dean's campaign manager than there are who could name Kerry or Bush's campaign manager today.
Trippi had a great idea- raising money over the Internet, by making people feel the campaign was responsive to them through the Net. Unfortunately, the money wasn't always spent wisely, as the comparative graphs in the book show. As far as response to the grassroots through the Net, people were always pointing out over the Dean blog that the ads were poor. Yet the money kept getting funneled through the same ad firm- Trippi, McMahon and Squier. It is worth noting that the firm dissolved after Howard withdrew, with Trippi leaving, and the new firm of McMahon and Squier appearing.

Why were some people so drawn to Dean?

The message that "You have the power" was taken to heart by many. Often, they thought the pronoun "you" was meant as singular rather than plural. American politics makes many feel disenfranchised, which is why voter turnouts are so abysmal. Since Dean seemed to be affirming the importance of individuals, they opened their wallets and pocketbooks. The most extreme of them, who would embrace the term "Deaniac" could sometimes see Dean as representing all of their individual values, which no politician ever does for anyone, except sometimes themselves.
In the case of John Kerry, his descent down the slippery semantic slope sometimes makes it unclear what values he embraces between the beginning and end of an individual sentence. That is part of why people aren't warming up to Kerry. You don't see fervent Kerry supporters, but you do see many who say "he's certainly better than Bush, and Cheney, and Rumsfield, and Rove." Rather a case of damning with faint praise.

Why should I buy "Burning at the Grassroots: Inside the Dean Machine"?

There is a lot to be learned from the 2004 primary season, and the political history in the book. Your ability to learn is in inverse proportion to how much you already think you know. If you think you know what happened to the Dean campaign, you aren't going to learn as much from the book as you might with an open mind.
There are many smart people speaking, in exactly their own words, in the book. I tried to subvert my own voice as much as possible, because I think others have vastly more interesting insights. If you look at the list of interviewees elsewhere on this website, you will see famous names, as well as people you have never heard of before. All of them have something to share.
Republicans, Democrats, Independents, good citizens; everyone can learn something from the book. The first copies have gone out to young and old, Republican and Democrat, political and apathetic. The praise from all quarters has been very affirming.
Look at the chapter summaries. There is something there for you.
You have the power. To buy the book. To run for office. To change a system that is too-often dysfunctional.
But you only have the power if you exercise it.