I got home today to find that Howard Dean had called and left a message. In the recording, Dr. Dean was thankful and hopeful. He was easy, pleasant and quiet.
And, frankly, I felt let down.
Look. I like several of the Democratic candidates. I will not be unhappy if Gebhardt, Edwards, Kerry or Clark win the nod.
But Dean ranks high on my list because he's really angry.
Is there a serious American conservative or liberal who doesn't share that anger?
Domestically, the radical Bush Administration is conducting class warfare to make the powerful more so.
It is liberating major corporations from all behavioral restraints (taxes and envirommental regulations among them). It is enhancing the State's police power at the expense of those protections the Constitution affords individuals.
Internationally, the Administration has rejected the policies of every President since FDR, including Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Bush Pére to conduct a phony "War on Terrorism."
All this we know. Thanks to secrecy,
we won't know for years what additional outrages they have perpetrated. (Saudi Arabian connection, anyone?)
If this doesn't anger you, what will?
Oh, I understand that candidates who smile and offer rosy scenarios are elected more often than the dour guys. (Think Ronald Reagan.)
But it's also true that Americans like candidates who believe in something other than getting elected.(Think Ronald Reagan.)
So every time I read that Howard Dean is "too angry," I assume the writer has a job and health insurance
and his kids are in a good college, not in Iraq.
To all the Democratic candidates, I say,
"Show me the anger." Smile later, much later.
PS Barry Goldwater was an angry young man. He lost big. But he began a process wherein the GOP jettisoned its Establishment and found itself.
I hope the Democrats win the White House this year.
I will surrender ideological "purity" for that victory. But if the Democrats lose this election while finding the party's soul, so be it.