Abstract

New Hampshire Populists

The author speculates about U.S. presidential candidate Howard Dean's chances of winning the Democratic nomination. Howard Dean has won the war but lost another battle. In New Hampshire--where Senator John Kerry racked up his second straight win, with 39 percent, Dean placed a not-so-encouraging second, at 26 percent, and Senator John Edwards and retired Gen. Wesley Clark both received an unimpressive 12 percent--the leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination all ran as Dean-like crusaders, vowing to vanquish Washington special interests. So Dean should feel complimented, small consolation as that may be. His "take back America" campaign--which he claimed was enlisting citizens in a grassroots effort to challenge the money-and-power ways of Washington--not only inspired hundreds of thousands of people to donate and volunteer but also persuaded Dean's rivals that anti-special-interests populism was the ticket to the White House, or at least the Democratic nomination. Dean also continued to expound the people-have-the-power faith and you'll always-know-where-I-stand attitude of Paul Wellstone, as he pointed to his own early opposition to the war and characterized his campaign as an organizing vehicle for voters seeking to bring public-interest democracy to Washington. But if Dean is to have a chance of supplanting Kerry as his party's messenger-in-chief--a large if-his campaign, often described as insurgent, may well have to reach a new and even more intense level of insurgency.