The Unlikely Rise of Howard Dean
Howard Dean gets a glowing profile on New York Metro.com. The writer, Meryl Gordon, focuses much of her attention of Dean as a person and, in doing so, puts his political stances into a personal context.
For better or worse, presidential candidates are judged on their family backgrounds and they way they’ve lived their lives before they jumped into the race. They are required to be both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. They have to be simultaneously Patrician and “just folks”—those of you who remember the Al Gore “he went to St. Alban’s and lived in a hotel” meme from 2000 know what I’m talking about here.
What we are shown of Dean’s life in this article bodes well for his ability to run as an above average, average guy. The son of Park Avenue blue-bloods, he’s not going to be able to run on a “rags to riches story.” However, there’s an appeal to a person who walked away from “a Park Avenue apartment serenely decorated with small African sculptures and modernist paintings and prints” to “a much-lived-in house, with an Oriental rug, a white couch and wing chair that need reupholstering, a chess set, and framed pictures on every flat surface.”
Is any of this as important as his stands on foreign policy or domestic issue? No, but it will be treated as such by the wags of the media. It’s better to be prepared, and this article is a good start in introducing the country to the private side of a compelling candidate.
(Thanks to Jason Rothstein for the catch!)
For better or worse, presidential candidates are judged on their family backgrounds and they way they’ve lived their lives before they jumped into the race. They are required to be both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. They have to be simultaneously Patrician and “just folks”—those of you who remember the Al Gore “he went to St. Alban’s and lived in a hotel” meme from 2000 know what I’m talking about here.
What we are shown of Dean’s life in this article bodes well for his ability to run as an above average, average guy. The son of Park Avenue blue-bloods, he’s not going to be able to run on a “rags to riches story.” However, there’s an appeal to a person who walked away from “a Park Avenue apartment serenely decorated with small African sculptures and modernist paintings and prints” to “a much-lived-in house, with an Oriental rug, a white couch and wing chair that need reupholstering, a chess set, and framed pictures on every flat surface.”
Is any of this as important as his stands on foreign policy or domestic issue? No, but it will be treated as such by the wags of the media. It’s better to be prepared, and this article is a good start in introducing the country to the private side of a compelling candidate.
(Thanks to Jason Rothstein for the catch!)
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