Dean at Debate: Not His Shining Moment

The bar was set very low for Howard Dean in the Democratic presidential candidates� debate today in Johnston, Iowa. He didn�t necessarily stumble over it, but he sure had a hard time stepping over it.
In that sense, Dean was the loser in the event sponsored by Iowa Public Television and The Des Moines Register.
The pros figured beforehand that all Dean had to do to win was to not mistakes. In the case of Dean, a candidate with a hair-trigger temper and a big streak of arrogance, winning simply meant not losing his cool.
Rep. Dick Gephardt had a much higher hurdle to clear than simply not doing something. Iowa is do-or-die for him. He had to rouse traditional, caucus-going blue-collar Iowans that the future of the Democratic Party absolutely, positively depends on them leaving their warm, cozy homes on a cold January night to support him on the Jan. 19 precinct caucuses.
Anything else that went on during the two-hour event to shuffle the deck was merely a subplot.
Gephardt�s first problem is that more traditional, blue-collar Iowans were tuned into the Packers-Seahawks playoff game than the debate. His second was that he didn�t score a knock-out punch on Dean.
Nonetheless, other candidates helped the Gephardt cause, particularly Sen. Joe Lieberman and Sen. John Kerry, as the Democrats started a war of attrition in earnest today with Dean as the target.
Lieberman called out Dean when the former governor said he�d repeal the Bush tax cuts that supposedly only benefit wealthy Americans. Lieberman countered that the benefit to the average middle-income family was $1,800 and, as a �Bill Clinton Democrat,� he favors another middle-income tax cut.
When Dean was asked three times if he was for tax relief for the middle class, he drew some derisive laughter when he said he�d balance the federal budget �in the sixth or seventh year of my administration.�
Sen. John Edwards tweaked Dean by saying to Register editor Paul Anger, �The answer to your question [to Dean] is that he has no plan for a middle-class tax cut.�
Gephardt got in an effective shot after Dean claimed he was the only candidate who had balanced a budget. Gephardt noted that a number of the candidates on stage were in Congress or the Senate and voted for balanced budgets in the 1990s. �We even produced a surplus,� Gephardt said to the delight of the audience.
Kerry took Dean to task over his inconsistencies during the campaign, saying they raised �serious questions about your ability to stand up to George Bush.�
Lieberman had Dean in his sights when he closed, �We�re not going to defeat the extremism of the Bush administration with extreme anger of our own. Anger and negativism and division don�t win elections in America.�
That line was obviously written before the debate and it was interesting to see the Dean opened the debate by declaring his campaign is based �on hope not anger,� as he has already begun distancing himself from the negative energy that has fueled his candidacy. No wonder Al Gore endorsed him; Dean has already remade himself as many times as the former Vice President did during the early days of the 2000 campaign.
Dean looked off-key even when he fell back on familiar material, such as when he closed with his stock TV ad claim that it�s �you not me who has the power� to change America. Without the luxury of extra make-up and multiple takes, Dean just looked hurried, sweaty, angry and very un-presidential.
It played right into Kerry�s claim that America needs a president with the right �temperament and judgment� and one whose not going to screw the middle class with higher taxes.
Whether all the bashing is enough to stop Dean in Iowa � and keep Gephardt�s candidacy alive to fight another day � remains to be seen. In the end, however, the man who had all the advantages of the front-runner position Dean looked angry at times, nervous at others and evasive most often of all.
Average voters just tuning into the race, particularly in the South, may take one look at Dean and wonder what all the hype has been about