Gov. Howard Dean is on a roll. He’s picking up high-profile endorsements, contributions are up, media calls are increasing, and John Kerry’s folks are beginning to genuinely worry. Dean’s speech to the DNC last week was key to this new found momentum — he clearly came away from the cattle-call event as the candidate Democratic loyalists were most excited about.
With the success of the remarks, many believe the Gov. should use the speech as the framework for most events for the foreseeable future. Dean clearly agrees; he’s been repeating many of the exact lines in every speech since. The one line that seems to really generate applause, the one that gets an audience on its feet, is always the same: “I’m Howard Dean, and I’m here to represent the Democratic Party wing of the Democratic Party.” (and the crowd goes wild…)
It’s a great sound bite. It’s obviously memorable. It’s made a nice little addition to the home page of Dean’s campaign website. And he needs to stop using it immediately.
The remark simply doesn’t belong to him. The late, great, Paul Wellstone used the exact same line in every stump he gave for years. It’s in his book and it was part of the campaign literature in every race he ran in. In the wake of Wellstone’s tragic death last year, most eulogies acknowledged how proud he was to remind anyone who would listen that he represented the “Democratic Party wing of the Democratic Party.” Wellstone and the line are inextricably linked.
And now Dean would like to make it his. Dean doesn’t tell audiences, “As Paul Wellstone used to say…” or “I’m proud to stand with others who have represented the Democratic Party wing…” Instead, Dean has just co-opted it.
Carpetbagger believes Dean is making a mistake that could come back to haunt him. “Borrowing” a famous line from a fallen hero, without attribution, is asking for trouble. Either give credit where credit is due, or come up with your own applause line.
Remarkably, no one in the media has asked Dean about using Wellstone’s line, so Dean hasn’t had to deal with the embarrassment of saying he borrowed it. But it’s only a matter of time.