This is a dreadfully bad idea. I may not have been an enthusiastic “Deaniac” during the Dem primaries, but hearing that Howard Dean is considering a new career as a TV talk show host is enough to make me cringe.
Love him or hate him (I’ve leaned towards the latter), Dean made a serious contribution to the process in 2003. He built a strong national following, created a historic internet campaign presence, raised a lot of money, and got a lot of people excited about the political process.
When Dean left the stage on Feb. 18, CNN’s Carlos Watson suggested Dean could have a future in entertainment, arguing that the former candidate could transition from politician to talk-show host. At the time, this seemed ridiculous. Dean, a one-time frontrunner for the Dem nomination, had demonstrated tremendous organizing and fundraising skills. Dr. Howard could become another Dr. Phil, but it appeared that Dean had broader ambitions in mind.
In fact, the focus seemed to be on a new political organization, Democracy for America. When he suspended his campaign, Dean insisted that he would do what no former Democratic presidential candidate has ever done: parlay his campaign into a political entity that helps shape American politics well beyond Election Day.
“Dean for America will be converted into a new grassroots organization,” Dean said. “We need everybody to stay involved. We are — as we always have — going to look at what you had to say about which directions we ought to be going in, and what we ought to continue to do together…. We are leaving one track, but we are going on another track that will take back America for ordinary people again.”
Two months later, Dean is in LA talking about hosting a talk show?
Onetime Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean is considering a new career as a television talk show host.
Dean, whose White House bid imploded after the notoriously exuberant speech he delivered after losing the Iowa caucuses, joined a TV producer in Hollywood this week to shop the idea around to several studios, industry sources said on Friday.
Spearheading the effort for the ex-Vermont governor is Larry Lyttle, the former head of Big Ticket Television, which produced syndicated courtroom show “Judge Judy,” UPN sitcom “The Parkers” and the WB’s hidden-camera show “The Jamie Kennedy Experiment,” the sources said.
Lyttle currently has a production deal with Paramount Domestic Television, one of the studios whose executives met with Dean about the possibility of a syndicated Dean-hosted show, a spokesman for Lyttle’s office said.
[…]
Asked whether Dean was exploring a talk show career, spokesman Jay Carson told Reuters the doctor-turned-politician was “looking at a lot of options right now.”
I wasn’t sorry to see Dean lose in the primaries, but even I think Dean’s above this nonsense.
In fact, the man who insisted that he would remain committed to “taking back America for ordinary people again,” may not even focus his new program on politics.
“The last thing we’re going to talk about is politics,” Lyttle was quoted as saying. “He’d look at things like: What happens if you lose a sibling? What about when you’re victimized by not having health care?”
He added that Dean combined qualities of self-help guru Dr. Phil McGraw, veteran talk show host Phil Donahue and the fictional Howard Beale, the ranting anchorman from the movie “Network.”
Someone is giving Dean some very bad advice. Consider the nexus between politicians and talk-show hosts: there are unsuccessful politicians who ran unsuccessful talk shows (Alan Keyes, Jesse Ventura, Joe Scarborough), scary talk show hosts who ran unsuccessful political campaigns (Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan), and scary talk show hosts who still aspire to political careers (Jerry Springer).
Is this really the group Howard Dean wants to join?