Howard Dean said something bizarre the other day that I can’t quite figure out. It seems to have gone largely unnoticed because so much of the media has obsessed over his “scream” speech from Monday night, but for me, the comment was just as troubling.
Dean told USA Today that he wanted to change his campaign’s emphasis in the wake of his Iowa defeat. Dean explained, “I might as well go back to being who I really am.”
I don’t understand this at all. For months, Dean has told anyone who would listen that he spoke his mind, politics be damned, because of his straight-talking nature. He wouldn’t be a business-as-usual kind of candidate, we heard. What you see is what you get, he insisted.
Now that Dean lost badly in Iowa, however, he believes he can be himself? OK, but if we’re finally going to see the real Dean, who was this other guy we’ve been watching?
Dean seems to be suggesting that his defeat in the caucuses has empowered him and now he can stop putting on airs. The problem is that for over a year, Dean has predicated his appeal on the notion that he never puts on airs.
This isn’t the kind of quote that’s making the rounds, so it probably won’t have much of an impact. Regardless, it seems like a pretty dumb thing to say.