The Gathering ‘Scream’
VIEWPOINT
by Kevin Brush
“Not only are we going to New Hampshire … We’re going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico And then we’re going to Washington, D.C., to take back the White House. YEAAAHHHHHHH!”
With those words late in the evening of Jan. 19, a tired but spirited Howard Dean exhorted a gathering of his campaign workers after his disappointing third-place finish in the Iowa Caucuses for the Democratic presidential nomination.
When I saw his speech on the news I couldn’t help but say to myself, “I love Howard Dean!” Not that I agree with what he stands for or that I would vote for him but because something inside of me admires a guy who can stand up in front of 800 people while being nationally televised and let his emotions go. It was fantastic! This is the kind of stuff that would be splashed all over the front pages, I thought. Little did I know.
I awoke the next morning expecting to read, “Howard Dean Goes Nuts!” or “Dean Loses Control.” But the front pages of the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Register and Wall Street Journal had a different focus: “Kerry Wins in Iowa ,” “Kerry wins ,” “Kerry Wins .”
To my astonishment, the newspapers didn’t think Dean’s display was big news. The Wall Street Journal only noted, “Dean reacted to his drubbing by attempting to rally his backers with a display of defiance.” The Associated Press story in the Orange County Register said, “Dean finished third, stripped of his front-runner’s mantle but still defiant,’We will not give up,’ he told backers.”
Only the Times did a separate story on the Dean performance, which it buried on page A14 and ran without a picture. Far from having a critical tone, the story was decidedly favorable. “In Defeat, Fiery Dean Sounds Reinvigorated,” went the headline. The story described Dean as “pumping his fists into the air and pacing the stage with unbottled energy” and observed, “Once on stage Dean took on the countenance of a tiger.”
But a harbinger of things to come, the story did note of Dean that “some who watched the speech thought he came across as shrill” and quoted former Sen. Alan K. Simpson as saying, “He looked like a prairie dog on speed.”
In clear contrast to these newspapers, the post-election TV pundits, the morning radio shock jocks and next evening’s TV talk shows were all over Dean, replaying the speech and taking continuous shots at him. On late-night TV, Jay Leno opened his monologue with, “Cows in Iowa are afraid of getting Mad Dean Disease,” while David Letterman joked, “Did you see Howard Dean ranting and raving? Here’s a little tip Howard,cut back on the Red Bull.”
TV and radio created a feeding frenzy that caused the story to gain momentum. The newspapers started getting on board.
On Jan. 21 I went back to the newsstands to look for more headlines. Jackpot! On the front page of USA Today was a small color photo of Dean punching the air with a sort of half crazed smile on his face. The caption read, “Dean: During wildly animated tirade Monday night.” The headline blared, “What happened to sink Dean in Iowa?”
On page 4 USA Today ran a large headshot of Dean screaming into a microphone. With furrowed brows and a scrunched neck, he appeared angry enough to eat the microphone. To the left of the photo a quote from political analyst Stuart Rothenberg stood out in large print: “He meant to convey an impression of confidence, certainty and commitment but instead conveyed a message of emotional instability.” The large headlines below the photo: “Televised tirade in Iowa dogs Dean after caucuses.”
For the next four days I counted more than 125 newspaper articles about the Dean outburst with headlines such as “Dean scream gaining cult-like status on Web” and “Dean’s ‘energy-building’ speech misconstrued” and “Dean reprises election night rant.” Even the Irish Times chimed in on Jan. 24: “Dean’s a scream on late-night TV over hootin’ an’ hollerin’ in Iowa.”
Most of their articles now agreed: Howard Dean let his emotions get the best of him, and as a result his presidential chances were fading quickly. Whether they trailed public opinion, merely reflected it or helped to shape it, the newspapers finally appeared to be on the mark.
Brush is a senior financial analyst with Generations Healthcare in Santa Ana Heights and an MBA student at Chapman University. This is adapted from his paper for professor Rick Reiff’s “Business and the Media” class.
