US: About 75 people, mostly thirtysomethings, gathered in the Kettle of Fish in Greenwich Village on Wednesday evening to hang out, debate, watch a video and write letters, writes Conor O'Clery
In the wood-floored back room lit by imitation gas lights, where Bob Dylan and the Beat poet Alan Ginsberg used to hang out, members of the new anti-war generation focused on how to help Howard Dean in the Iowa Caucus on January 19th.
The event was one of hundreds of informal "meet-ups" across America - 50 in New York state alone - of Dean supporters held that evening. These mostly impromptu grassroot gatherings are a phenomenon of the Democratic primary campaign. The support-Dean movement has brought together many thousands of Americans through promotions on the Internet.
"This is what it's all about," enthused Joe, an advertising executive, "Dean gets it. This is horizontal communication, peer to peer." He was there, said Joe, because Bush "will set the country back 50 years if he gets to appoint two Supreme Court judges". Children's story writer Tim Paulson handed out writing materials and beseeched people to copy out two letters each for sending to individual Iowa voters. Samples were distributed, with such phrases as, "I am writing to you to ask you to help take our country back," but participants were encouraged to "please write your own unique letter."
Sitting on the floor to pen two epistles, Barbara Riddle, author of the novel, The Girl Pretending to Read Rilke, said happily, "It feels like the '60s again. Things haven't been the same since Watergate."
Josh, a tall Dean campaign official, asked for volunteers to make their way to Iowa to answer phones and help get voters out. "He's on top, we need to put him over the edge," he said. All they could guarantee was "lodging and bad food". The chat was stilled for a video of Al's Gore's speech endorsing Dean, which everyone agreed was "real cool to watch". There was little discussion of the issues - everyone knew where they stood - and some sexual bonding among the singles, which seemed to be why some of them were there.
Before leaving some arranged to meet again at the "Dance for Dean" event in a Brooklyn church on January 24th featuring "DJ Jordan, celebrities, dance, a raffle and general merry-making".
The influx of some 5,000 Dean supporters into Iowa has led to accusations from the camp of rival Dick Gephardt that there is a plan to slip non-Iowans into the Democratic caucuses to pose as state residents and support Dean. The front-runner's campaign manager, Joe Trippi, denied the allegation and accused the Gephardt manager, Steve Murphy, of "sleazy tactics". Participants in the Iowa caucus must be registered Democrats but they can sign up on the spot and ID is not required.
More troublesome for Dean is the broadcasting of tapes - what
would a US election be without tapes? - of Howard Dean pontificating on The Editors, a discussion programme on political issues aired in Canada which he frequently graced while Governor of Vermont.
He comes across as even-tempered, fairly consistent and with a grasp of domestic and international issues, but he left some hostages to fortune, according to excerpts culled by NBC News. Dean, in one discussion, described the Iowa caucus, which he has been hailing as a cornerstone of democracy, as "dominated by the special interests in both parties (who) represent the extremes." In another appearance after the 2000 presidential election, Dean said he thought George Bush, whom he describes today as "the most radical right-wing president in my lifetime", was "in his soul a moderate" and that it was "a mistake" to think he would not win a second term. Ooops!
A Dean spokeswoman pointed out that the quotes were cut from nearly 100 appearances, but Dean did wish he had been "more artful" in some of his comments.
One of the political advertisements running on Iowa television shows a farmer saying he thinks that "Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading . . . " His wife then finishes the sentence: ". . . Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs." This attack ad is being paid for not by a rival candidate but a conservative advocacy group. Some Republicans are not too pleased. They want Dean to win the nomination as they believe he is the most beatable of the nine Democratic contenders. Republican strategist Alan Hoffenblum said those who funded it should heed the late Republican strategist Lee Atwater's admonition: "Never interfere with your opponents when they are in the middle of destroying themselves."
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will not win any awards for her attempt at humour this week. At a fund-raiser on Saturday the New York senator introduced a quotation from Mahatma Ghandi: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
The she added that they must know who Ghandi was - "he ran a gas station down in St Louis." It was, she admitted ruefully, "a lame attempt at humour" and she never meant to fuel the stereotype of certain ethnic groups running America's petrol stations.
Good job she is not running for president.