Howard Dean: He Still Has The Power

Bid for DNC Chair Recharges Failed Presidential Candidate

The men who would be chairmen: From left, Tim Roemer, former congressman from Indiana; Howard Dean; former Denver mayor Wellington Webb, and former Ohio state chair David Leland. (John Amis -- AP)

ST. LOUIS -- Howard Dean keeps fidgeting onstage. He is spending his Saturday in Salon D of a crummy airport Hilton, joined by six other candidates for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. They are competing for the love of a few dozen DNC members in the audience. There is much noise and raucousness in the air. Great excitement, passion and a palpable sense of mission!

Unfortunately, it's emanating from next door, Salon E, where a whooping throng of salespeople for a nutritional supplement called Nectavida are holding an all-day "healing America" meeting.

They keep breaking into chants and applause at the most inopportune times for the assembled Democrats. "I'm ready, I'm ready!" the Nectavidans scream as the Democrats hold a moment of silent reflection for Martin Luther King Jr.

"Whoop, whoop, whoop!" they bark as a party official takes a full 10 minutes to explain the protocol for taking questions from the audience.

"Shhhhh," a Democratic staffer hisses to the salespeople through the door of a fold-out wall.

It's still hard to hear the Democrats. Their microphones keep going dead, or cracking with static. People in the crowd -- an assortment of 250 staffers, party officials and professional Democrats -- keep talking among themselves and milling around. The caucus goes on for three hours and feels more like six.

The audience is rapt whenever Dean speaks. Slimmer and more rested-looking than you remember him, Dean is the former rock star in a field of "American Idol" contestants. His rhetoric follows closely on the "You have the power" theme that marked his presidential campaign. "I'm not much of a Zen person," Dean says, "but I've learned that the best way to gain power is to give it away."

He comes well known to this race -- and with baggage. He would make a disastrous party chairman, many Democrats believe, for the same reasons he would have been a disastrous nominee for president last year. He is too liberal, too blunt and too unpredictable to be the chief spokesman of the party. The same things that won Dean such a fervent following as a presidential candidate could also violate the on-message orthodoxy that is traditionally demanded of party chairmen. Better to elect a more sober, centrist, non-lightning rod of a chairman -- like former representative Martin Frost of Texas, who is sitting three seats to the left of Dean.

While his opponents speak, Dean periodically holds his hands together over his nose and contorts his face. Candidate David Leland -- former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party -- is giving a spirited oration about how the Democratic Party is responsible for putting a man on the moon. A Democratic operative named Simon Rosenberg is vowing to help the party meet the challenges of the 21st century, and another named Donnie Fowler is telling everyone about all the campaigns he's worked on.

Dean keeps grimacing. He has a bad back. But it's hard not to wonder if he isn't slightly bored, too. Or if his mind doesn't occasionally wander to where he was a year ago: the front-runner on a stage with a war hero, a House minority leader, a former nominee for vice president, a future nominee for vice president and a four-star general. There were the magazine covers, fundraising records, photo-ops with Jimmy Carter and endorsements from Al Gore. And then -- exactly one year ago tomorrow -- came Dean's third-place stumble in Iowa and the televised rant and scream and brilliant flame-out that followed.

So here is Howard Dean of 2005 vintage, a few days before the president he critiqued with such resonance will be reinaugurated. It's hard not to wonder something a lot of hard-core Deaniacs keep wondering themselves:

Why is Howard Dean here? Does he really want this job?

Yes, Dean keeps saying, he really does want to succeed Terry McAuliffe as titular head of the Democratic Party. But it's telling that people keep asking if he really does. Dean keeps raising the question himself. "People ask me, 'Why are you doing this?' " Dean says Friday night at a rally of 400 supporters at another airport hotel here. "They say, 'You ran for president, and now you want to do this?' "

"It's about reform," Dean says, answering his question. He mentions the successes of his grass-roots organization -- Democracy for America. He mentions the money its members raised, the winning candidates they supported and how he can apply this energy to the central party apparatus.