Laughing it off
Tom Tomorrow suggests Dean can use his professional wrestler impersonation to advantage:
Just my two cents…
…but if I were in the Dean camp right now, I’d be trying to pull a little ju jitsu–turn that “yeaarrggh” thing around, make it a joke, embrace it. Open campaign rallies with that remix that’s floating around the ‘net. Hand out t-shirts to volunteers which just say “YEEAAARRRGGH” across the front. Maybe have Dean open speeches with some mildly self-deprecating joke: “I’ve taken a lot of kidding for my speech in Iowa–but if you think *I* was hollering then, wait till *you* get the bill for Bush’s spending spree!”
You can’t make it go away, but you can turn it around.
It looks like that’s the Dean plan, and even the Blog for Bush can see that it might work:
Of course, the last person you expected to poke fun at Howard Dean was Howard Dean himself. Last night Dean had a taped appearance on Late Night with David Letterman and delivered the The Top Ten List, titled, “Ways, I, Howard Dean, Can Turn Things Around.”
Reproduced on Blogs For Bush for your amusement, here is the list, as delivered by Howard Dean, called “Ways, I, Howard Dean, Can Turn Things Around.”:
10. Switch to decaf.
9. Unveil new slogan, “Vote for Dean and get one dollar off your next purchase at Blimpie.”
8. Marry Rachel on the final episode of “Friends.”
7. Don’t change a thing, it’s going great.
6. Show a little more skin.
5. Go on “American Idol” and give them a taste of those pipes.
4. Start working out and speaking with an Austrian accent.
3. I can’t give specifics yet, but it involves Ted Danson.
2. Fire the staffer who suggested I do this lousy Top 10 List instead of actually campaigning.
1. Oh, I don’t know — maybe fewer, crazy, red-faced rants.
This may not have been a bad thing for him to do. Perhaps now he can say we’re not laughing at him, but we’re laughing with him.
I actually thought the howl/scream was humanising — the guy just lost a ballot, he should be entitled to blow off a little steam.
I don’t know whether I’m a Dean supporter yet, though. I have only paid a superficial interest to the race, and according to the Presidential Match quiz, Kucinich is the man for me.
True, Dean’s a human being like everyone else. The rant and “YEEARRGH!!” (or whatever that sound was) bothered me because it indicated how he behaves under pressure. Let’s say you’re interviewing a few candidates for a job opening. If someone’s really nervous (and interviews are no fun anyway, of course), you wonder if he’ll flip out when things get really hectic at the workplace. So if this is how Dean acts when losing a race, I shudder to think of how he’d react upon learning that two hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center.
In any case, the Iowa speech is water under the bridge, and he and his advisors are making the best of the situation going forward.
I don’t think Dean would have reacted to 9/11 by doing a deer-in-headlights impression and then spending half an hour posing with little kids.
If Kucinich is your man I think you’re going to have to retake the quiz again very soon.
I got Kerry with a 100% match rating. Scary.