The Art of Howard Dean's Fall

His story is almost unbelievable, his fall as rapid and unexpected as the meteoric rise that took him from a New England state government to the front pages of magazines and newspapers across the nation. And though former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean dropped out of the race for the White House this week, he differs from many past failed presidential candidates in that his legend will likely live on in American political lore for generations. I, however, will remember Dean for something other than his brief tenure as the frontrunner for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. For in one of those delightfully sublime moments in history when life imitates art, Dean has provided us with one of the most picturesque and artistic exits from the American stage in recent memory—with a little help from the Bible, of all places.

It all started when Dean remarked to reporters in early January that Job was his favorite book from the New Testament. Job is a part of the Old Testament, of course; and as if this was not enough, Dean forged on with his obtuse biblical meditations. “I don’t like the way it ends,” he appended, flubbing a few sentences on the authenticity of Job’s ultimate restoration, “which we believe was tacked on later.” Dean then left the room but returned about an hour later to admit his mistake while reasserting shrewdly that “it’s such an allegory…It sort of explains that bad things could happen to very good people for no good reason.”

And with these words, as if he had aroused the wrath of God with his inanity, the walls came tumbling down on Dean. He came in third in the Iowa caucus, second in New Hampshire’s primary, and then failed to take first place in any subsequent primary. According to CNN/USA Today/Gallup polls of registered Democrats nationwide, in mid-December he had been leading the nearest Democratic contender by 18 percentage points; by the beginning of February, he was losing to Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., by 38 percentage points. In less than a month, everything that Dean had worked for and accomplished in almost two years on the campaign trail was taken away. Somehow, fantastically, poetically, Dean became the very character he had so fatefully alluded to the month before.

Was Dean guilty of some horrible sin, or was he merely done in by the whims of society? Pundits and pollsters have offered a variety of answers to this question. Some point to the pugnacity of the media or the other Democratic contenders, some fault Dean’s lack of a military background, some excoriate former campaign manager Joe Trippi or endorser Al Gore ’69, some simply sigh and say “it was never meant to be.” We will never, perhaps, isolate the cause of Dean’s rapid downfall. I submit, however, that we should not keep our minds closed to the possibility of divine intervention.

Was it Job or Dean who howled famously in apparent agony and disbelief at the misfortune that had befallen him? Both men went through shock, anguish and fist-raising before coming to the overwhelming but reluctant conclusion that “the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away” (Job 1:21)—or, as Dean half-heartedly put it on Wednesday, “We are leaving one track, but we are going on another track that will take back America...”

Job, like Dean, was a successful, righteous man caught up in a divine joke. In Job’s case, God had abruptly taken his fortune, his family and his health. While Job’s friends insisted that he must have done something to anger the deity, the truth is that there was nothing. God was acting arbitrarily, for a few celestial pennies in a trivial bet with Satan.

Dean’s fate was similarly meaningless. There are no principles of politics to be deduced from his experience except that nothing is sure. Of course, political analysts and consultants will forever try to draw lessons from Dean’s campaign, warning future candidates not to be too angry, not to put all their eggs in the anti-war basket, not to be endorsed by the establishment too early, not to squander funds. But we should remember that these are the same analysts who just a few months ago anointed Dean the Democratic nominee, lauding his fiery rhetoric, his outsider status and his groundbreaking efforts at high-tech political mobilization. In the end, Dean’s flaws were as ineffable and varied as his virtues. Dean, like all good art, may ultimately have danced on the American stage for no real practical purpose at all.

As Dean suggested, there was a happy ending to the story of Job: His fortune and family was returned to him and he lived to the ripe old age of 140. But for Dean, who appropriately noticed that the resolution of Job’s story was inconsistent with reality, there will likely be no happy ending inserted. Rather, he will live out the version of the story that he claimed to prefer: Dean, like the old soldier that he is not, will simply fade away. Just as Job had expected to, Dean will march off “to the land of deepest night, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness” (Job 10: 21-22). In other words, he will return to Vermont and resume the mundane existence that had been so suddenly and deliberately interrupted by this mean cosmic joke.

Jorian P. Schutz ’05 is a social studies concentrator in Pforzheimer House.