The Deano Demographic

The Weekly Standard has a piece on the Howard Dean house parties (but you can only see a little of it if you are not a subscriber) - Dr. Dean's House Call:

ONE DAY last month, Anne Gallagher, a septuagenarian retiree, drove her 1996 Mercury to the local Giant Foods supermarket. She parked her car just as Paul Mazzuca, a 46-year-old student, was parking his. What happened next, Gallagher said later, was kismet.

46 year old student?

Paul invited Anne to an upcoming party he was throwing to raise money for the former Vermont governor. "I just figured another good Democrat would like some pizza," he said.

Woohoo!

But for Paul, the house party was more than a fundraising tool. His mother had died recently, he explained, and she had thrown some great parties in her time. "I wanted to keep the party going," he said. And so he and Pamela Alesky, his political-scientist "sweetheart" who is between jobs, invited about a dozen of their friends over for homemade deep-dish pizza, spicy buffalo wings, and beer.

See, it wasn't risque! The 46 year old student has a political "scientist" sweetie that's taking time off from Mickey D's. And he's holding the hoedown to commemorate Mom.

Anyhow, to make a long story short, they partied hearty, watched a Deano biography DVD on the telly, and then all listened to a phone call from The Leader addressing the stalwarts. There are lots of quotes that make you wonder if they were serving Kool-Aid too. But here's the best part (from the DVD):

As airy dance music plays in the background, Dean runs through the thanks-be-to-the-Internet boilerplate ("We are built from the mouse pads up . . ." he begins), but then he launches into his call-and-response chant with the audience, in which the refrain is "You have the power!"

"You have the power to take this country back from the corporations and special interests!" barks Dean. "You have the power to have a foreign policy consistent with American principles!" and so on. Dean jabs his fists. His voice grows hoarse. The audience goes wild. It's probably the reason why, you begin to understand, Dean has connected so viscerally with so many people.

There were only snippets of the stump speech, however, and one got the impression that the campaign doesn't want too much coverage of the "You have the power" chant, at least until Dean delivers it on the last night of the Democratic convention.

I can't wait:



Ein Volk! Ein Reich! Ein Deano!