Some stuff about the Howard Dean thing

First, McAllister Auditorium was packed. I'm not very good at head counts.. but there could have been.. um.. 1,500 people? I don't know.. it was a big room and it was full. Two parties among the crowd decided to spell out D-E-A-N on their chests as though they were at a basketball game or something.. cute this was.
The Q and A session featured an old predictable debate whenever a political speaker appears on a college campus. A contingent of Tulane College Republicans insisted on repeatedly asking Dean if he thought it was right that their student activity fee paid for his speech tonight which clearly didn't represent their views. He actually deigned to respond to this... the first time... with the correct answer which is something along the lines of "I'm sure your fees pay for a lot of speakers some with whom you agree others with whom you do not, but that's all part of the experience of free speech and open debate and intellectual inquiry.. something you should embrace in a college setting... blah blah blah" Personally I thought the whole line of questioning was juvenile and in poor taste and, like I said, I'd been to that rodeo before.
The speech was the same stuff anyone who watches even a little C-SPAN has been hearing in their sleep since last spring, "...even the Costa Ricans have health insurance.." Yeah you know, don't even act like you don't. I often lament the extent to which the art of rhetoric has been lost in our public discourse. I should say that Bill Clinton is a remarkable exception to this. I don't think I've ever seen anyone better on the stump..... maybe Edwin Edwards in his prime could match him. If only Clinton had had the guts or the conviction to actually do some good with that talent.... but I digress. Most of the public speaking we're subjected to these days is not only unmoving, it is barely intelligible. And even though the current President has lowered all of our expectations in this arena, Dean still managed to provide a few cringe moments for me. Some of the things I learned from Dean's statements:

• "People in Mississippi need to hear the other side of the coin."
• Apparently, cows can volunteer to be tested for mad cow disease
• People in Africa are learning how to put on condoms in public

OK so he's not exactly the Secretariat of oratory but who is? Oh yeah Bill Clinton is but nevermind that. I, for one, am glad that Howard Dean happened. Because of his campaign, Democrats have begun to find their voice for talking about health care and workers' and human rights and improving environmental standards and doing so in a non-conciliatory manner. They aren't as confrontational as I think they ought to be but there has been movement and that is good. Dean talked a lot tonight about the importance of making your case and standing up for what you believe (those exact words repeatedly) and even though I think that the Democratic Party (and Howard Dean himself) have not been true to that mission for over thirty years, I find the fact that his message resonated with so many people encouraging.
Finally the highlight of the evening. After the show, Rudolph and I stopped and had a few drinks at the Columns Hotel. And then she let me drive her husband's Mustang back to my place. Fun.