First, the Dean story.
So, I was flyering around the Macy's/Herald Square Area last fall. I'd get waves of people interested in flyers, and then dry spells.
People headed for shopping. People headed elsewhere. Few people really thinking about the election in 2004, and several commenting that the Dean folks sure were out early.
"Ya gotta get Dean flyers while they're hot off the presses," I jokingly replied, "Soon, everyone will want one."
By the fifth iteration of that catchphrase, I had wandered over to the LIRR entrance of Penn Station near Madison Square Garden. A group of college kids, one with a Princeton logo on the back of his shirt, came wandering by.
"Take a Dean flyer, guys!"
"Is it for or against Dean?"
I knew we would have a problem. Princeton is not exactly known as the Noam Chomsky school of International Relations. Its most progressive graduates were Bill Bradley and Ralph Nader. Well, Bill Bradley anyway.
"What does the shirt say?" I pointed to my Dean shirt.
"No way, guy. We're going to crush him like a toad. He's nuts, you know." Keep in mind this was months before the Yeargh.
"Well, he IS a doctor. It's harder to be a doctor when you're nuts than an oil man when you're drunk."
"Oh, you people think the world of doctors. Well, any idiot can be a doctor. Smart guys like us know that work is for suckers. If you were a little brighter, you'd realize that."
"His wife's a doctor too..."
"Yeah, whatever. Come next summer, we're coming back here to the Garden, and we're going to crush the man." and they began to head down the stairs toward the trains.
"His wife went to Princeton!"
Three of the four kept walking. One turned and headed back to me.
"What?"
"Judy Steinberg Dean went to Princeton. So do you guys. Make of it what you will. Howard and I are just two idiots from Yale."
"Ok, I'll take one of those," the fourth guy said. Then he too headed into the train station.
My wife is calling, so I'll tell another story tonight and compare Ralph and George and John's policies.