Who was Howard Dean?
Dean the Candidate was Patrick Caddell's long-lost brainchild, adopted and groomed by Joe Trippi.
Emerson's "foolish consistency" aside, earnest observers have gone cross-eyed over incongruities between today's Candidate Dean and Gov. Dean of recent history. Which is the authentic Howard Dean?
An astute, politically employed confidant tipped me to the answer ... an answer readily confirmed by the political equivalent of fingerprint, hair and fiber analysis. With Candidate Dean falling rapidly into the past tense, the story can now be told.
The cautiously quirky centrist small-pond Governor Dean has been abducted and replaced with the firebreathing big frog Candidate Dean ... someone strange, yet hauntingly familiar ... a facelifted, reanimated clone of Senator Smith.
And who, you might ask, is Senator Smith?
"Senator Smith" (a.k.a. "Mr. Smith", a.k.a. "Candidate C") is the invented persona central to a campaign model conceived some thirty years ago by pollster/strategist Patrick Caddell. Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi acquired the Smith template in the 1992 primary cycle while helping Caddell sculpt California Gov. Jerry Brown in Smith's image.
Some old hands will immediately recognize Trippi's unscripted, straight-talking iconoclast (Dean) as Caddell's meticulously scripted, straight-talking iconoclast (Smith). For the rest, a little history is in order.
History
Long ago and far away, a young Patrick Caddell sketched campaign scenarios around a model candidate, "Senator Smith", a relative unknown who explodes onto the scene to win the Iowa caucus with "a dual pronged message of populism and new generation leadership". Over the years, Caddell refined this prototype by slipping "Smith" questions into polls for paying clients, and slipping "Smith" messages into speeches for paying candidates.
In 1976, Caddell introduced elements of the Smith formula into Jimmy Carter's image and strategy.
In 1984, Gary Hart was cast as Smith, after Caddell polled the hypothetical figure beating Walter Mondale and the rest of the field.
In 1987, Joe Biden tried the model on for size ... though his exploratory bid never made it into 1988.
In 1992, Jerry Brown morphed into Senator Smith, and embraced "taking our country back from the political elites" so relentlessly that staff cringed at the word 'empowerment'.
The Trippi Connection
Joe Trippi absorbed the model directly from Caddell when the two joined forces on the Brown campaign.
Addressing voters personally ("only you can take your country back", "you have the power to change America"), using emerging media to bypass elite establishment channels, Howard Dean is Joe Trippi's 21st century incarnation of Caddell's Senator Smith.
Senator Smith: The Fictional Prototype
[from Goldman's "Quest for the Presidency 1992"]
"This campaign," Caddell's Senator Smith declared on his hour of triumph on caucus night, "was staked on a fundamental belief that the majority of Americans are not apathetic - just ignored - and that if given a true voice they would rise as a mighty river surging through the political life of our country ... The issue is empowerment, and the way to empower people - is to empower people. This election is not about electing 'me' but 'us'."
"[Senator Smith] speaks directly to the voters by satellite and cable instead of in thirty-second ads."
"[Senator Smith]'s thesis was that American politics and government were ruled by an "elite reality" having little to do with the everyday lives and discontents of the people."
Outcome
One essential premise of Caddell's model is a meteoric rise -- exploiting untapped new media, energizing new voters, taking the nomination by storm before the elites know what hit 'em.
One major drawback to a meteoric rise is that meteors don't rise. They fall.
As Gary Hart learned in 1984, premature ascent can give you the bends. As Jimmy Carter discovered in 1980, the Smith prototype is non-rechargeable. In three decades of experimental application, Senator Smith has never been more than a flash in the presidential pan (though one such flash made it to the Oval Office).
"WHOOOSH" ... ("oooooohhh!") ... "FWOOOP" ... ("awwwwww!").
Was that all there was? You might ask Pat Caddell. Ask Gary Hart, or Jerry Brown. Ask Joe Trippi whether a certain dog-eared 157-page treatise occupies a place of honor in his library. Ask Arnold Schwarzenegger -- he's as eager to "empower" you as the next guy.
You could even ask Governor Dean ... if you can find him.