Cute gossip snip: "Yep, Howard Dean takes the subway."

[madfloridian]

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/whispers/articles/050502/2whisplead.htm?track=rss

Yep, Howard Dean Takes the Subway

Let's just state the obvious: New Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is no Terry McAuliffe . Where the flashy former Clinton fundraiser was a gregarious ringmaster accustomed to the bling-bling of the highest non-publicly elected Democratic job around, Dean is almost a seminarian in his approach to the post. And, oddly, his style seems to fit with the party's bid to build its blue-collar base--just as McAuliffe's meshed with the DNC's need to raise gobs of money and go high tech.
What's so different? McAuliffe would limo around town, dropping in at the Palm to huddle with Washington big shots. The 2004 presidential hopeful, by contrast, takes the bus or subway, buying his own $1.35 ticket. Sometimes he bums rides from staffers or walks the four blocks to the Capitol for meetings. "Please Call Me Howard" never flies first class and always carries his own bags.
Other signs of the ex-guv's modest style: He eats at his desk, stays in a cheap D.C. hotel, and likes oxford shirts and penny loafers. Affectionately dubbed a "geek" by pals, he's often glued to his cellphone and loves E-mail. "His expertise is grass roots and his lifestyle is no different," says an associate. So far, Washington likes what it sees, surprised he's not the oddball that newsies pegged him as last year. Says an aide, smiling: "They're giving him a shot."

This site must insult someone in each snip. This is ugly about McAuliffe, and they may have intending slamming Dean...but it is kind of indicative of his geekiness in a funny sort of way.

[seg4527]

1. public transporation rocks.

and knowing that he takes it too, it rocks every more. :P

[More Than A Feeling]

9. How could Dean not take the Metro when it rocks so much?

I LOVE the Metro! :loveya:

[Kingofalldems]

14. I plan to go to some Nats games

this year and part of the excitement is riding the Metro to RFK. It's great Dean takes Metro around town. I heard he also flies coach. Can't wait to see him on MTP one Sunday to set Timmie straight.

[LizW]

18. The METRO is nice

It's clean, efficient, and the people who ride it are incredibly polite! I'm only 47 and EVERY time I rode when it was full, young men offered me their seat! :)

I would love to live somewhere where there is public transportation. All we have here is VERY limited, VERY underfunded public bus service.

[Crazy Guggenheim]

2. As one who was born and raised in New England. I know

that Dean is for real. He's more cheap with other people's money than he is with his own. Talk about values!

[Southsideirish]

7. He folds up his newspaper when he's done with it and leaves it for other

people. I do that too.

[madfloridian]

22. Nice statement.

I can almost see someone doing that. I can see it in my mind.

[otohara]

3. You Have To Admit

McAulliffe is one flashy guy. Kinda like a white P.Diddy. I thought the bling, bling line was funny!:rofl:

[janx]

20. I noticed that too. It's the first time I've seen it in any kind

of news journalism.

[siliconefreak]

4. Howard Dean is a huge improvement

I never liked McAuliffe. I thought he was every stereotype of a "back room dealmaker" and that he came across as sleazy, very wealthy, and not at all a man who could represent the working class.

[MADem]

11. It was Howard's time

But to be fair to Terry, he fixed our finances in a huge way. We would not have the new HQ if it wasn't for him. He had his time, too, and now we've moved on. But he did do some very good things while he had the helm, failings notwithstanding.

[Pepperbelly]

15. Then you would be mistaken ...

McAuliffe did work that HAD to be done. The fundraising mechanism, cutting edge data systems, and a streamlined, muscular organization was exactly what the party needed. Now, that McAuliffe has accomplished what he was supposed to accomplish, Dr. Dean can concentrate on the politics of it all.

It worked out for the best. When Dr. Dean took the reigns, he took control over a more vibrant organization than existed before McAuliffe's time as chairman. He took control of a DNC that was not staggering under debt and that was designed to actually accomplish things rather than featherbedding for party hacks. That was because of McAuliffe.

Now, if Dr. Dean would work on improving the POLITICAL performance of our surrogates and building our grassroots organization as he is doing, we will have a formidible machine during the next cycle in 06.

[janx]

24. It's a total rebuild.

I hope it can be done by 2006.

[madfloridian]

26. Here is the audio and transcript from Tavis Smiley show...Dean interview.

He goes into great detail about what he doing, and why. He is really pretty interesting here, very passionate about what he is doing.

http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200504/20050420.html

Tavis: All right, enough about Senate Democrats and Republicans for that matter. Let's talk about Howard Dean. Is it just me, and I love seeing your face on TV and seeing you in the paper and in magazines, but is it just me or have you been in hiding since you were elected chairman? I have not seen you, Howard Dean.

Dean: We on purpose have kind of lowered my profile. We've got a lot of work to do, and for the first two months, we restructured the Democratic National Committee. I wanted some real diversity, so we flattened the reporting system. I've got nine people reporting to me. Extremely diverse people. You know, Tavis, you and I have talked about this a lot. I think affirmative action is great, but it's not good enough. If you really want to have diversity in your organization from top to bottom, you need to put people in positions of senior management who are doing the hiring, and that's how you get diversity. Only by having diversity in the senior management. So we spent two months redoing that, redoing the fundraising. We're now redoing the technological side and getting ourselves geared up. We're going to have organizers in every single state, I hope by the end of the year. We're starting in North Carolina, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Missouri, and we need to go from there. We've got to be on the ground. There can't be any more 18-state campaigns. We have to have a 50-state campaign. We have to have a national Democratic message if we are going to compete nationally."

"Tavis: All right, let's move away from talking about white, back, and brown, to what really matters--green. As you well know, it's all about the money, and the Republicans are out front already with money they're stacking up for these mid-term elections. How are you going to do on the fundraising? I ask you that question not just because you're DNC chair, but because you really taught the world, the political world how to raise money off the Internet. So how will you bring that to the Democratic Party?

Dean: We're actually doing fairly well. We've only been there for two months. We've just gotten our folks up and running. We're raising about $1 million a week, which is--I would like to do more, but that's a good start. It's certainly going to break the record for the first year after an election if we continue on this pace. But we need to do better than that. We're working hard with our large donors and we're working hard with the small donors. We're going to redo the website. That's going to be out there sometime in the middle of June.

So I don't think we're going to raise as much as the Republicans, but hopefully we're going to have lower expenses than the Republicans, and that's going to help us some, too."

[Cha]

39. Thanks for this, madfloridian..

My pbs station didn't do the Tavis/Dean interview that night.

Tavis is like us..we love seeing Dean on tv, newspapers, and in magazines, too.

[madfloridian]

27. Making lots of progress with small donors, still working with large ones.

http://www.democrats.org/news/200504200003.html

"DNC Raises Record Amount of Money from Low-Dollar Donations
Dean Brings in over $1 million Each Week since Becoming Chairman

Washington, DC - During the first quarter of the year (January 1 - March 31, 2005), the Democratic National Committee (DNC) raised an unprecedented amount of funds from low dollar donations. The DNC received $14.1 million in contributions; $12.1 million from small dollar donations. Since becoming chairman in mid-February, Gov. Howard Dean has focused on the grassroots, raising over $1 million a week - a record amount of money.

This is double the amount of money raised during a similar period four years ago - after one of the most contested Presidential elections - and proves that Americans are anxious to change the direction of this country.

"This is a strong start for the year, but it is just the beginning" said DNC Chairman Howard Dean. "I have traveled across the country - from Mississippi to California and have seen first hand the hunger and desire of the American people to get our country back on track and restore integrity."

The average donation to the DNC during the first three months of the year was $50.80. There were approximately 20,000 new donors this quarter. The DNC has $7.2 million cash-on-hand.

Dean has also kept his pledge to provide funds for state parties. He has already raised over $650,000 for four state parties and will continue to attend other state party fundraisers."

[FreedomAngel82]

5. Aww

That's a great story. It shows that Mr. Dean really cares and is a down-to-earth person and he's not just in it for the politicis but to make a change and it shows with something like this. :loveya:

[Lithos]

6. It's a good start

And says a lot about the man and how he is approaching his position. I do believe he is there to work.

L-

[nine30]

8. Howard ROCKS !

I have heard him speak from 30 ft away..and he is like dynamite.

[dorktv]

12. He HUGGED me!

And has shaken my hand lots of times!

:loveya:

[AuntiBush]

10. Yup. Agreed! Really Like Dr. Dean!

A down-to-earth man of the people. Most people, 98% of us should be able to relate to him, including Repubs as soon as it hits them that they too are included in the mess the Chimp has created.

[bklyncowgirl]

13. Dean's an "old money" New Yorker from Manhattan

Taking the subway would be second nature. Good to see he's making a favorable impression.

[lojasmo]

16. Cute article. Thanks, MadFla! EOM

[kodi]

17. lead by example and no one can complain

i hope dean initiates a program where he has town hall meetings throughout the country and invites republicans to debate him and local democrats.

[janx]

19. The funny thing is that nobody knows exactly what has

happened yet (or what is planned), because he's been avoiding the national media. We may be in for some pleasant surprises.

[kevsand]

21. Good for him!

The more we see, the more I like. I've said repeatedly that his vision for the party was dead on. It's becoming increasingly clear that he's a whole package, and the best thing to happen to the DNC in years...

[dkofos]

23. Howard Dean should be the President

[candy331]

25. dkofos, I could vote for that. n/t

[sellitman]

28. Howard as President?

"Yeeeeeeeearrrrrrhhhhh!"

[proud patriot]

29. It's stuff like this that endears me to Howard Dean

:-)

[NightOwwl]

30. Interesting snippet...

"...he's not the oddball that newsies pegged him as last year."

Intentional or not, the author of this article is admitting that the media was instrumental in portraying Dean as some kind of nut-case.

[formernaderite]

31. It irritated me to no end seeing Terry tool around in that huge Escalade..

...what an image for the democratic party. I admit to being a huge Dean supporter and fan...this story just cements my support for him.

[madfloridian]

32. Dean on the subway...picture borrowed from a friend.

[NYCGirl]

35. I feel I must point out, with some pride, that pic of Dean on the subway

was taken on the NYC subway.

:hi:

Here's a link to the original article it was illustrating in New York Magazine (a pretty decent article, BTW):

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/politics/national/features/9452/index.html

[madfloridian]

38. I lost track of that article. Thanks.

I ran across another the other day about his green shag carpet that suited him just fine. I can so relate to someone is not that impressed with material things.

[madfloridian]

33. Governor eating lunch at his desk. Picture.

[Larkspur]

37. This is my favorite picture of Howard Dean

This was taken during that fundraising week in August to counter Dick Cheney's $250,000 fundraiser for Bush/Cheney. Dean did it to run ads in Austin, TX area to attack Bush & Cheney. I think over $500,000 was raise during that Internet fundraising spree.

[Cha]

40. Yeah, I thought of that pic

when the article said that Dean eat's sandwiches at his desk.:D

[Lisa]

34. and you just know that if Bush ever took the subway ...

... he would insist on live coverage of the event by CNN, and a special train run at his convenience filled with pre-screened GOP "riders", and he'd be so busy going up and down the car loudly telling everyone who he was and re-stating the obvious fact that he was on the subway -- that he'd miss his stop, and have to be driven there anyway by armored SUV-limo.

[fishwax]

36. something positive about howard dean

i really am quite surprised, always having heard that he's a sushimochalimoliberal, or some such thing ...