Turning Point
After nearly everyone had written him off, John Kerry turned a limping campaign into a force that couldn't be beat. Here's How
Some did go door to door, but since there was no time to train them (other than a 15-minute crash course), and since there was no time for them to learn all the policy positions Dean had taken (which wavering voters might reasonably ask them about), the Stormers were told to tell their personal stories to voters instead. It was a ludicrous (and arrogant) notion that Iowans, in the last days of an exhausting campaign, actually wanted to hear the personal sagas of the Deaniacs. Rose Levine, 19, of Montpelier, Vt., wrote about her experience on the Dean campaign in Iowa for the Rutland (Vermont) Herald: "Although his campaign was massive," she wrote, ". . . many of the key strategic tasks were left to young people with little campaign experience." She also noted that "the basic premise of the Iowa 'Perfect Storm' was problematic: Volunteers were intended to go door to door celebrating our personal journeys to Iowa ('My name is Rose, and I came all the way from Vermont . . .') instead of listening to the concerns and questions of Iowans." And if 19-year-old Rose Levine could see that, how come all that political talent in the Dean campaign could not?
Actually, some did, but the Storm was a Trippi idea, and nobody wanted to mess with Trippi. To Trippi, the Stormers were the essence of the Dean campaign, the empowered, decentralized masses who would transform America. That they were going to be a logistical nightmare that burdened rather than helped both the campaign and the voters of Iowa was secondary to that. Many of the Stormers left Iowa in good spirits, even though Dean lost. They had bonded with like-minded people, felt they were part of a movement, and today some don't want to hear any criticism of the Storm. But the Storm wasn't supposed to be a scout jamboree; it was supposed to help elect a man to office. "The Iowa caucus goers were not buying what we were selling at closing time," Ochs said. "The Storm was part of that."
Rose Levine wrote: "Our volunteers were a tight-knit group--too much so. Many voters, instead of feeling welcomed into our clan, felt like outsiders and may have been insulted by out-of-staters rushing in to tell them how to vote." Trippi defends the Storm to this day. "Maybe they are the reason we got 18 percent instead of 13 percent," he said in an interview. Eighteen percent. A true disaster. "In the end, everybody knew we were sinking," Gina Glantz, a Dean aide, said. "Dean knew it was slipping away. He was prepared to come in second. But nobody was prepared to come in a distant third. In the summer, the Dean leadership was sitting around measuring drapes for the White House, and now it was falling apart and they didn't know how to confront that."
Back in early December, a Dean spokesperson had solemnly informed reporters that on December 26, the Brewing Storm would begin. From January 2 to 4, 2004, there would be the Emerging Storm, from January 9 to 11, the Gathering Storm, and from January 16 to 19, the Perfect Storm. It was a storm too far. Only after it was all over did anyone see the irony of the name. The Perfect Storm was a book about a disaster of unprecedented magnitude, leaving little trace in its wake. So perhaps it was the perfect symbol for the Dean campaign after all.
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