Howard Dean needs a tone transplant

My wife has a foolproof test for assessing a politician’s true nature.

Try this at home. Turn off the volume on the TV when the politician in question is speaking and look at their face for a few minutes. It’s an unerring test of whether at bottom they’re a “happy warrior” or not. Whether they’re someone who naturally conveys that life-affirming sense of optimism, zest and even joy amidst political combat – a quality that for most of us is supremely attractive in a leader.

Or whether instead they’re someone who seems more like an angry sourpuss.

I much prefer happy warriors, though history suggests it’s not a prerequisite for going all the way. FDR, JFK and Ronald Reagan were happy warriors; Richard Nixon was not. Bill Clinton was a happy warrior; Al Gore was not.

I thought about this while seated in the audience in Los Angeles watching Howard Dean’s much-touted maiden foreign policy speech the other day. Much of what Dean said was plausible and reassuring. He made a thoughtful case for multilateralism as an alternative to President Bush’s macho “my way or the highway” approach. He also left little doubt about his readiness to use force to protect America’s interests.

But Dean’s tone and demeanor left a stronger impression than any positions he laid out.

Much has been made of The Dean Anger, but what Dean’s hostile tone displaces is what matters more. You can’t be angry and be a happy warrior. And this tone ends up coloring everything Dean says.

Consider this riff from Dean’s speech:

“Fighting poverty and disease and bringing opportunity and hope is the right thing to do. It is also, absolutely, the smart thing to do, if we want children around the world to grow up admiring entrepreneurs, educators, and artists – rather than growing up with pictures of terrorists tacked to their walls.”

When Bill Clinton makes a point like this, he says it with a lilt in his voice, beckoning his audience to share his vision of where we can go together if we lift our collective sights and muster the will. When Dean barked it out, it felt smaller and shabbier, as if he were lecturing us on simple facts we ought to have known. Views that should be uplifting end up sounding shrill, or nagging.

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe Howard Dean is a Rorschach test, and what you see depends on what you bring to the seeing. Many in the group afterward were cooing their approval. But something else in Dean’s tone was worrying; I suspect it was unintentional, but it involves an area so sensitive for Democrats there’s little margin for error.

It came at the outset, in the remarks Dean added to his prepared talk after Saddam had been captured the day before. “All Americans should be grateful,” for what the military had done, Dean said. “I thank these outstanding men and women for their services and sacrifice.”

Doubtless it was a slip of the tongue – to be fair, his prepared remarks said “service” – but a thanks for their “services” is the tone you take with the hired help, not with patriots who risk their lives for your liberty. Even if it was an accident, it rankled in ways Dean can’t afford. Given his background, if he gets the nomination, Dean can’t be careful enough about language and tonalities that suggest he can’t connect viscerally with the military the way President Bush obviously has.

I know, I know – Bush came to office without military credentials as well – but Democrats simply face a higher hurdle here, and ignore this reality at their peril.

Former Nebraska Sen. (and Vietnam veteran) Bob Kerrey once told me that you can’t successfully critique Bush on national security without first “fully embracing the emotion of patriotism and the positive side of patriotism. Otherwise people will say, ‘You explain to me why I shouldn’t conclude that you’re un-American.’”

It’s not too late for Dr. Dean to get a tone transplant, but the first step is to admit the need. Word is Dean’s campaign has shown his speeches to focus groups and found that folks don’t mind the “anger.” Why do I think they’re talking only with Democratic primary voters, not the independents who decide general elections?

Matthew Miller, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, is the author of “The Two Percent Solution: Fixing America’s Problems in Ways Liberals and Conservatives Can Love.” Reach him at www.mattmilleronline.com.