Mark Steyn

Tomorrow he’ll be yesterday’s man

Howard Dean, Democratic front-runner, is arrogant and thin-skinned, says Mark Steyn, and pretty soon he'll be forgotten

issue 05 July 2003

New Hampshire

It’s always slightly discombobulating when someone you’ve known for years and always written off as a mediocrity with no talents suddenly leaps to phenomenal success. In my line of work, it’s usually some fellow hack whose first novel gets optioned by Miramax for Cameron Diaz. Or the guy I sat next to at a friend’s wedding who tried to sell me his shoes, and next time I landed in Britain he’d somehow become the nation’s most beloved bisexual gameshow host, Dale Winton.

But right now it’s happening on a much larger scale to someone called Howard Dean. If you’ve never heard of him, don’t worry. You’ll soon be never hearing of him ever again. But just for the moment he is, improbably, the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. As another famous Dean once sang, ‘Everybody loves somebody sometime’, and Howard Dean’s sometime is now. Go, Deano!

In the quarter ending 30 June, he took in more dough than any of his rivals.

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