Bryant Park is usually a peaceful ivy-carpeted oasis from the bustle of midtown Manhattan. Weekday evenings the suit-and-tie crowd goes home, leaving the surrounding skyscrapers distant and candlelit when I walk home from work at dusk. The olive limbs of the park's tall elm trees meander up to provide a thin canopy from the monstrous modernism of the office towers and the inspired neo-classical library building. But last night more than the usual bums sprawled out on the benches. Campaign activist bums had set up an impromptu shanty-town of laptops and mocha to promote the people's candidate, Howard Dean.

A woman leafleting on Sixth Avenue hawked her flyers by saying "Come to the concert tonight." And on Dean's campaign speaker equipment was stenciled "TAKE BACK AMERICA" in the same way equipment might say "MONSTERS OF ROCK." On stage, graffiti writers on ladders wrote tags like "Hi Mom" and "CHiNO" while a DJ spun trance music. An MC had the audience yell "I am Dean for America," pumping up the crowd by saying "C'mon New York -- Chicago did better than that!" All this was to prepare the stage for Dean to talk about balancing the budget and taking care of children's health. If George W. Bush's talent is to make radical conservatism seem innocuously normal, Democratic hopeful Howard Dean's is just the opposite: to make normal, nuanced views seem radical.

"Just watch," Dan Torres said to me last night in Bryant Park before Howard Dean breezed into town on his "Sleepless Summer" tour. Torres, a 34-year-old IT consultant, had a "Dean for America" poster propped on top of his baby's stroller while the little tyke napped inside. A lifelong Democrat, Torres described first seeing Dean on "Meet the Press." "When I saw his passion and anger I thought I was looking into a mirror. Finally -- a man who gets it."

Does Dean get it? In April I was surprised when the former Vermont Governor spoke at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center in the West Village. What impressed me then was how moderately Dean spoke. Dean kept regressing to position himself in the center, even when he had the chance to pander to a crowd of queers obviously impressed by Vermont's Civil Union law. But instead of puffing himself up, he declared that marriage is a complicated institution, that he didn't know about gay marriage, but that Civil Unions were the "right thing to do." Then he talked about how he supports the second amendment because "When you say 'gun control' in New York, they think it's taking away Uzis on the street. When you say 'gun control' in Wyoming, it means they're going to take away the squirrel rifle that your grandfather gave you." Such is Dean's contrarian way of speaking -- to always try an audience's unqualified enthusiasm.

The "Sleepless Summer" folks trotted out a bunch of Dean supporters before their candidate came out. "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" star Anthony Rapp belted out "Seasons of Love," which the cast of "Rent" sang at the 1996 Democratic Convention. Right then and there I began to doubt any affiliation I have had with the party.

The one thing everyone agreed on last night was George W. Bush. He's a liar, Dean's supporters said. He should be impeached. He's bankrupted the country. He's feeding his fat-cat friends with juicy government contracts. "They're running the tax books like Ken Lay did," one Dean supporter said of the President. I asked a 29-year-old attorney from Queens why he is interested in Dean's candidacy. "Because he's the most blunt in attacking Bush." A recent retiree came to the rally because he wants to find "somebody who can beat Bush." A middle-aged man said "Bush is a creature of corporate and special interests."

By this point, the line at Ben & Jerry's was much longer than the one for Starbucks. And there was no one in line for Mister Softee.

Ground Zero Congressman Jerry Nadler came out swinging and showed he's no lightweight. "Bush has deliberately misled the American people on life and death issues… we in New York especially need Howard Dean."

Congressman Major Owens from Prospect Heights tried pumping up the crowd. "My constituents in Brooklyn need Howard Dean. All of New York needs Howard Dean. All of America needs Howard Dean." The crowd went nuts when Owens yelled "Stop the war!"

And then came Alex Munoz. I don't know how a recent college graduate gets to share the stage with a presidential candidate, but someone's got to give this kid a contract. Munoz screamed into the mic like a drunk football coach at a karaoke bar, except Munoz is a Republican Special Forces recruit who just graduated Columbia University -- and a Dean supporter. He took the mic like Naz and dropped poetry: "We must reclaim our role as an inspired moral force."

It was a tough act for Lowell Weicker to follow. The former Senator and Governor of Connecticut said "The present king has no clothes, and Howard Dean is the only man who has the guts to say it…. He speaks the truth about reality in America. And the reality is a failed foreign policy."

"I don't think [Dean] has a realistic view of the world," said Miriam Gloger, a 25-year-old library employee and joint Israeli-American citizen. Howard Dean's reality is the perception that he's either too inexperienced and idealistic in foreign policy. Though the Texas governorship gave George W. Bush experience dealing with Mexico, Dean's position in Vermont doesn't quite compare, even though dealing with French-speaking Quebec is enough to make one yearn for simpler, pre-NAFTA days. Walking past the Dean group, Gloger wondered aloud, "Are they serious about foreign affairs?" And then she said that she, Rudy Giuliani, and Henry Kissinger are the only three Republicans left in New York.

When Dean finally came out to speak, C-SPAN's cameras were primed. The crowd was in the thousands. One group held up a sign that said "CT for Dean." Another group had t-shirts that said "Philadelphia loves Dean." With Dean's support growing, and whispers that he's watered down his platform, I wondered whether Dr. Dean would change his message from five months earlier, when he had no money and very few supporters. Dean's message from then to now is as even as an EKG: "we need a new President."

Dean would mention an issue and plant one foot on either side, not in a sleazy culpable deniability way, but in a stubborn Yankee way. One minute he'd say "When it comes to defense, as they say in Texas this President's all hat and no cattle." Then he would decry the war in Iraq. And then he would say he supported the first Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan. Or he'd mention how he wants to create jobs through small business, but then say that small businesses pay less and frequently don't offer benefits. Did Bill Clinton ever admit that he was creating low-paying jobs? Does George W. Bush ever admit to destroying jobs?

Dean's become more polished since the GLBT center in April. His voice was hoarse then, his clothes very rumpled, and his talking more unpolished. His cell phone went off during his speech, and sometimes he had to verbally retrace his speech. But last night he didn't miss a beat when he said "I will restore the honesty, dignity and respect that this country deserves."

After the speech, I asked what people thought. "Pretty strong," said Dave, a New Yorker in his forties who lives in Montreal. "But I thought he'd be a little stronger." Some people were enthusiastic about what they saw. One man claimed "This is the first time I've considered voting for someone and not just against. Though it's both really." One Democrat referred to the election between Democrat mayoral candidate Mark Green and Michael Bloomberg: "I hope this turns out better."

About Harry Swartz-Turfle

Talk about Howard Dean at the The Water Cooler