OU CAN'T GET TO BE PRESIDENT by screaming for it. I know it hurts to lose, but once you make me cringe, it's over. The good news, Howard Dean, is you're no longer the angry guy. The bad news is, you're the "creepy guy." You're the weird uncle everyone tries to avoid at the family Christmas party. You're the guy at the bar who was just starting to make a girl like him, and then said something incredibly stupid like, "You'd look really hot if you lost ten pounds."

Now, of course it's unfair that a single image wreck a lifetime of the positive, but in this case, I'm going to have to go with that. Sorry, but in running for President, the art of watching out for your image is part of the obstacle course. Americans don't want an unstable President. He might do something crazy like...start a war.

Americans like their candidates sunny and optimistic. Like Reagan, he was sunny. FDR was the sunniest Democrat, but he had polio and his wife was a dyke. There was nowhere to go but up. Ross Perot, on the other hand, was all about the angry, and that's what people liked about him, the fact that he was maximally pissed off at all times, like Joe Pesci without the movie star good looks.

Republicans aren't afraid to be angry. Does anyone remember the daily parade of red-faced right-wingers pointing and screaming at Bill Clinton's cock for three years? Please, Republicans invented angry. And there's nothing wrong with anger properly directed. Americans don't have too much outrage. They have too little, considering they're being poisoned, medicated, ripped off and lied to.

Now, Howard Dean -- Howard Dean, you have done a great service for your party, because you are the one who got their blood boiling again. And for that, I tip my hat to you. You are a trailblazer, one who goeth before, like John the Baptist. And now, like him, we'd like your head. I know it's unfair, but it's just a fact of life. Even nice people cannot vote for someone if there's a tape of him freaking out at a concert!

Back to New Rules installment index