WP: As Dean & Media Pull Out, (Vermont) Mourns a Dream [View All]

[DeepModem Mom]

Letter From Burlington
As Dean and the Media Pull Out, A Small-Town State Mourns a Dream

Saturday, February 21, 2004; Page A06


BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Peter Freyne, an astute political columnist and one of this state's eminent eccentrics, recalls when he first decided that Howard Dean could become president. "Everyone thought I was mentally ill," Freyne said. "Then he took off and I was sane."

Alas, the Dean campaign flat-lined this week and Freyne is back where he started. "Everyone thinks I'm nuts again."

In the days after Dean's fall from presidential grace, conversations in this state took on a crestfallen tone. Bisected by the Green Mountains and populated by fewer than 700,000 people, Vermont has a familial feel -- and so do its politics, with all the affection, annoyance and occasional dysfunction that implies. Dean ruled as governor for 11 years and had become communal property....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58894-2004Feb20.html