The Enthusiasts

I'm fascinated by political enthusiasm. To me, selecting my democratic representative is a lugubrious duty, more like making a will than cheering the Bruins. For months this past fall and winter signs of enthusiasm for Howard Dean—yard signs of it, anyway—were all over south-central New Hampshire, where I live.

In the weeks before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary I talked to Dean campaign staffers and to Dean campaign volunteers. I attended a spate of Dean "house parties" in my town. I'll call the town "Quaintford." (I've changed everybody's name. I have to live here.) As John Kerry's victory would show, there were plenty of Kerry voters in New Hampshire. But I encountered no Kerry votaries. My neighbors who were partial to Wesley Clark were measured in their partiality. Although John Edwards was held in high esteem, only the most ardent admirers of his "Sinners in the Hands ...