Dean Lends Voice, Face to Life-Size Screen in the Square

While many undergraduates were watching The Matrix: Reloaded in the Science Center, the Harvard Students for Howard Dean (HSHD) gave up their Friday evening to screen video footage of an angry Dean attacking President Bush and making his case for the presidency.

In one of the first student campaign events on campus, HSHD members broadcast Dean’s booming voice over a guitar amplifier and projected a life-size image of the former Vermont governor onto a screen held up by flimsy poles in the Square pit.

The goal of the “Dean Screen,” as the organizers called it, was to introduce people to the presidential candidate and encourage them to attend his speech in Boston on Tuesday, according to HSHD member Regina C. Schwartz ’06.

HSHD members, along with volunteers from the statewide Mass for Dean organization, chanted “Tuesday, Copley Square, Howard Dean” as they distributed fliers to promote the speech for three hours before the screening began at 8 p.m.

HSHD President Benjamin E. Lauderdale ’04 said that for Dean to win the primary, enough people must be exposed to his passionate rhetoric.

“Many people come to Dean events not being sure and they see him speak and come away supporting him,” Lauderdale said.

Garrett M. Graff ’03, spokesperson for the Dean campaign and also a Crimson editor, said the “Dean Screen” was one of more than 400 events comprising the campaign’s nationwide “Dean Visibility Day.”

A group of around ten Dean fans—and several passersby—expressed their support of Dean’s presidential campaign over the several hours that the video played.

Liza Strakhov said she had ventured out from Boston to the Square with two friends because she loves hearing Dean speak.

Soon Strakhov was not just watching Dean, but helping hand out fliers promoting Tuesday’s rally.

Although the groups handed out about a thousand fliers for Dean’s Tuesday speech, few passersby actually stopped to watch the Dean video.

“He’s gonna’ lose,” said Stephen A. Wertheim ’07, a Wesley Clark supporter who was walking through the Square. “He’s a better loser than the other guys, you gotta’ admit.”

Pallav Sudarshan, a Cambridge resident, said he paused to watch the video because he had heard of Dean but knew little about the candidate’s politics.

After staring at the larger-than-life image of Dean for a few minutes, he declared Dean’s campaign “the usual crap.”

With their combination of handmade “Harvard for Dean” signs and expensive projector equipment, Dean’s supporters were fighting for every vote on Friday—and will continue to in the months to come.

“This has sort of taken over my life at the moment,” Lauderdale said.

He said that HSHD, one of many campaign subgroups of the College Democrats, plans to generate student interest in the Dean for America campaign through trips to New Hampshire in addition to local events.

Gregory M. Schmidt ’06, an HSHD executive board member and the College Democrats’ campaigns director, said he believes that the New Hampshire primary is “the ideal form of democracy” because it encourages greater interaction between the candidates, with their student volunteers, and the general population.

According to Schmidt, the College Democrats will send students to New Hampshire throughout the Democratic primary season to campaign for whichever of the ten candidates they support.

Some have already made the journey. Speaking on his cell phone as he drove back to Cambridge after canvassing for John Kerry, Nicholas F. B. Smyth ’05, said he was confident of Kerry’s chances to win the Democratic nomination.

Smyth, who is president of Harvard Students for John Kerry and also a Crimson editor, said that his was the biggest presidential campaign group on campus with 252 subscribers to the group’s e-mail list.

Though the Harvard Republican Club has yet to begin active campaigning for President George W. Bush, spokesperson Mark T. Silvestri ’05 said that he was happy to see the extent of Democratic activism because it increases political awareness on campus.

The Republicans plan to campaign for Bush in New Hampshire before the November 2004 general election, according to Silvestri.