Howard Dean is still such a scream, but Camp Romanoff made sure you didn’t hear that from us

You heard that right.

Despite former Vermont governor and Democratic presidential candidate’s Howard Dean’s long and storied career as an iconic New England politician, one thing comes to mind for most folks when they hear his name: the scream.

But that famous yowl from the fateful night of the 2004 Iowa presidential Democratic caucus was replaced by a likely groan from 6th Congressional District Democratic hopeful Andrew Romanoff here in Aurora on May 13. Of course we wouldn’t know that first-hand here at the Aurora Sentinel. Sure, just like all the newspapers and TV stations in the metro area, we got the press releases and Facebook shares about Screamin’ Dean coming to town to stump for Romanoff, who’s trying to unseat three-term GOP incumbent Mike Coffman. And just like all the metro-area newspapers and TV stations that expressed an interest in giving Dean, Romanoff and the event some ink, we were told to stay away. Well, not everyone was turned back, it would seem.

We were pretty surprised when Romanoff brass told us not to come. Sure, the media often gets the cold shoulder from politicos holding fundraisers. The idea is to get the party faithful worked up into a partisan lather so they dig deep to defeat the Republican/Democrat hated opponent. Such sessions can make for embarrassing press. Just ask Coffman, who is still explaining as old news the three-year-old Obama “un-American” blather he fed to a gaggle of tea party types — at least one of whom later ratted him out to the media.

But Howard Dean in Aurora? The white-haired Dem, who everybody knows his meme, was here to raise the hopes of the determined Dems and the election-battle kitty for Romanoff. Dean’s not only a smart, flamboyant guy who’s likely to say anything, he’s interesting, too. Why not fleece the faithful at the fundraiser and then raise the political cache of Romanoff by peddling some quotes and photos all over the region?

I would never question the wisdom of political experts, so, whatever.

But you can imagine my surprise when after we were given the non-vitation to the Dean-thing, we read all about it in the Colorado Statesman, a political weekly that covers the goings at the state Capitol. No oversight there, campaign officials say, the Statesmen was deliberately given the “exclusive” media spot at the event. Word from the Romanoff campaign is that they would be offering an assortment of media exclusives until the end of the campaign.

Huh. Must be a Washington thing, which I’ve always thought of as poor form —  unless we get all the exclusives.

Of course the whole thing goes back to the wisdom of keeping partisan hell-raising and fund-raising out of the press. They would have been better off shunning all the media rather than allowing Statesmen reporter Ernest Luning to quote Screamin’ Dean in the May. 16, 2014 edition. HERE’S THE ENTIRE STATESMEN STORY

“This country has been sold down the river by the right wing for their own purposes,” Dean told the wildly enthusiastic crowd. “This is a Republican Party that has decided they like power so much that they think it’s OK to win by taking away the right to vote. They are not American. They could be more comfortable in the Ukraine or Russia. But stay away from our country, this is based on the right to vote.”

I knew it would be a show.

That stunt was followed by what had to be loud groaning from the Romanoff camp and some fast verbal tap-dancing by Romanoff himself, who Luning said told the crowd:

“I’m not asking you to demonize my opponent or question his character or disparage his patriotism,” Romanoff said. “Mike Coffman loves this country. So do I. So do you. Let’s not make that an issue in this race…”

Tap, tap, tap, tapity, slide and shuffle, shuffle, tap, tapity, tap …

And that pretty much sums it up. Just to give both Camp Coffman and Camp Romanoff a heads up, if either side scores Roseanne Barr for the next fundraiser, we’re sneaking in.

— Dave Perry, Editor