Manchester, New Hampshire, Thursday, January 22

THE RESIDENTS of Deanworld, once merrily engaged in permanent offense, have gone into the bunker. After a pre-debate rally tonight, busloads of Deaniacs converged on Jillian’s, a hip bar/pool hall/arcade on the west side of town. With Klieg lights carving up the night sky, the Deaniacs are excited for tonight’s showdown, hoping that Howard Dean will stop the bleeding and perhaps even start the turnaround. Inside, staffers and volunteers huddle in little groups extolling the “fantastic energy” at the rally, but by the time the debate begins, they seem to have come down from their rally high. Where they were once sublimely confident, the Deaniacs are now alternately surly, fatalistic, and, more than anything else, paranoid.

For one thing, the Dean campaign has taken on a suspicious attitude toward the media. It is campaign policy that no staffer or volunteer is allowed to speak to any member of the media on any topic without receiving permission from the press staff. So, for instance, when one intern is asked how she thought Dean handled his first question in the debate, she says nervously, “I thought he was really good–but I don’t really think I’m supposed to say that to you.” Another volunteer, explaining she didn’t want to talk, said, “I don’t trust the media after Iowa and the way they twisted everything around.”