Steven Grossman was first drawn to Howard Dean because Dean had guts. About four years later, on Feb. 17, Grossman made headlines when he left his position as chairman of Dean's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Co-chairman Joe Trippi had resigned on Jan. 27 and Dean himself exited the race the day after Grossman left his camp. All say that their goal now is to elect a Democrat president in November.

Grossman, a former Brandeis trustee who served as chairman of the Board of Trustees from 1999 through 2001, has a robust history with the Democratic Party and Jewish activism. He took time to talk with the Justice about his involvement with Brandeis, government and Israel.

Politics and public service are in his blood, as his grandfather, father and uncle were devout Democrats, gave time to grassroots causes and were delegates to Democratic National Conventions.

In 1988, Grossman co-chaired the Jewish outreach effort for Michael Dukasis' campaign for president. Grossman was chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party from 1991 to 1992 and the Democratic National Committee from 1997 to 1999, though he absolved party lines from 1992 to 1996 to serve as president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Grossman ran for the Democratic nomination for Massachusetts governor in 2002, but withdrew from the race before polls opened. With Prof. Robert Reich (HS) also a contender in this race, the contest was quite Brandeis-oriented, but Republican Mitt Romney ended up with the governorship.

A '67 graduate of Princeton who received a M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, Grossman runs MassEnvelopePlus, a business that has been in his family since his grandfather launched it in 1910. Grossman lives in Newton with his wife Barbara and their youngest son Josh. Their oldest son, David, works in the sales department of MassEnvelopePlus and their middle son, Ben, lives in New York.



Grossman for Dean

He's made it big, but Grossman said he considers himself a "progressive grassroots activist" above all else. He still holds his seat on the Ward 7 Newton Democratic City committee, because he said, "When you lose sight of what's going on at the grassroots, you lose sight of what matters to people."

This attitude, Grossman said, is what drew him to Howard Dean. Just out of the gubernatorial race himself, Grossman was struck by Vermont governor Dean's devotion to legalizing civil unions for gays.

"What Dean did was essentially say, 'If I lose my governorship, if I never run for office again, I'm OK with that because of the principle of equal rights of every citizen,'" Grossman said. "That kind of political courage is unusual. I've rarely seen that in my 35 years in politics."

As he followed Dean's crusade for civil unions, Grossman said he told himself, "That's the kind of person I want to support for president." Sure enough, he did just that.

Grossman attributes Kerry's sudden surge of support in the Iowa caucuses to the fact that Dean "didn't humanize himself" to voters. According to exit polls, Iowa voters made their decisions in the last minute, looking carefully at the candidates during the first three weeks of January. According to Grossman, Dean "failed to develop a relationship with the voters" during this time.

This is ironic, Grossman said, because Dean is a doctor-the only doctor ever to run for president-and could have pulled anecdotes from a reservoir of encounters with patients and Vermont residents whom he met as governor.

Grossman continued, "It always surprises me that Howard Dean-who should have been the most empathetic candidate in the race-who should have been able to tell an almost inexhaustible amount of stories-didn't talk about himself."



Grossman for Kerry

Now, Grossman has approached Sen. John Kerry's campaign and asked how he can help. Grossman has known Kerry for 34 years and chaired his 1996 campaign. Still, according to a November Boston Globe article, Kerry did not speak to Grossman after Grossman took the helm of Dean for America. Now, Grossman noted that he must tread carefully.

"There were a lot of people who were with Kerry through thick and thin, when he was written off by people. But I was not with him; I was with Howard Dean," Grossman said. "I think when you don't support someone for 18 months, you have to be humble."

One area where he feels he can help, Grossman said, is in strengthening Kerry's relationship with the American Jewish community. Despite President Bush's popularity with American Jews that stems from his pro-Israel policies, Grossman said that Kerry has a 19-year "equally exemplary voting record" in favor of Israel. If American Jews accept this and look to domestic issues, Grossman said, they will see that they and Kerry agree on other issues-a woman's right to choose, separation of church and state and the protection of civil liberties.

According to Grossman, "Bush's views [on these matters] are absolute anathema to the American Jewish community."

"Kerry will take a back seat to no one, including George Bush, on support for Israel," Grossman said, switching into campaign chair mode. Grossman predicted that Kerry will win 70 percent of the American Jewish vote.

Grossman said that his past presidency of AIPAC did not conflict with his role as Dean's co-campaign chair. "I think it's fair to say that when Dean had some rocky moments with the American Jewish community-due to certain comments he made last year-people looked to me to reassure them that Howard Dean would be a strong supporter of Israel," he explained.

However, unlike Kerry, who has a solid voting record for Israel, Dean is a governor with no voting record. Thus "people didn't have a lot to fall back on," Grossman said, and took Dean's statements at face value, though Dean "later acknowledged [the remarks] were incorrect and misinterpreted."



'Political empowerment'

Dean's campaign stimulated a new political atmosphere, according to Grossman. He said that the campaign was "all about revitalizing democracy" and "giving people a sense that their votes and their energy mattered."

Grossman said this "political empowerment" appealed especially to students and young people, who believed in Howard Dean and believed that he could change the cynicism that hung over American politics."

Dean spoke to the idealism that is common among young adults, Grossman said, and they responded by contributing their time, energy and small monetary gifts, all of which Dean said mattered to his campaign.

This grassroots and youth appeal reshaped the entire race, Grossman said, echoing many political commentators' sentiments. People saw Dean voice his opposition to the Iraqi war and saw that such dissent was allowed.

"He spoke truth to power at a time when the war was wildly popular," Grossman added, and "that earned him great respect and affection.

Despite Dean's departure from the race, Grossman said that the governor defined the campaign. "[Dean] gave Democrats a backbone, made it acceptable to criticize Bush on the war, and revitalized participatory politics ... you can't overestimate the power of what Howard was able to accomplish."

Dean supporters still play a vital role, according to Grossman. Kerry's challenge is to develop a relationship with Dean and almost 700,000 registered Deaniacs, for Kerry will "need every last one of those people to beat Bush in November," Grossman said.

Grossman suggested that if Dean traveled across the country and declared that a Democratic president-Kerry-is crucial to the success of the United States, "a very significant portion of the Dean world would go along with that."

This might be particularly effective on college campuses, Grossman said. "I think that many young people are gravitating toward Kerry because the alternative is unthinkable."

Grossman said he urges Brandeis students who want to aid the Kerry campaign to go out and spread the word about the significance of voting, and specifically of electing Kerry. Brandeis students are from Massachusetts, or have at least lived in the state for a few years, and may be more familiar with Kerry, who is their senator, than many students are.

"Students can be a powerful, powerful voice in a Democratic victory in the fall, and they need to be," Grossman said.

In addition to winning the Dean camp, polls show that the Democrats need three to five million new voters to secure the presidency, Grossman said. While he was chairman of the Board of Trustees, he facilitated a series of town meetings to discuss ways to improve the quality of life at the University. This "dialogue and cross-fertilization of ideas" is exactly what's needed between Democrats now, he said.



Brandeis in his past

Grossman was eager to talk about his history with Brandeis.

His first encounter with the University came the summer after his junior year in high school, when he earned a National Science Foundation grant to work in a Brandeis biology laboratory. The University was only 14 years old at the time, and Grossman only two years older, but in those hours in the lab, he said, he came to admire Brandeis.

"I always respected what Brandeis meant, what it was about, the unique role that it played in higher education," he said.

Grossman's wife, now chair of the Department of Drama and Dance at Tufts University, earned her Master's degree in English literature from Brandeis in 1970.

In the early 1990s, Henry Foster, a former Board of Trustees chair, Grossman's longtime friend and a Brandeis benefactor, approached Grossman and asked him to join the Board. This was the same time that Jeuhda Reinharz took his post as University president.

"The catalyst [to joining the Board] was Jehuda's becoming president and Hank's request and my warm recollection of the two months I spent there in high school," Grossman said.

He became chair in July 1999, but stepped down a year short of the customary three-year term in order to run for governor.



'Bold, authentic and brave'

Grossman ended with the message that college students and all Democrats need to remember that they can affect the results of elections.

"Howard Dean gave young people the belief that they had the power to take back the country," Grossman said. "That wasn't just rhetoric."

Grossman reiterated what he sees as the crucial relevance of grassroots causes. "If we're going to win this election, we have to speak with clarity and credibility to people who are hurting and doubtful that their lives are going to improve," he said.

"We can't be afraid to be bold, authentic and brave," he concluded. That's what is going to give people the sense that the two political parties are not the same.