Dean disciples commune by light of the Millard Moon

There was a full moon over Santa Monica the night a crowd gathered for a Howard Dean “meet-up” in the Gas Lite Saloon, which happened to fall on the 204th anniversary of Millard Fillmore’s birthday.

I saw signs in the conjunction of these occurrences, the way my mother used to see signs and images in the sky and on land long before the harmonic convergence had people dancing naked under the stars. She was the first, as far as I know, to see an image of the Virgin Mary in a steamy bathroom window.

I haven’t determined what the Millard Moon foretold in the case of the Democratic presidential front-runner, but I do know that it was one enthusiastic bunch of people inside the bar itself, where the very mention of the man brought the kind of cheers usually reserved for rock stars and football heroes.

What prompted me to accept an invitation by Dean campaign member and bar owner Claire Ragge to drop by was a new television ad by a conservative group that describes Dean’s supporters as “latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading” people and also as constituting a “body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show.” Naturally, this interested me.

I haven’t been around latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freaks since Bill Clinton was president, and I was intrigued by the idea that they were still politically active.

About 100 of Dean’s supporters crowded into the Gas Lite, affording me a good opportunity to view them in close proximity. They were jammed in so tightly that I had to view them closely whether I wanted to or not. The cocktail waitress, a determined little woman, was forced to make like a fullback and smash through the crowd to take drink orders. She managed to reach me just fine.

I’ve got to tell you that despite the ad, I didn’t observe one body-piercing device all evening, at least not in the parts of bodies that were visible.

A lot of the women and maybe a couple of the men may have had pierced ears, but I’m reasonably certain they didn’t constitute the body parts that the ad had in mind.

Where, then, did the mean-spirited, winning-obsessed, Limbaugh-listening, Bible-thumping, war-mongering, gun-loving, Mercedes-driving, right-wing nuts find the twisted freaks that are supporting Dean? Those present at the meet-up, which is what they call these gatherings, represented a kind of cross-section of ordinary people everywhere, except that these ordinary people have big dreams.

I suspect that the Club for Growth, the conservative organization paying for the TV ad, got a wrong address one night and walked into a meeting of the Hells Angels by mistake, thinking it was a gathering of Dean’s supporters. They concluded that these were the freaky liberals on the side of the former Vermont governor and prepared the ad in time for the Jan. 19 Iowa caucus.

The Howard Dean meet-ups are held the first Wednesday of every month in bars, restaurants, libraries and meeting halls all across the U.S., according to Ragge, regional press coordinator for Southern California. Since she owns the Gas Lite, it seemed only natural that one of the sessions should be held there. As I studied the attendees, I decided that Corona beer was their drink of choice, which, I suppose, is a sort of alcoholic substitute for latte.

Unlike a lot of stage-managed rallies, there was a current running through the crowd that carried the degree of wattage necessary to electrify a campaign. I’ve felt it before in political efforts that went nowhere, but this time it is striking like lightning bolts across the country.

Dean exploded out of a herd of so-so Democratic candidates who are now attempting, along with conservative organizations like the Millard Fillmore Club, I mean the Club for Growth, to destroy him. But he doesn’t appear to be crawling away, and the roar of his supporters doesn’t seem to be lessening. The ad has had the impact of a flea attacking a donkey with mayhem on its mind.

In fact, I suspect that because of the ad, many of Dean’s backers -- the Bush-sickened, peace-loving, book-reading, fact-gathering freaks -- will now start piercing parts of their bodies as an act of both support and defiance whenever a Millard Moon is in the sky.

I would pierce a portion of my body in an area of suitable response to the attack ad, but it would hurt too much when I sat down.

Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com.