This evening, I journied to Boulder. There, I met with other Howard Deans supporters, and worked to spread the word about our mighty and wonderful candidate from Vermont.

It was a packed crowd tonight at Boulder Democratic Headquarters. They ran out of chairs for people to sit in, so a bunch of us hung out in the back, leaning against the wall or sitting on tables.

I quickly spotted the local coordinator, who I had met previously at the farmer's market, and he gave me some small letter-writing packets to pass out to people who were entering.

During the meeting, two of the local Dean team leaders talked about what sorts of things we might do to spread the word to the offline populace. (Actually, it would be more accurate to say that they opened the floor to a discussion about it. "What do you think we could do? This campaign has driven by the ideas of people like you.")

When they asked for a show of hands of people in the crowd who did NOT have Internet access, not a single hand went up. Howard Dean's online campaigning success has become legendary, but how do we get the word out to the others?

Ideas included doing volunteer work (aka Dean Corps), spreading the word at more public functions such as the farmers market, and talking to people at senior centers.

There was also time for various people to talk about why they supported Dean, and many gave a lot of good reasons.

Now I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent of my own, and write about some of my reasons for supporting Dean, even though I didn't feel quite courageous enough to stand up and speak to the whole crowd at the meeting just yet. :)

I believe that our country is at a crossroads. History is happening right now whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. Every action each of us takes has an effect on the world, even if we are not immediately aware of it.

Though I love my country, I have not been proud of the way the current leadership has represented us. This goes for both republicans and democrats. They have passed laws which harm the public while enriching a few corporate contributors. When the Enron scandal unraveled, they let the top dogs off with a slap on the wrist and a wink, blaming the whole thing on a few little billion-dollar sized accounting slip-ups, while ignoring the larger system of corporate-government cronyism which nurtured such corruption.

To distract us from the flailing economy, and as fodder for those who sought sweet revenge for the tragedy that was broadcast to all, they took us into a careless war. (Whether such revenge was actually targeted at the real source of the crime was irrelevant. If we are bombing somebody, everything will feel better. So goes the logic.)

Nearest and dearest to me personally, they have passed reckless laws which work to curtail the basic rights and freedoms Americans enjoy. All in the name of "protecting freedom".

It is because I love my country that I cannot, in good conscience, sit back and do nothing while everything good about it is systematically destroyed.

Howard Dean, though he is a member of the Democratic party, does not take orders from the party bosses, nor did he cower like many others did, when it came time to "support the President" in his madness, as the bombs were dropped and soldiers' lives were put on the line. That was how he first got my attention.

A few more mentions in the press here and there, and I did some more looking into his campaign. From everything I can tell, during his tenure as governer of Vermont, he succeeded at doing on a state level, what he promises to do at a larger national scale as president. He balanced the state budget, and even ran surpluses during good economic times, so that the state wouldn't be hit as hard during bad times.

He created a program which guaranteed health care to all children, and made it affordable enough that low income, working adults were able to get care. His plan didn't overhaul the entire system, or do a massive Clinton-esqe reorganization. It just filled in the gaps, and streamlined what was there.

(I know there are people out there who would be opposed in principle to any type of state funding of health care, period. Though I see merit in both sides of that debate, these days, I find myself more open to the idea of at least a partially socialistic solution, as I have seen first hand some of the failures of raw, unrestrained capitalism, which in the long run favors a few crafty tricksters at the expense of the many hard-working, but less savvy and conniving many.)

In all honesty, there are some issues of concern to me on which Howard Dean has not given a clear position. The DMCA, Disney's endless copyright extensions, and other matters of intellectual property reform. When he guest blogged on Lessig's site, he did read many of the comments about these items, and was honest enough to say he hadn't developed an opinion or a policy yet. He didn't pander and make up shit about issues of which he was not fully informed, just to tell people what they wanted to hear. I respect that.

If RMS was running, and had a legitimate shot at winning, I'd probably vote for him over Howard Dean, because I know he represents the people in my corner on matters about which my small demographic cares most. But that's not reality.

The reality of the situation is that we have a candidate who listens to the people, talks about issues which are of importance to the broadest sector of the populace, and is working to represent an America of which I would be proud to call myself a member.

Trust does have to play a factor, especially if one is going to go out and actively proselytize. Strange as it may sound to say about a politician, I feel like I can trust Howard Dean. It's an instinctive bias. Part of it might be because I'm automatically inclined to empathize more with someone who blogs online. (Well, actually his staff do most of the blogging, but what they write is cool, which adds to the Dean aura.)

Still, I think there's more to it than that. Even before I had ever looked at any of the Dean online material, watching him on tv made me want to support him. I guess that's charisma.

I feel strongly enough about it that I am willing to risk the chance of being wrong. If he does make it to the White House and ends up having conned everyone, well... I know I won't be the only one who was duped. But I don't think that's going to happen.

Ok, back on track....

After the main meeting, we were each asked to write hand-written letters to 2 people in New Hampshire about why we support Howard Dean, and why they should too. Since that's one of the states where they have the big early primary, that's the place that counts.

I wrote my letters, which weren't half as eloquent as what I just wrote here. Writing stuff by hand with a pen is tedious. I haven't done that much writing on paper like that in a long time.

On my way out, I asked if they had any bumper stickers. I was in luck. There was 1 left. They said I could have it for free (free advertising, yay!), but it would be nice if a dollar could be donated to the campaign fund in exchange for such materials. I obliged.

Now Tobias has yet another lovely decoration on his rear end, which looks quite sporting.

Yay for America. Yay for soon-to-be President Howard Dean. As I said it my letter, I look forward to voting for him in the general election.