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Index The Rosa Parks of our generation? Wal Mart: A Convenient Scapegoat?

Random Ramblings

A Party Within A Party

Started: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 16:50

Finished: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 17:26

I'm watching the recorded video of Howard Dean's concession speech today. He is no longer running for president.

In a speech explicitly directed largely at younger voters, he encouraged people to stay involved, despite setbacks. "Change is very difficult. There is enormous institutional resistance to change in this country."

He announced that the Dean For America site will live on and be transformed from a presidential campaign site into a hub to organize the ongoing fight to bring the country, and the democratic party, back into the hands of the people.

He compared the era we are living in to another historical period a century ago, and to the depression.

When William McKinley was president, enormous trusts were put together which made it impossible for ordinary Americans to start their own business, make any money without enormous pressure from those trusts, which destroyed their business. Teddy Roosevelt came along, busted up the trusts and made it possible to earn a living for ordinary Americans and small businesses again.

Under Harding and Coolidge and Hoover, Calvin Coolidge said, "The business of America is business", but forgot that human beings are not meant to be cogs in an enormous government corporate machine; that we are spiritual people who need connections and have to have community again.

Franklin Roosevelt came along and took America back for ordinary working people again.

He proclaimed that this is the end of "phase one" of the fight to bring the message of hope and change to the American people.

He declared that he will not be supporting any third party candidates, and strongly encouraged supporters to vote for the Democratic nominee in November, as getting George Bush out is priority #1.

So... now for my opinion...

Given the trends, getting out of the race now was the right thing to do. After Wisconson last night, there was no realistic chance of winning anymore. I still do not understand what so many voters apparently see in John Kerry. His "I hate George Bush too, despite having voted for virtually every measure he proposed" act is so transparent as to be laughable. Regardless of which puppet gets picked in November, the voters of America will get exactly what they deserve. They obviously don't deserve Howard Dean right now.

That's my vengeful poetic justice side talking. That is, until I remember that I too will be on the receiving end of this country's poor electoral choices.

That is exactly why it is a good thing that Dean's movement will not stop now. I see no reason to remove the Dean logo from my webpage, or the bumper sticker from my car. I want the message to live on. Though one battle is lost, hope remains alive, as long as there continue to be people willing to carry the torch.

To quote the Abraham Lincoln saying Dean used in his speech, "A government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this Earth."

The Dean wing of the Democratic Party lives on.

Index The Rosa Parks of our generation? Wal Mart: A Convenient Scapegoat?
Jesse Jackson's tribute to Dean
by Bitscape (2004-02-18 18:14)

I'm not normally a big fan of Jesse Jackson, but this article says it all.

Howard Dean gave Democrats back their voice. He stood up firmly against George Bush, and his reckless policy of pre-emptive war and destabilizing tax cuts. He said loudly that the emperor had no clothes. And his candidacy took off because he tapped into the deep anger that many citizens feel towards this radical right-wing administration.

...

Dean, of course, took hits for breaking with the beltway conventional wisdom. He dared to utter unmentionable truths and was pilloried for it... Similarly, Howard Dean assailed Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive war, for the radical and dangerous rupture it represents from American postwar policy. He made the common sense comment that we were no safer after Saddam Hussein was captured than we were before. For that he was mocked, but he was surely right: the pace of violence in Iraq has accelerated in the weeks since Hussein’s capture, as have the alerts here at home.

...

With his web-based fundraising, Dean empowered people. Small donations fueled his rise. Special interests had no hold on him. His use of the web to bring people together, to enlist volunteers, and to unleash energy launched a revolution in American politics.

Of course, Dean’s rise was followed by his precipitous collapse. When the press and his opponents turned on him, he couldn’t stay above the fray. The other candidates learned from him, and began to recycle his lines. When Iowa was lost, momentum went another way. It surely would be human for Dean to feel both bitter and betrayed.

But he has another contribution to make in this election year. Having unleashed the energy and the potential of a new politics, and brought it into the Democratic Party, he must make certain that his defeat does not embitter his followers. He must keep their eyes on the prize -- to take back America from George Bush and the dangerous politics of privilege that he represents. He must make certain that his Deaniacs understand that, while they have already transformed this election season, they still have work to do. And in doing this, as I am certain he will, Howard Dean will earn the respect and the thanks of citizens of conscience across the land.

Dean's Rough Ride
by Bitscape (2004-02-19 15:52)

A great post mortem article on the Dean phenomenon, and why it fell.

The party establishment, limp as it is, was correct to target Dean with tribal vengeance. From their narrow perspective, he represented a political Antichrist. The unvarnished way he talked. The glint of unfamiliar, breakthrough ideas in his speeches. His lack of customary deference to party elders (and to the media's own cockeyed definition of reality). What the insiders loathed are the same qualities many of us found exhilarating.

...

Dean's best lines--evocative suggestions rather than explicit policy pronouncements--were not widely reported. In his brisk, scattered manner, he was talking about power, inviting people to contemplate the deteriorated condition of our democracy, expressing his solidarity with their skepticism and alienation. Audiences responded, but this sort of talk was too soft and allusive to constitute "news." Dean's style was indeed "hot"--"angry," the reporters said--but they simply couldn't deal with his reflective side; it didn't fit the caricature.