Dean: Beyond the ballot box

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1120733,00.html

Dean's bid for the Democratic nomination is more than just an electoral campaign. It has all the attributes of a movement - a bottom-up surge of like-minded, motivated people who have discovered they all have something in common and are now mobilising in order to act on it. Around the country strangers are meeting in towns and cities in their tens and twenties, donating money in $10 and $20 bills and coming away with not just posters and badges but "to do" lists. "Participation in politics is increasingly based on the chequebook, as money replaces time," argued Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone. Dean has managed to get people giving time and money.

In the Dean campaign we are gaining a glimpse of the organisational methods that could bond the disparate and disenchanted at a local and a national level, whether in Germany against Schröder's economic reforms or in Britain against Blair's foreign policy and tuition fees. It does not answer the question as to whether activists should stay in those parties, form new ones or join others. But it does indicate how, wherever they end up, they might mobilise large numbers of people effectively at the polls.

Whether this can be translated into electoral success within the Democratic party, let alone in the presidential elections, is a moot point. It's an uphill task, although given how steep a climb Dean has endured so far, anything is possible. But what happens to Dean, at this point, is less significant than what happens to the movement. In these early stages, it is vulnerable regardless. If he wins, it risks becoming coopted; if he loses, it risks being disbanded.

The fact that Dean has become the focal point for this energy matters. His winning the nomination would be roughly the equivalent of Ken Livingstone taking over the Labour party. Not that Dean has the same politics as Livingstone. But, broadly speaking, they stand a similar distance to the left of their party establishments and - recent reconciliations notwithstanding - are equally loathed by their party bosses.

[SheilaT]

1. So true.

What a lot of people out there don't understand is that Dean's campaign has always been about much more than just getting the nomination and then winning the election. The involvement of the volunteers is just amazing.

About 8 of us got together yesterday for several hours and collectively wrote about 35 letters to people in Iowa and New Mexico urging them to go to their caucuses and support Dean.

And I've decided to go to Iowa this coming weekend to help campaign for him. The Dean bashers here on DU have no idea of the commitment we have, and they try to dismiss us with demeaning names (Deaniacs) or that we're a tiny band of fanatics. But if the other candidates are so fabulous, then why have they not inspired people in the same way? I'll tell you why. It's because they are not so fabulous, and while I'm quite clear on the fact that Dean is not my perfect candidate (no one would be), he's much closer to my ideal than anyone else. And he's willing to speak up for what he believes in, change his mind where appropriate and he has new information, and not cave into the senseless attacks by the media of the other candidates.

And once again, we all have to realize that the enemy is not the other Democratic candidates, but George W Bush and all those who surround him.

[acmavm]

2. The title of this article is simply "Beyond the Ballot Box"

The last paragraph sums it all up, especially the last sentence:

With a week to go before the primary, Dean activists can be forgiven for not looking beyond his immediate electoral prospects. But, whether the next president is George Bush, Wesley Clark or Dean, their most valuable asset is not their candidate but the awakened awareness of their potential, as progressive citizens and voters, to make a difference. In the words of the late African-American poet and activist June Jordan, they have learned - and are now teaching the rest of us - that "we are the ones we've been waiting for".

[Eloriel]

3. My new favorite line from the blog:

"Howard Dean is the messenger. We are the message."

Eloriel

[Venomous_Rhetoric]

4. I don't

Live in the USA, so I don't know all these things,..
But When is the Democrat nomination over?
It seems that this campagn has been going on foever. Is this normal?

When does the winner get to go toe to toe with Bush?
It seems to me that Mr. Dean is the clear winner, and it will be him running against Bush.