Salon/Conason: The Kerry juggernaut

[kskiska]

Energized in Boston -- and with the power of George Soros and MoveOn behind them -- Democrats are confident, organized, and primed to beat Bush in November.

Smashing expectations with his powerful, emotional acceptance speech, John Kerry is leading thrilled Democrats from Boston into the final stages of this election with greater unity and confidence than they have known in a generation. Steady and serious but often plodding during the many months that led up to his nomination, he again earned his reputation as a skilled political "closer" last night. For this campaign, he has built a consensus within the party around his own ideas and priorities.

Now that Kerry has been anointed the leader of his party, what kind of party does he lead? More of the answer to that question can be found outside the official precincts of the Democratic National Committee than within them.

Even before Kerry's early emergence from the primary pack, the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush had begun to change the Democratic Party -- in ways that were plainly on display in Boston this week. The neurotic preoccupation with intra-party struggles between "new" Democrats and "true" Democrats is gone, replaced by a desire to win and a willingness to build alliances among the party's disparate constituencies and supporters. Perhaps most significantly for the future of political debate in America, Boston framed the new determination to build institutions that can compete with the nation's long-established conservative propaganda machine.

(snip)

At the Royal Sonesta, meanwhile, the labor, minority and community organizations gathered behind the banner of the Campaign for America's Future and Progressive Majority, were laying their own plans. They too were looking beyond November as they talked about recruiting a new generation of candidates and building grass-roots pressure on a prospective Kerry administration to carry out the candidate's progressive promises -- and go further. Their model might be the Christian Coalition, which used modern campaign techniques a decade ago to build a grass-roots right-wing movement at the base of the Republican Party, and won substantial influence over the GOP in the process. "Take Back America," the title of CAF's conference at the Royal Sonesta, could just as easily have been the slogan of the religious right a decade ago.

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http://salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/07/30/john_kerry/index.html