If Dean was such a failure and had no real movement, then why...?

[edzontar]

Are so many people in the media and in our own backyard still trying to bury him, discredit the movement, and dance on it's "grave"?

I'll tell you why I think they are doing this:

It is because they are afraid.

It is because they are confused.

It is because some of them backed candidates who were even bigger losers, and they can't get that chip off of their shoulders.

It is because they missed out on the biggest political story of the season and spent time that could have been used productively, building a strong and unifed progressive movement to launch gratuitous and self-serving attacks on Gov. Dean and his supporters--who are (or could have been) your natural allies in the fights to come.

Indeed, I would argue that it is testament to the impact of our movement that it still atttracts so much derison, dismissal, and contempt from these quarters.

So what now?

Now they seem to be afriad that the people they scorned and ridiculed are not going to be quite as willing to line up behind the pro-war canddiates as they hoped we would.

They bombard us with proclamations of ABB and the specter of Nader and four more years of Bush.

Yet was it not these same voices whoa ssured us that their candidates were the "electable" ones?

Well I just want to say to those who have hated and feared us in the past that you have every right to be afraid, because while you may well get (most) of our vottes, there is little liklihood that you will get the active support of our "non-existent" grassroots movement for your candidate(s).

I for one am ready to commit here and now to taking our fight to every corner of the Democratic party and the nation as a whole.

This is not about Dean anymore (though I will still vote for him in my primary).

And this is not, for me, about boycotting Kerry or whoever else is the nominee this year (I live in PA and must vote to oust Bush).

Most of all, this is not just about this year or next year, but about the next ten or twenty years.

It is about cleaning the sleaze, corruption, and hypocrisy out of the Democratic Party and out of American politics.

And it is about standing up and demanding accountability from any and ALL politicians who would vote to send young people to die and kill in a war for nothing.

I'd say THAT is something that the powers that be should be afraid of.


Be VERY afraid.

We have not yet begun to fight.

[XanaDUer]

1. No

I think the supporters of other candidates are responding to the blame-everyone-but-Dean analysis of his campaign's failure.



:shrug:

[EXE619K]

2. A-men Brother!

The Dean campaign started out as a rebellion against the establishment.

"And that's exactly, what we're gonna do"!

[XanaDUer]

5. How was Dean against the establishment?

He was the head of the National Democratic Governors' Association.

He was as much a Party insider as anyone.

He did not get his money for his gubernatorial campaigns from grassroots movements. As much as sixty-five percent came from DNC, DC lobbyists, and other special-interest groups.

[edzontar]

7. OK. There WAS no Dean movement! And it HAD to be stopped!!!!

nt.

[EXE619K]

8. Is he a DLC Democrat now?

Is Al Gore a DLC Democrat now?

Yes, they were both DLC Democrats in the past.

If one can see that their ways were misguided in the past....all is forgiven(and then some).

Did Dean, after bowing out of the race....is he running back to the DLC crowd and endorsing the DLC approved candidate?

I didn't think so.

[edzontar]

9. Right. All those claims are bullshit.

And when they come fom the Kerry camp, of all places, what are we supposed to even say?

[polpilot]

14. Go to the DLC site for 20 minutes and your 'liberation' will be complete.

The pro-war establishment DLC flatly states they don't want an anti-Iraqi war candidate and plainly state it.

[RobinA]

28. I Don't Get It Either

What movement? Dean, anti-establishment? On what planet? The guy was a centrist. He's a governor. I fail to see how he warrants this cult status. He's just another candidate. And by far not the most liberal candidate. I don't understand this rabid support.

[ScotTissue]

3. In this instance, I'm sure they're glad Dean is dead

But I really get sick of the idea that any time any side of any political question does anything, it's because "They're afraid!"

[edzontar]

6. I think the Dean campaign is like the vengeful ghost in the room

To some of these people.

They feel guilty about what they had to do to serve their coroprate masters, and realize they may have gone too far.

I see this twinge of guilt or regret in the faces of cretins like Chris Matthews, but in his case, i think he is mostly just bored because the "story" is basically over.

[arwalden]

4. "Lack Of Grieving" About Dean Is NOT The Same Thing As "Rejoicing"..

or dancing on his grave.

-- Allen

[Kagemusha]

10. Some define "electability" as acceptability to the establishment.

That is, the DC establishment and the media.

Think about it long and hard, and you will see why "electability" is defined by some in this way.

It is how I define it now.

It is simply the myopia of the political establishment that what is unacceptable to them must be unacceptable to the country. It is not such a natural progression. For a candidate to become unacceptable to the country, he must first be villified by the best and the brightest of society as unfit to rule. Thus does the system protect and perpetuate itself.

[Nicholas_J]

11. Yes.

Because of the continual repetition of the fact that Dean was cheated out of the nomination, that the media had it in for him, that everybody else played dirty tricks, that those who didnt support Dean are mindless drones who cannot decide for themselves which candidate best suits their own self interests, which in the end, is what picking a candidate is all about. I think you will find if people Dean supporters stop bringing up Dean, now that he is essentially out of the race, and stop casting aspersions as well as assigning reasons for Deans fall to everyone else but Dean, you will find that nobody much mentions Dean at all except as a footnote to the campaign of 2004. None of this, if "X" is now the nominee, Bush will win stuff, as there is absolutely no evidence that a Dean nomination would have been the ticket to beat Bush. Because if the public does not beleive that Dean can beat Bush, then Dean cant beat Bush.
It is the public who will be making that determination. If they dont like the Dean enough to nominate him, they certainly dont like him enough to elect him president.

I think Dean supporters stop mentioning Dean, everyone else will forget him as well.

[seaglass]

12. I don't know anyone who thinks he didn't have a movement

it's just much smaller than he and some of his supporters thought.

13. yep, they're afraid

Now they seem to be afraid that the people they scorned and ridiculed are not going to be quite as willing to line up behind the pro-war canddiates as they hoped we would.

They're afraid they're going to squander the election, that's for sure.

I'll vote for whomever the nominee is, but not everyone is as pragmatic as me and I can't say I really blame them.

[edzontar]

23. I think that SOME of that fear is misplaced, but i see it all over

This place.

They are really afraid we won't support the Spy or the Spy.

I am not sure that is valid, but I DO enjoy it.

[Monte Carlo]

15. Quite frankly, I think some hardcore Deaniacs overestimate their strength.

Oh, you're heare to clean out the sleaze, the corruption, and the hypocrisy? Oh, you have not begun to fight? How friggin' noble.

We ALL know the problems with the Democratic Party, and pointing them out on a national platform isn't particuarly novel, and if you'd ask me, I'd say it's crazy brave. What I think went wrong with Dean's campaign was a media that was out to ridicule and marginalize upstarts, and a campaign that naively thought it could overpower and ignore that media force.

18. could well be true

At the moment it's definitely true.
The future will show one way or another.

What is wrong with being noble though? or idealistic?
Without people of that bent, not much would change.

I've gotten a little jaded (I'm 47) & it has certainly been refreshing to see some focused liberal political energy of this sort in the generations younger than me!

Instead of the anarchistic, ironic tendencies that have been so predominant the past decade.

[edzontar]

22. Yeah..well here is the deal...we have all these ABB folks here....

Who are they aiming their proclamations at?

What are they afraid of?

[dionysus]

16. Testify!!

YEAARGH!! Right on!

[edzontar]

24. It made me feel better, anyway.

Sometimes you just have to vent.

[Zomby Woof]

17. yep!

I'm afraid! I'm confused! The DLC won't stop sending me blast-faxes and emails telling me what to think, how to think, and to bend over for the media, without the Crisco!

It was all part of their master plan, for which I am nothing but a tool!

Is this an appeal to ridicule? Well, yes, because your argument is nothing more than an emotional laundry list, unsupported by facts. It is also laced with a bit too much melodrama for a serious rebuttal.

You want us to quit dancing on his grave? Then please stop dragging him onto our dance floor here. Otherwise, Dean is fair game, long after the campaign is already a nostalgia trip.

[Hav]

19. Strange that you say that..

Didn't the DLC tell you to support Kerry instead of Kucinich because Dennis looks like Gollum?

[edzontar]

20. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

nt.

[XanaDUer]

27. Snore?

Don't expect non-response to threads like this.

[edzontar]

29. This was for the Z-man.

nt

[jansu]

21. I will not go quietly into the night!

I will vote for Dean on March 2nd. The delegate count is important! With enough delegates our message will keep going on!

Whomever gets the Nomination, better know that "We will watch you like a hawk"! You should know that when we vote ABB in November, it will not be because we are voting FOR you, but against Bush!

We will NOT be quiet! Yes, I agree: Be VERY afraid, because we have not yet begun to fight! Don't for a minute think that you have defeated this movement or the people in it!

[edzontar]

25. The joke will be on them, i think....

Let's hope that "electability" proves to more than the false claim that i have always ssuspected it is.

[candy331]

26. If there was no movement then there should have

been one going back to the 2000 selection. If it had been then this all would be non issue or at best a small issue. It is said and rings very true that "those who fail to plan, plan to fail".