Dean's Legacy

[PROGRESSIVE1]

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2004/02/kuttner-r-02-20.html

snip:
Dean also invented a new way of doing politics and raising money, via the Internet. Despite the faltering of Dean's candidacy, every other candidate is now imitating the e-fundraising that Dean pioneered, which still has the potential of allowing small money to level the playing field against big money.

And Dean demonstrated anew the small-d democratic potential of electoral politics. He was fond of saying that his campaign "is about you" - the legions of eager volunteers, who were less attracted by Dean personally than by his promise of democratic engagement and political change.

Dean gave a new generation of young people hope in their country's institutions. (Young people keep looking for leaders who reflect their own idealism; and their hopes keep getting dashed -- from Gene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy in 1968 to the pre-Monica, pre-triangulation Bill Clinton in 1992, to Howard Dean. But new generations, of the naturally idealistic young, keep being born. Dean was the hero of this one.)

[buckeye1]

1. Not so.

McCain and moveon pioneered the political internet. Dean just copied it.

[Cassandra]

2. Moveon offered their help to all the Democratic candidates...

in setting up their websites. Only Dean's campaign took them up on it.

[arewethereyet]

3. well in that case

what legacy does he leave ?

He did not innovate internet fund raising. He certainly didn't innovate engaging people into the process, I was engaged by McCarthy. Anti war ? Nope. Raise taxes ? Nope. Yell ? I gues that might be it. Others yelled but never quite that way that I'm old enough to recall.

[Demeter]

4. Dean's Legacy

1. he scared the hell out of the "powers that be" in the DLC. they won't be taking anything for granted for a long time.

2. He showed how to do it. The next innovator will stand on some pretty broad and high shoulders.

3. He won't stop doing it, and neither will the core that he assembled and taught.

4. Politics is now a live issue--maybe even outstripping reality TV!
\
I', sure you can think of other points.