Pacific Views

Mary,

While I'm with you on promise that is Dean's grassroots campaign, I've found Markos' criticism of the Clark campaign to be a bit much.

I think both candidates are at front of the pack for two key reasons:
1) They're not DC Dems
2) They play to their strengths. Dean's the passionate little revolutionary from the little state who has heard the building roar of the of the many frustrated little dem voices. Clark's the noble, somewhat reserved general, surrounded by veteran staff, inspiring confidence in the many once dispirited troops who believe he may possess the armor that will shield him from the formidable weapons of the GOP.

To me it's still too early to call. I will watch tonight's debate with great interest.

Bragan, I'll be very interested in your perspectives of the debate. Also, did you read this piece in TAP? It has a bunch of our friends in it including MattS and Kos.....

Hi Mary! My first post here after reading your blog for a few weeks.

I just wanted to say that you have managed to articulate something I knew but couldn't quite express when it comes to Howard Dean.

"Dean's campaign is all about rebuilding an activist party, one where people are not just Democrats at the polling booths, but proud Democrats who are excited about the political process."

I'm not much for hero worship but Howard Dean has become something of a hero to me. Until he and the little campaign that could showed up, I felt like my party was dying and I had no idea how to stop it. Then along comes the guy from Vermont and I hear "I'm Howard Dean and I am here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" and I go "Wow!"

Clark's a fine fella but there's no way I see that he could have done what Dean has done. I feel like the good doctor looked down from Vermont, saw a patient in cardiac arrest and did what any good doctor would do.

Dean gets it. Joe Trippi gets it. The lumbering top-down "send us your money and we'll take care of the rest" campaigns of the past weren't going to get it. We needed a viral campaign that infected the followers with the enthusiasm of involvement. That seems to me to be exactly what has worked so well for the right wing. They have groups involved in just about everything just about everywhere I look.

Howard Dean is about rebuilding the party, restoring it to it's place as the party of the people. He and Trippi have done that by giving power to the people in ways that other campaigns just don't seem to be able to do.

The next time someone asks me why I'm sticking with Howard Dean, I'm going to tell them it's because he is the man that can do more than just win and I'm going to tell 'em to see your post to find out why. Thanks!

hi kids! just dropped in to say hi!

I totally agree with you about the passion of Dean's supporters and how important that is. I firmly believe that the Republicans have come out on top in the last two elections because they had more passion, more fire, more energy. Their voters really wanted their candidates to win, while many of our voters have come to see the Democratic Party as merely the lesser of two evils. Sometimes at Democratic Underground, I feel like I am the only one who actually likes the Democratic Party! I think that nominating someone like Dean will go a long way toward giving most rank and file Democrats a candidate they can be proud to vote for, someone who will not merely be the lesser of two evils.

Make this a September to Remember

I have to say that although I have enormous respect for Dr. Dean, I am getting more than a little fed up by his supporters' continually (and generally uninformed) cries of "we're more authetically grassroots than you are." As someone deeply involved in both the Clark campaign's 'Net and on-the-ground "roots"-level activities, and I can tell you that your characterization fails to appreciate both the authentic degree of grassroots-level commitment that exists in Clark supporters, or the authentic amount of chaos that we're experiencing in trying to get a campaign that's mostly self-organized off of the ground. We don't have Dean's veteran political operatives serving as regional coordinators (yet)--instead, we have local committees, organized through MeetUp, holding down the fort while the national campaign scrambles to organize.

The truth is that Clark didn't shut down his netroots. What really happened is that the tensions between several factions of them--not a surprising development in any authentic grassroots campaign--did do some degree of harm in the days immediately after Clark's announcement, which is the real story behind Kos' post. But we're recovering and our netroots are doing quite well, thank you (the Digital Clark site was shut down because, as lovely as it was, no one wanted to run into copyright issues).

What makes this new round of allegations most annoying is that previously, we were told (often by Deanies) that Clark wouldn't be able to achieve the same level of organization, fundraising, endorsements, or experienced strategic personnel that the other candidates would get because he would be entering too late. But now that we've enjoyed some measure of success, we're told that all of this is due to "establishment big-money Democrats." So which is it?

I'm not sure if you realize exactly how divisive and damaging to the progressive grassroots efforts this kind of rhetoric is. It's one think to attack my candidate's positions or even his character. But it's another thing entirely to disrespect the very real grassroots work we're doing on his behalf as fellow Democrats as fake. It's this kind of rhetoric on the part of Gov. Dean's followers that make so many Democrats--no matter how far left they are--perceive him and his movement as divisive and harmful to the party and the greater goal of restoring America to a progressive direction.

Eric, it is good to hear that General Clark is also interested in tapping the net activists for his campaign. As my post said, one of the things I think is important for this election is that we rebuild our Democratic party and that we pull in many more people that are very committed to defending our democracy -- and this means welcoming people and their ideas -- the opposite of the DLC approach of trying to raise big bucks through the fat cats.

Mary,

Thanks for reading and for your very gracious response--I think I can sympathize with your frustrations with the Democratic party, and I hope you can see why some of us Clark supporters are a bit exasperated with how his campaign has been characterized. I'm still a little wary of caricaturing the DLC, since they aren't as bad as a lot of lefties say they are, but I agree that they do have problems in sticking up for the grassroots and in encouraging participation.

Best of luck in your work for the governor.