Pacific Views

You make an important point. If I had listed the Dems I would like to be President Kerry would not have made the top five. Nonetheless, if he is the nominee, he will have my time, energy, money and support. Beating GWB is by far the most important thing.

I do not think of it as a choice of a lesser evil. I think of it as trading up but not quite to my dream house.

I know you've decided to completely ignore Kucinich, Natasha, but he had his best showing yet in Washington state, by far. I am really proud of all the work our volunteers and supporters did in the state, and pleased with my choice of candidate.

I hope that you were able to become a precinct delegate for Dean, at least. I'm a precinct delegate for Kucinich although looking at the figures for my legislative district (47th) I'll have to see what kind of alliance we Kucinich people can make with the Edwards, uncommitted, Clark, and Sharpton people in the district (we actually got one of the Sharpton delegates in our district).

Dwight - Yes, you're right. At least this time, we aren't going to go to sleep as happened when Clinton was elected. Public outcry got the FCC rules overturned (damn backdoor budget inserts) the first time, maybe it can make a politician act as his constituency wishes.

We don't have any choice but to make the best of it.

Al-Muhajabah - Yes, I decided to ignore Kucinich because in my opinion he's been the Nader of this primary. Who does he attack? The candidate with the more progressive and pragmatic platform. Who do his supporters throw in with? A guy who voted for the war, and another who hired a Republican advisor to dig up smears on Dean. Who ends up gaining? A business as usual Senator who voted for the war against the wishes of his constituents.

I have a lot of respect for you, personally, but what is going on? Was the war really never as big a defining issue as the Kucinich camp made it out to be that you decide to burn Dean and throw in with Edwards?

After all this, and after what happened in Iowa, I deeply distrust the Kucinich campaign's desire to see an agenda of change be advanced. I've heard the argument that it was just a deal made to win delegates, but how do you credibly campaign on liberal purism and then make a deal with the status quo?

And again, let me emphasize that I do trust your motives in this. It's specifically because I know you're a Kucinich supporter that I've tried to avoid venting about this on the blog.

Natasha, you're spot-on about the Kucinich double-dealing in Iowa. Johnnyboy is just about as un-Dennis as you could be, yet that's where the Kucinich caucusgoers generally went. Who knows how different this all would have been if, say, Edwards had had 26% and Dean 24% (instead of 32 and 18) in Iowa?

I don't know whether there was any similar Kucinich organizational strategy in the WA caucuses. From the dozen or more people I talked to (generally from the 36th, 43rd, and 46th LDs), there didn't seem to be a recognizable pattern.

Dean's strategy when nonviable was to try to build up a viable Uncommitted group. That certainly wasn't needed in any of the precincts at my location; we got at least one delegate in each of the 10 that met there. I'm pleased to report that my precinct had the best Dean result at the site -- 3 delegates to Kerry's 1. I'll have a more extensive report up on my blog within a day or so.

A larger topic of discussion in the aftermath was how to transform the energy and involvement into a more lasting effort to wrench the party back to its core values and ideas. We understand that if 2004 comes down to a choice between moving the party and moving Dubya back into his Crawford spiderhole, we'll come down on the side of the latter ... for now. But the Democratic wing of the party is back in town, and we're going to let TPTB in the party that we're here to keep an eye on what they (don't) do and how they (don't) do it.

Well, you two have already made up your minds, haven't you? I'm sorry that you're so negative about Kucinich. If you're ever interested in trying to work in a positive manner with Kucinich supporters instead of sulking about how Dean was betrayed and everybody else is not worthy of support, you know where to find me.

Well, I've been listening to Kucinich supporters tell me for quite a while that if I really believed in all the reasons why I said I supported Dean, I'd go with Kucinich instead. I've had Kucinich supporters buttonhole me and ask why I'd betray my stated principles to go with Dean, hammering me over going with a candidate who didn't plan to immediately cut and run in Iraq, and other things besides. And I generally like Kucinich supporters, I just don't particularly like him as a presidential candidate. But after I hear for the umpteenth time that he's the real anti-war candidate, and is best on the issues, it really surprises me that the only other anti-war candidate doesn't get any support from these same people.

And what I'm asking is fairly simple. Was the war that big an issue or not? What was the overriding factor in what seems a widespread decision on the part of some Kucinich supporters not to even approach Dean supporters to work with us? Why the seemingly counterintuitive decision to avoid at all cost supporting the camp that seems ideologically closest to you?

I mean, seriously, make a case for this. I've heard vague sorts of things about delegates, and all of us Dean supporters have been told in no uncertain terms to walk the line, so how bad is it to ask that someone explain to me why Edwards? Why him and Sharpton over Dean, who was the only chance to get an anti-Iraq-war candidate on the top of the ticket? You're the one in your message who doesn't even suggest the possibility that Dean supporters can be worked with, so why the outrage? You don't include us in your electoral calculus, so why is the onus on our side to be the big tent group. Meet us half way here. If there's a reason, and I'm thinking there must be since some fairly smart people have decided to go that way, please do explain it.

And don't take my dislike for Kucinich personally, really. It's been kind of prickly in the blogosphere for a bit now, with everybody forming up in our camps, but I think we can probably all survive and move past that. I mean, I know that most the folks over at Wampum (and a few elsewhere, but just to take an example) actively despise Dean and like Edwards. I'm not going to take that as a personal rejection, because I know that their reasons don't have anything to do with me, just as they probably know that I didn't support Dean to deliberately spite them. No sleep will be lost in my household over knowing that the mere fact of my being a Dean enthusiast didn't win them over. Just as it wouldn't surprise me if I went over there talking about how great Dean was, or complaining about Edwards, and got an earful.