Thursday, July 08, 2004

The Fall: How Beltway Democrats Sank Dean

By Josh Frank

Read full article...

Posted 07/08 | Add a Comment

    Comments:

    You must register to comment.

    Login | Register

  1. I do believe that Dean’s campaign was gaining momentum before Gore’s endorsement. I’m not sure when the switch between long-shot and front-runner happened but it had by at least August of 2003. As for the rest, it is a sad comment on the politics of the U.S. that someone like Dean was too out there.

    Posted by micah holmquist from  on  07/08  at  01:38 PM

  2. Micah, you are correct about Dean’s campaign gaining momentum before Gore. But in the eyes of the media, he was finally electable by their terms. Dean was always a joke however.  Never progressive, even he admitted this.  But I could alter that sentance however.

    Posted by Josh from  on  07/08  at  02:16 PM

  3. Yeah, there were a series of gains by Dean that finally made the media accept Dean.  I remeber the endorsement of the SEIU/AFSCME was one.  Another was him winning that stupid MoveOn.org “primary.” He also got some other high profile endorsements like Tom Harkin.  It was kind of hard for him to keep maintaining that he was an “outsider” at that point.

    After that he got crushed by all the fighting with Gephardt and those mystery organizations.  He also had a series of gaffes (or things the media portrayed as gaffes--like when he said some bullshit about being more open about his religion and it just made him look phony and dumb).

    Posted by Justin Felux from San Antonio, TX  on  07/09  at  11:43 AM

  4. Dean was destroyed by the media after he said he was going to break up the major media monopoly. 

    It really is as simple as that.

    Posted by Robert Clark Young from Sacramento, CA  on  07/09  at  07:20 PM

  5. I understand how it is important to understand how the powers that be sabatoge potentially disruptive candidates (the disease of democracy must be innoculated against!), but Dean is such a major SCUM BAG and LIAR I’m afraid I won’t be interested to read Josh’s book due to a lack of sympathy for the victim of the media assault. How so many people were huckstered by this establishmentarian is beyond me (desperation?).

    I am still a fan of Josh though, having read many of his thoughtful columns, not sure why he chose this topic (please don’t misunderstand where my anger is directed here). Keep up the good work in exposing the rotten system, and as our friend Ox notes, let’s work on a strategy that can really change things.

    Posted by Rhino Rick from Tokyo, Japan  on  07/10  at  06:52 PM

  6. Rhino Rick,

    First, this is only an excerpt.  I agree with you on Dean.  But this story, I believe is important because, despite Dean being a conservative, he was still sabatoged by the Dems.  So, my story is told in hopes to show the plethora of Dean supporters that working within the Dem party is futile, even if you are a centrist.  So if a centrist gets crushed by the DLC, what happens to a real progressive?

    So in fact, I hope this is a wake up call, to those that still have hope in the Dems. Many do. 

    I’ll also show that if Dean were elected he wouldn’t radically alter anything anyway.  Rick, read past columns on Dean for an idea. Mark posted several on this site.  There are a lot of angry frustrated lost Deaniacs out there. We can either let them continue believing in the Dems, or show them a more radical (correct) path.

    Posted by Josh from  on  07/10  at  09:59 PM

  7. During the campaign Josh was one of the few people debunking the pro-Dean nonsense that otherwise intelligent people on the left were starting to embrace.  I even had commie friends who were attending those stupid “house parties.”

    Posted by Justin Felux from San Antonio, TX  on  07/11  at  05:33 AM

  8. To me at least, what stands out about Dean is that he was too “radical” for the political establishment and culture of the U.S. to accept. That shows just how limited the political options are.

    Posted by micah holmquist from  on  07/11  at  07:12 AM

  9. Dean had to be crushed because his campaign threatened entrenched power.

    As people organized in their communities and joined their efforts with others in support of the Dean campaign, they discovered that they could achieve what many believed was impossible. They proved to themselves that “You Have the Power!” is not empty rhetoric. They experienced it. They felt powerful and effective. They began to hope again and became committed to exercising their power by engaging, uniting, and empowering others.

    As Trippi put it to Howard:

    The people are coming to this thing. And whatever we do, they take it and make it better. It’s their campaign now. We’re at a point where, if this is going to work, it’s going to be because of them. All we have to do now is have faith in them… It’s like we’re standing on top of this fifteen-story building. All these people have gathered. Now… what we have to do is jump. And trust them to catch us.

    So, so, many in the electorate had opted out, demoralized and hopeless after the travesty of Impeachment, the horror of the stolen election, the death of Paul Wellstone, the dismantling of decades of progress, and the unjustified, unilateral, and therefore criminal war waged on Iraq.

    The Dean campaign put its trust in the people. As a result of Dean’s belief in them, the demoralized and hopelss began to believe in themselves again, and began to act on that belief. Just like a child battered down by circumstance begins to accomplish amazing things when they are finally encouraged by someone who truly believes in them, people were acting and discovering what they could accomplish.

    Anyone with a micron of political savvy recognized that unless it was crushed, and crushed fast, the power of hope and the attraction of being effective would continue to and grow exponentially, and would ultimately put people back in the driver seat. The Dean campaign was a threat to entrenched power because it had the potential to bring about an amazing renewal in our democracy.

    The real scandal here is not that the the D.C. analstocracy stopped Dean. It’s they acted out of a sense of threat and need to stop us; to stop “We the People”.

    Posted by Patty K from Westfield, NJ  on  07/12  at  05:32 AM

  10. BTW, you are flat wrong about “if Dean were elected he wouldn’t radically alter anything anyway.”

    If Dean had been elected, it would have been because people across the spectrum had re-engaged in the political process. And THAT would bring about radical change. Once people have experienced a sense of power and effectiveness, it is not easy to turn them “off” again.

    The nature of the Dean campaign was fundamentally different from anything we have seen in the past couple decades. It’s trust in the people created a phenomenon that I am not sure we have seen before. The number of Dean-inspired activists and grassroots organizations continues to multiply. The D.C. analstocracy stopped the Dean campaign, but people are continuing to organize in their communities and are creating trans-local connections. These local and trans-local organizations still carry the seeds of democratic renewal. The process is distributed now and therefore harder to attack.

    Time will tell whether the D.C. analstocracy stopped the campaign “in time”... they may have missed the mark. A critical mass of “people-power” may have been created which will yet serve at the catalyst of democratic renewal and fundamental change.

    What you and many others seem to miss is that the campaign wasn’t about Dean’s positions or policies at all. It was about his belief in democracy. It was about his belief in us. That is why he appealed across the spectrum, drawing in people on the far left, the middle, even the right. Dean’s positions were no threat. The threat was the campaign’s ability to inspire the people and the contagion of hope and action it sparked.

    The only radical thing about Dean is his unwavering belief that our nation will become healthier and that we will be more capable of creating “a more perfect union” if the number and diversity of the people engaged in the political process increases. He may be the only politician I have met that actually believes this.

    And in this age of crony capitalism and the cynical exercise of power, perhaps a real belief in the people is the most radical belief a politician can hold.

    Posted by Patty K from Westfield, NJ  on  07/12  at  06:22 AM

  11. The positive words about Dean above --particularly since his recent “debate” w Nader-- are very disheartening.  Several writers --on this site alone-- have made his HUGE negative side very clear, defined it definitively.  Let’s keep things simple.  Who can put a positive spin on his advocacy of the death penalty?  Why do we have to go over the same ground so often?  Best, ROx

    Posted by O'Xman from  on  07/12  at  09:28 AM
    12. Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. {/if}

    Next entry: Extra, Extra! Open Season on Iran!

    Previous entry: Love Me I'm a Liberal 2004

    [ads]

    Support Press Action