Commondreans.org: Perils of the Dead Center

[Larkspur]

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0420-07.htm

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A large, motivated activist base will be crucial to success in the 2004 election. The country is intensely polarized. The current administration is perhaps the most radical in the history of the presidency. A tremendous number of Americans (not to mention foreigners) have noticed this. People are fired up. The zeitgeist is zinging with renewed liberal pride. Howard Dean’s unexpected early ascent captured the spirit of this most crucial of election years.

What Dean did wrong has been amply discussed. He put too much emphasis on one issue, the Iraq war; he let TV characterize him (with a yelp) instead of marketing a persona; most critically, he alarmed elites by thinking outside of boxes and by challenging the DLC head-on, prompting the party brass to circle the wagons. But remember also what Dean did right. He electrified a large group of young, activist volunteers; he cast the election in dramatic, almost epic terms, with his “take back the country” appeal; he directed that appeal largely toward the fifty percent of the U.S. electorate that customarily declines to vote. The White House race has lost a lot of pizzazz since Dean’s departure, and that is bad news for the Kerry campaign.

This is why Kerry’s move to the center, seemingly a safe tactical gambit, is actually fraught with danger. A tepid, equivocal, middle-of-the-road campaign is precisely not what we need right now. The clear majority is calling for a bold, mature, compelling, aggressively expressed alternative to the vision of plutocracy and global empire driving the current regime.
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I'm not the only one who misses the pizzazz and epic vision that Dean brought to the Prez race.

[Steely_Dan]

1. Dean

Dean captured my imagination. His contributions to the party will be felt for a long time. IMHO Dean did nothing less than redefine the Democratic party. And I agree that some of the fire and spirit has left the party since his departure.

I truly hope that Kerry is only "playing it cool" and letting Bush and the administration hang themselves. Let's hope that he comes out firing with both barrels when the time is right.

-P