Dean's Demise
I was very interested in Jonah's comments about Dean's campaign last night. As an occasional Dean volunteer (with family members who were much more involved) I would say that the biggest weakness was the lack of geographical local-ness of the Dean network. The Meetups were great--they were a chance to talk to your neighbors about Dean and the issues in your community. The letter-writing and bus loads of volunteers to Iowa were a disaster--Iowans don't really care what New Yorkers think. More importantly, local volunteers have a real credibility advantage when it comes to talking to voters. People always trust a stranger more if he or she seems like "someone like me".
The campaign's greatest strength, I think, was the level at which it made supporters feel truely empowered and listened to. My mom has voted straight Democratic tickets for as long as she could vote, and comes from a very liberal family. Politics is important to her. But she'd never given money to a campaign, never volunteered, never canvassed, never gone to a local party meeting. But she did all of that with the campaign, and was a Dean delagate to the state nominating convention. She's continued her involvement after the campaign by becoming an active (as in, attending meetings and volunteering) member of the local ACLU.
The Dean campaign changed my mom from a solid Dem voter into to an activist. That's the true value of non-hierarchical campaign models.
2 Comments:
Bravo so well articulated how Dean rose to power and then a solid reason for his demise. Dean weather you love him or hate him he did provoke people into reaction and that is what this country needed someone to get them up and moving and get them angry.
Unfortunately the fact that it was the non-locals preaching to Iowans is what hurt dean. The same theme runs in the South. No one wants an outsider telling them what their needs and what thier most important issues are. The people who loved Dean the most sadly ended up causing his demise.
See, these are the Dean stories that always make me do a double take when Dean's campaign is called a faliure. He didn't win the nomination, but he inspired thousands, many of whom haven't cared about politics in years or ever.
Just to add another perspective to the Iowa debacle, though, one has to realize that Dean's loss there was a confluence of factors -- not just the influx of out-of-towners.
Kerry was pumping money in. Kucinich and Edwards had brokered a caucus deal. Most of all, Gephardt was engaged in a brand of in-fighting with Dean that can be likened only to a murder-suicide. Our orange-hatted friends didn't help the situation (the perception of outsiders espeically), but it's hard to say they caused the demise.
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