« Midas Networks anniversary party | Main | After the Midas bash » Inside AgitatorMatt Bai in the NY Times writes a knowing piece about the real meaning of Howard Dean's campaign and his current approach to leadership of the Democratic party, which is more like creating a whole new party without support of other current Dem leaders. Dean fell into his current role by accident, having tapped into an already evolving Democratic populism that comprised of outsiders who correctly perceived that they'd been marginalized as the party organization became more of a "private political club" for wealthy urban donors. [Link] Over the course of the campaign, Dean turned into an apostle, in politics, of the economic concept of “disintermediation” — the idea that, in the Internet age, voters could connect with candidates, and with one another, without the party acting as the conduit. In a sense, this is what his candidacy was all about. He still believed, though, that only a strong national party could mobilize voters on Election Day. At the Democratic convention in Boston, six months after he dropped out of the presidential race, he met with frustrated delegations from 18 “untargeted” states, meaning that the national party and its candidate, John Kerry, had completely ignored them. Dean was appalled. “The best window we have to talk to Democrats, the time when they pay the most attention, is in the presidential campaign,” Dean told me, “and we were just saying to the people of those 18 states, ‘We’re not interested in you.’ You cannot be a national party if you say that to anybody. Anybody.” jon posted this at 11:07 AM |
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