<largely the same as a comment in another post, but promoted for your reading pleasure>
John Kerry wanted the nod. He felt he deserved it. He has the money. He didn't feel he needed anything else, and so he went hauls-balls-to-the-walls to get it.
Just like Dole.
And just like Dole, he'll lose.
Because he what he destroyed represented a young, energetic, idealistic faction of the party. But the Democratic party doesn't seem to feel it needs that.
This feels like '68 when the Democratic party sent tear gas and billyclubs after its youth.
Because it didn't want to be painted as the party of long-haired liberals, so the hippies were expendable because it was more important to keep the rank-and-file happy than to have them think that the Democrats represented Radical Change.
We Dean supporters are being painted as the 60s radicals of the day, which is not at all accurate. But the media paints the future, so in years to come, we will be the hippies of the day, and we will be expendable so that the Democrats don't represent Radical Change.
But we Deanies are not alone. Kerry wants to be milquetoast and middle of the road. Well, what else could he be? But he is going out of his way to stand for comfort and the status quo and against change. Why else would he go against the Democrats of his state and oppose extending marriage rights to all adults? Because, according to Kerry, we're not the party of queers. It's just that the queers have nowhere else to go.
But they'll go. Sooner or later, they'll go, because they're not wanted. They make the middle of the road uncomfortable. Sooner or later, the Jews will go and the feminists and the Blacks and the Hispanics and the antiglobalists and the intellectuals and the artists and whoever else seems to make the "average person" uncomforable today. Because the Democrats seem to want to be a comfortable old blanket to an ever-decreasing base.
Listen well and hear what I'm saying, because the reason that the Democrats have lost the Congress and the majority of governorships and state houses, is that since 1948, the Democratic party has pissed away constituency after constituency to the point where this is a 50/50 nation with a slight advantage to the Republicans electorally. And with every constituency the Democrats lets go, the Republicans become stronger. Every vote that used to be a Democrat and no longer is makes the Republicans bolder. They don't need to convert Democrats. They just need them to be apathetic. And we are. And that's why voter turnout is so miserable year in and year out. The Republicans vote, you betcha. The disenfranchied are the ones the Democrats don't feel they need anymore.
And now the Dems are pissing away the Deaniacs, which seems to be about 20% of the party. Some will come back. Some won't. But if even 5% stay away (and I'm inclined to be one of them) the Republicans will have achieved a solid majority through no effort of its own.
Dean sought to expand the party.
The party wants to contract. So does Kerry (remember he didn't "need" the South?).
Dean represents passion and excitement.
The party wants to represent quiet and boring. And so does Kerry.
Win or lose, the Democratic party into a mirror of John Kerry. Just like it would have done for Dean. But the party was scared of change, and so it will die.
Mark my words, if Kerry gets the nod, win or lose, the nation will be Republican for the next 50 years and you can check your liberties at the door. You won't be needing them.