Taking my ball and going home - in '04
Tue Feb 26, 2008 at 11:11:04 AM PDT
This diary is a response, in part, to ddigioia's "Memo From a Disillusioned Progressive".
I joined the Democratic Party in late 2003, when a doctor by the name of Howard Dean showed up and performed a backbone transplant. Dean was my first choice for the nomination, and John Edwards was my second, because I thought they'd stand up to the Republicans — and because they were both campaigning with stories rather than laundry lists. The mistake Democrats had made over and over, in my view, was to nominate what I call checklist candidates — candidates who have a whole list of reasons why you should elect them, but who can't turn that list into a compelling theme.
So when the rest of the party made the decision to put John Kerry at the top of the ticket, I was more than a little disappointed.
Not only had the mainstream media, and my fellow Democrats, passed over two good candidates (and "passed over" is the mildest possible description of what was done to Howard Dean in '04), but the candidate the party had chosen was, in my mind, a classic example of why Democrats lose when they should win. With all due respect to Kerry, whose record of public service I admire, the man couldn't utter a sound bite to save his soul. He couldn't condense his message into something that would resonate with voters, and without that ability he simply wasn't a good candidate... and if you can't win the election, it doesn't matter how you'd perform once in office.
I had no enthusiasm for supporting John Kerry. Putting Edwards on the ticket helped a little, but I thought Kerry was a dud who would bore the voters to tears. And my opinion was not shown to be false.
But here's the thing, and here's my message to Hillary Clinton supporters: I worked my butt off for John Kerry in 2004, and you owe me. I held fundraisers for the man. I registered thousands of Democratic voters, got them to the polls, and did more to strengthen my local branch of the Democratic Party than anyone else you could name. So I don't want to hear about how you're going to sit on the sidelines this year if Obama wins the nomination — you're going to get out there and knock on doors, because you owe me your enthusiastic support for the nominee.
If you think Hillary's been cheated out of the nomination because the mainstream media were aggressively hostile to her candidacy, you can cry on my shoulder a little — because I've been there. They did it to my candidate in '04. If you think it's a dirty shame that other Democrats participated in the media pile-on, I've been there too — they did it to my candidate in '04. But if you think that entitles you to take your ball and go home, think again.
And, hell, if you don't owe me then you certainly owe Howard Dean: By all rights Dean should be in a Tibetan monastery somewhere, still recovering from the screwing he got in '04 — but he's not. He's at DNC headquarters, putting the finishing touches on a general election strategy that will keep the GOP on defense all year long. You owe it to Al Gore, who found his theme — and his true calling — after 2000, and who'll be doing everything he can to fight for our nominee.
You may be bitter now. You may have identified with your candidate to the point where you take attacks on her personally; you may have tuned your filters to only hear bad things about Obama; you may be perceiving his supporters right now as gloating members of the same wolf-pack that's been attacking Hillary for decades. I've been there. I've done that. And you owe me. Dust yourself off and help me elect a Democrat to the White House, or we'll be having this exact same conversation again in 2012.
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