Thanks tunesmith for framing this debate... and from talking with my father, a diehard Democrat who just wants Bush gone, I think your observations are exactly right.
People (that is, middle-class Democrats with jobs and health insurance) want someone they think can beat Bush. That's all. They don't want someone they percieve as an insurgent, someone they're heard crazy rumors about, someone offering a healthy dose of uncomfortable truths.
So I will modify my previous statements:
- Kerry is the "anti-Bush" in that he is nothing BUT "anti-Bush"
- This is what the rank and file Democrats want, and there's nothing inherently RIGHT or WRONG about that.
- Kerry will get tarred and feathered, I think he'll be awkward in fending it off. But he will survive the GE because people will vote for a wet dishtowel over Bush, and a wet dishtowel WOULD be a definite improvement.
- However, Dean still represents MY interests and the interests of a great many people, whereas Kerry does not. Kerry is not really about CHANGE or really trying to address the problems in the electoral system and society that give us people like George Bush .. he's just a band-aid who stole Dean's fire.
- The Dean campaign's message and priorities are still valid, still powerful, and sooner or later, still must be dealt with. Universal health care, sound fiscal policy, sound markets and returning political influence to the people, defanging the special interests and media conglomerates, creating a national politics of unity rather than division by class, race, gender and geography.
If the nomination goes to Kerry, so be it, I'll do my duty as a Democrat. the push-pollers and the corporate media will have spoken.
But a band-aid is not a cure for what ails this nation. This time the grassroots has the internet and if Dean goes down, a martyr. We will be back and we will be more highly organized.