This one's for you, NYCO...
I went to see Dean here yesterday. He spoke, appropriately enough, in Kellogg auditorium at the medical school. Doors opnened at 6:30 for the 7:00pm talk; I got there at 6:40 and was lucky to get a seat. Lots of students, but the majority of the audience was probably community, and a lot of greybeards at that.
Someone from the Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth introduced Dean, and in gratitude for bringing Dean here, I'll pass along his plug for their new blog: www.rockyblog.org. Quality remains to be determined, but there's certainly potential for good stuff there and there'll probably be more Dean coverage there over the summer, I imagine.
He entered to a long standing ovation and opened with that same joke he's been using, "If I keep getting receptions like this, I might throw my hat back in the ring... No, no, just joking."
I've been summarizing his talk for people who ask me as being basically a more low-key, filled-out version of his campaign speeches. From here I'll just recount some points he emphasized enough to prompt me to write them down; anywhere I use quotation marks, assume approximate rather than exact quotes, as all I have to go by is rapidly scribbled notes.
He took a little shot at the National Unity dinner, saying that people are willing to say nice things about you after you're out of the race that they wouldn't say otherwise. "People came up to me telling me what a good job we'd done getting people involved. But we didn't. We haven't been doing a good enough job."
Who hasn't been doing a good enough job?
Bush certainly isn't doing a good job.
Democrats haven't been doing a good enough job.
The media isn't doing a good enough job.
Us. Voter turnout in the primary was great, but voting is a bare minimum of participation for functional democracy, and you can't stop participating when your candidate loses.
You know, I `m going to repeat that last part just for the benefit of wankers like Politus who were screaming that Dean was going to pull a Nader and not support the candidate:
You can't stop participating when your candidate loses.
He opined that a major mistake of Democrats is only putting money and support behind likely winners - people in strongly Republican districts need to hear the case made for the other side. In that spirit, he was going to speak in Mississipi and Houston in the upcoming weeks. Joke: " The one thing I agree with in Zell Miller's book is the title: a National Party No More."
The biggest thing in his opinion to change the context of the upcoming election was Richard Clarke's testimony, because it has finally, along with everything else, made Bush's credibility the biggest election issue. He thinks that people will not tolerate being mislead (uh, I'm inclined to disagree with him on this one...). One of the main points in his talk, repeated several times:
"The stakes are enormous and the only hope is to change presidents."
He criticized the unilateralism of the Iraq war and cracked a joke: "37 Ukranians and 2 people from Eritrea doesn't make a coalition."
After more criticism of the war ("Al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq before, now they are," etc) he went to his second major point:
We can't afford the borrow and spending - Dean expressed surprise at how many college students were concerned about the budget deficits, and speculated that this might be the first generation to understand and be concerned with the shortsightedness of this kind of spending. He agreed with Kerry's position on the $87 billion dollars to Iraq - if Bush thought it was important enough to spend the money, then it should have been important enough to pay for it by taking it out of the tax cuts.
Trade: trade is good; interdependence brings a more peaceful world. But free trade has failed. He regretted supporting NAFTA but explained why he did. He thought it would raise the standard of living in Mexico, specifically increasing the economic power of women. This is good for Mexican women, but also good for the US: economically empowered women translates into lower birthrates, and therefore lower population growth and immigration pressure in the long term.
He used the mad cow scare as an example of what we do wrong: under pressure from the beef industry, congress passed a law allowing downer cattle in. The mad cow scare cost the industry 4.5 billion dollars, but also cost the entire economy: meat packers lost hours, beef prices tanked costing farmers, and so people at the lowest level of the economy - the most likely spenders - were affected too. Joke: "Even if I were a cold, flinty-eyed Republican, I'd notice that socially responsible companies do better."
Lacking in this country: thinking past the next quarter.
This point was I think his most powerful, and the one most important to him: leadership has to be long-term, and long-term thinking is in seriously short supply. From his comments about Democracy for America, I think educating on this point is going to be one of its major activities, along with GOTV/voter registration and nationwide support of local Dem candidates. I think this is why he is hoping to retain the interest and involvement of young people too, to change the scenario for the long term.
Questions:
- Media's role, portrayal of Judy. He quoted someone saying that the media made "a crime out of normalcy." He got a little catty with MoDo: "Nobody should have to put up with the likes of Maureen Dowd." He mentioned that Ruth Harkin was the one who got Judy involved in the campaign, and that Judy quite enjoyed herself once she got into it.
- Mistakes made. Unlike George W. Bush, Dean was able to analyze the successes and failures of his actions in retrospect. He said the main reason he lost was the condensed primary schedule - he had to win Iowa. He defended Trippi's decision to spend so much there, but said the biggest thing he'd do differently is not go negative back at Gephardt. He said Kerry ran a very good campaign "at the end." Heh. Medical joke: the "retrospectoscope" is the most accurate instrument in diagnostic medicine.
- Media again, evilness of Fox. Fox being conservative is not the problem, Fox being good at what they do while everyone else isn't, is the problem. Fox produces news-entertainment for "people with ADHD, which is most of us" and the other networks dumb their news down in an effort to ape Fox's success. Media's allegiance is to stockholders instead of the public. NYTimes is full of opinion, not facts. 90% of Americans get their news from 11 companies. The scream speech wasn't a problem at first because all the press traveling with him knew it was no big deal - it was only after management got a look at it and saw it as entertainingly weird/narrative confirming (my terms) that the marathon speech footage started. People under 30 were most loyal to the campaign in part because they are least likely to get their news from television.
- How to win. Referred to Lakoff; didn't know his stuff before the campaign, but has talked to him since. Bill Clinton was most politically talented pres since FDR - Democrats shouldn't try to emulate his strategy because they can't. Must "excite the daylights out of the base", because they take some of the swing voters with them. Dems must stop taking traditional constituency groups for granted.
- Question about Safire's column, imagining him as Kerry's surgeon general. "I don't read Safire. Life is hard enough without making yourself mad on purpose." Not interested in being surgeon general.
A couple of general observations: although I chuckled at that comment about Kerry's campaign being good "at the end," Dean showed
not a trace of resentment or bitterness when he referred to Kerry, or anyone else for that matter. He really came off as all about the big picture, and all about the long term. He referred to the bike path story at one point, and I realized that he still approaches government basically with the attitude of a community activist, it's about getting things done that will be good across generations because those future generations are part of your community too. He clearly loved the way government could work at the scale of a place like Vermont.
Now, enough about Dean, let's talk about me. Although it was a little sad, especially after the recent contrast of Bush's press conference, to hear Dean and think that this guy could potentially have been our president, I really needed it. I used to post here more often and to be honest, the wind went out of my sails for a while after Dean left the race and I haven't been around much since (even lost my long time TU status). I'm really not excited about Kerry at all, and I haven't been excited about some of the kinds of arguments that people like to engage in here - the partisanship, both within and between the sides, makes me tired. I'm a recovering Republican and I think having to face the error of my ways permanently diminished my appetite for political fight. Dean represented a potential not only for us to have a good leader, but for a real departure from the way we've been doing politics recently. He represented an actual focus on policy and fixing things and not just on political calculation.
But I needed to hear him say that you can't give up when your candidate loses. I realize that when I lost interest after his exit from the race, I was guilty of the same kind of utopian defeatism I criticize libertarians for: If only we had Dean, things would be so much better. Without him, it's no use trying. Dean knows that's bullshit and so do I, but I guess I needed the reminder.