I hope I read these words 2 months from now, and laugh at myself, because Dean is still in the running. But I am nothing if not adaptive, and I have been thinking a lot about what it would be like if my man does not survive the month and Kerry/Edwards is the ticket.
I will vote for Kerry without great regrets, considering him a fair candidate, agreeing with Kos that he is orders of magnitude better than Bush. But I'm still disgusted with the DNC, and see from the comments of others that there is a real problem within the Party.
So here's my scenario for how to fix this:
- Everyone in the "establishment" acknowledges that Dean's message won and gives him due respect for this - Kerry, McAuliffe, Carville, etc. They thank him for waking them up from their zombie state. The praise is sincere and effusive.
- Dean is allowed to gain power within the establishment. He gets a highly visible role in the DNC. How I would love to see Sharpton and Dean replace Begala and Carville on Crossfire. B&C are so '90s.
- Dean keeps his fundraising, grassroots machine energized and puts them to work for other Dem candidates. Candidates know the money came from Dean people - allowing them to keep their people power visibile and feel like they're being heard.
- The rest of the Dems join with bloggers and Dean people to keep after the press to make things fairer and raise the quality of campaign journalism.
- Dean works with one of more of the new 527s as a highly visible spokesperson.