Dear Deaniacs:
I comment little enough on politics here that you may not regard this as shocking, but I have enthusiastically decided to support Howard Dean in 2004.
From very early in the campaign, I was a Dean skeptic. I believe Presidents usually leave their greatest impact on foreign policy, and distrust governors to handle it. I felt like he was a Clintonesque weasel, only more clever, and that all his supporters on the left were deluded. I also figured that he was too liberal to get elected. In on-line forums I began avoiding political discussions because I didn't liem arguing with his supporters, and in rl conversations I kept saying that while I thought he'd be great in the Senate, he simply wasn't ready for to be "the guy" in charge of the country.
Dean crawled back into my list in late May, but as recently as early November I posted to my blog that I was on the brink of endorsing Gephardt. I meant to actually do that one night, but was busy. Then I happened to see a miscellaneous Dean speech on C-Span, and it nailed me. I was compelled to go to his web site and look at everything again. The experience was almost like being Theoden in the Lord of the Rings, and Dean was Gandalf the White come to save me from the thrall of the DLC. Everything just sort of suddenly clicked together for me. It was inspiring, man! He's the real deal, and can do things! And we do have a message, one we can sell to the American people, if we're worth anything at all!
I now understand what the Dean folks have been onto all this time. I just want to run around praising Dean all the time. (My endorsement post is here - warning, it's a tad long). I'm sorry for all my snarky references to the Deaniacs, and the way I too easily dissed their candidate. But now I am with you! Give me the Kool Aid - I like the blue kind!