(I posted this late last night; sorry if some of you have already seen it, but I wanted to get this sentiment out there in 'prime time' as it were...)
Say what?
Let me get this straight -- Howard Dean finds himself a couple months ago polling in the single digits in Iowa, but with a growing lead in NH, decides to make a run for it in the first caucuses. No one ever really gave him a shot, until he started pushing his poll numbers up, and then all of a sudden, the expectation was born that Dean would win (or, at the very least, place very well) in Iowa by dint of his massive ground organization. Then, he doesn't, he simply achieves a weak third (some triple of his level of polled support a few months ago), and everyone and his brother sneers, eh, Dean's dead now, or at least fatally wounded. To that, I say, BULLSHIT!
Look, no one argues that Dean doesn't have the largest grassroots organization -- that's simply undisputed. But what people haven't picked up on is that because the organization is so large, and populated with so many newcomers to the campaign process, that it just might take a while to get the kinks out of the operation. Seriously, prior to last night, Dean's grassroots were focussed on one thing: distributed action to get the word out. And boy, are we good at that. That's what dispersed communities are best at doing, regardless of the context.
So, now that we've gotten our guy to the top of everyone's hit list so effectively, someone (Trippi in this case, I suppose) is supposed to turn that distributed oeprational force into something that operates as effectively within a caucus system? Keeping in mind that NOTHING like this has ever been done before? (This very easily explains why Kerry and Edwards did so well...they had access to a pre-built party machine that has never liked Dean very much that was waiting for some candidate(s) to come along that they could get behind; Kerry and Edwards made a small push in December, the party old-hands woke up, and the rest is now history.) Given the challenges that the Dean camp faced, I am now glad that they did as well as they did.
Now, I hope (and I'm sure) that Trippi et al. did a serious post-mortem of what they did, what went wrong, and what went right. They'll apply that newfound wisdom to their caucus strategies in other states, and some of that wisdom to NH, whereever it might apply to a straight primary.
And hey, if they still can't herd the cats that make up their grassroots in NH, then we'll have some serious thinking to do. But until then, I'm writing letters like mad (my friends and I should have around 350 or so off to NH by the end of the week), and a friend and I are going to be in NH this weekend (and maybe Monday, depending on work). I've poured too much of my time, effort, money, and hope into this campaign to piss it all alway a week away from what was originally its main target heading into the nomination process.
I trust Howard Dean. I've heard him speak, I've read his statements, I've looked at his history. I've looked at the other candidates and decided that Dean has what it takes to beat Bush, and to be the kind of President that we need and deserve. We are his firepower, and he is ours. When I get to NH, we'll see where I am aimed...
So to him and to my fellow Dean supporters, I say:
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.