I've got dial-up....
which kind of makes posting on the main threads difficult when they hit 400+K....
so, here goes...my thunks about the current situation, for what it's worth...
Imagine for one second that the entire pool of potential Democrat voters (including anyone who might vote Dem regardless of affiliation) is sitting in one caucus room on live TV....
and we've got two decisions to make.
The first is, we need a candidate for President and a running mate.
The second is, we need to reinvent our party and take back Congress....not just for power's sake...but because we (ie. everyone to the left of the Republican Party) NEED to start running this country again. Add to this the context that the Bush administration has just run this country into the ground in an across the board, colossal failure that leaves the Republicans extremely vulnerable. (Upside of 2002: this is not our mess.)
My argument is that in this context, we ALL win only by maximizing our ability to stand together and hold to distinct points of view at the same time. This only happens if the cause we stand for is LARGER than the political gains that any one group stands to make if they win.
We need a common cause coalition that allows for each composite demographic of our coalition to maintain its individual voice.
So, in this caucus room it is critical that we find a way to select a Pres. / VP ticket and commit to a strategy that maximizes inclusivity, heterogeneity and a willingness to "agree to disagree" while working together on common goals whenever we can.
In a sense, what I am saying is simply adding my voice to the thought that Democrats need to be, in effect, an "open source" party. The more nimble we are at "getting along"...the more flexible we are about incorporating each other's views, while holding to our own values...the more likely it is that our common cause coalition will attain the kind of power that makes it meaningful to any of us to participate.
Our dilemma is that neither of the front runner candidates, let's face it, really represents this kind of restructuring. And there is not really a good rubric for incorporating the ideas from one camp into a rival's campaign. On some level, you don't get Dean's or Clark's ideas / people unless Dean or Clark wins.
In this context, it's actually a bad idea for Dean supporters to fold in with either Kerry or Edwards....unless they find a way to maintain a distinct voice within that. (ie. Dean's war stance should preclude a simplistic move to Edwards). And so this is where my brain is at, at the current moment:
This caucus exists....it's called the National Convention. We need to have a meaningful convention like never before...
and we need to make the dominant message of that convention broader than simply the political success of the Democratic Party. The message needs to be clear to every voter in this country who is not a Republican, and, I hope some who are...
that Democrats are folks who can disagree but still stand together for the greater good of getting things done for all of us. As long as you can live with our core values...you don't have to check your ideas or identity at the door. And we can prove that by making sure that Dean and Clark and Kucinich (et al.) voters are respectfully and, moreover, substantively included in the convention.
I, for one, would think that we should actually have a moment at the convention where "non-Democrats" speak: Greens, Independents, Ventura-types, even, uh, former Republicans. Maybe this has happened before...don't remember, but 2004 is the year that inclusivity is a WINNER.
On some level, my point is that the Dean revolution did not "happen" in 2004 in the form of a Dean nomination...
but, on some level, this kind of revolution has to happen in 2004 and forward. And, if we end up with a Kerry / Edwards ticket: it seems to me that there is MORE, not less, to do on the part of those of us who believe to the core that the Party needs to move in a new direction.
In a sense, I do strongly agree with those who have reservations about John Kerry from this point of view....insofar as a Kerry or Edwards candidacy is REDUCED to a traditional, Gore-style churn out the base, run for it...the Democratic Party stays a machine that exists simply to generate it's own power base.
Our job, as Kossacks, I think, is to make sure that this is not ALL that happens, and to point the way to the broader coalition that I think motivates most of us here: defeat GWB yes....but change our country and the Dem Party MORE yes. There is a broad swath of Americans willing to give the Democrats a chance.
Our job is convince them to make common cause. I think we do that by putting up a convention that SHOWS them that we are in effect a coalition party. To get that, we need the orange hats at the convention: ...enthusiastic and unaplogetic and welcome.