There's lots of talk today about how Dean and his followers should proceed if things don't pan out. Here is my extended contribution, something I've been pondering since that long bus ride back from Iowa...
(Note: I gave another $100 yesterday, so I haven't thrown in the towel yet.)
Set aside for a moment the issue of how Dean and his supporters will "get in line" behind Kerry. Dean will lend his vocal support and the vast majority of those involved will vote for Kerry, some may even give $$. But what are Dean people going to do with their organized, on-line and shoeleather energy?
A post-primary DFA effort should be designed with the following in mind. It must:
- Address Dean's/our weaknesses
- Play to Dean's/our strengths
- Do some tangible good at the local level, but at a broad, coordinated national scale.
To keep people engaged there has to be one issue that serves as the glue holding it all together. Getting involved in local politics is great, but it can be pretty dry at times and there has to be some way for Dean's vision to focus on one particular issue so people stay involved -- something he can lend his voice to across all communities. I suggest choosing an issue that most of you may think is from left-field:
Long-term care
Here are my Top Ten Reasons Why Long-Term Care Should Be THE Issue:
- The whole Dean rise was unfairly caricatured as a bunch of kids chatting to each other on-line (weakness). Organizing around an issue on the other end of the age spectrum will combat this stereotype.
- The media-contrived image of Dean as "angry" is sewn into the fabric of TV reality (weakness). Long-term care is about showing compassion to the neediest amongst us. Who is going to accuse those who address the needs of frail elders as being angry? And Dean hasn't exactly won over the hearts of many elders (thanks to Gephardt's craven Mediscare tactics). Tackling the thorny issue of long-term care addresses this weakness.
- Dean is a doctor (strength) and long-term care is a health issue. And Dean has an incredible record of promoting home & community-based care in Vermont -- he knows the issue inside and out (strength).
- Long-term care is also a social issue that requires a community-level response. There are Dean people organizing in the smallest towns amongst us (strength). A whole lot of good can be done in long-term care simply by people paying attention to it in their communities (via information awareness campaigns, volunteering to homebound elders and as nursing home ombudsmen, etc). That's what makes home & community-based care work in Vermont and why it doesn't work in so many other places. Long-term care fits nicely with Dean's vision to lead us in restoring our sense of community.
- Nobody in Washington at the national level will be talking about it [they never have, since it's too complicated for a sound-bite and largely addressed (poorly) by state and local government]. But that's a good thing, since Dean can have the issue all to himself and his followers can use it as an entry point to get involved locally and in state politics.
- It's not an issue that will ever be "solved," but if Dean and his followers can improve things substantially in the world of long-term care by 2008 or 2012 (just as the Baby Boomer retirement begins to snowball), then he will have set himself up nicely as a "doer" in communities all over the map.
- Dean can get his international experience working on world-wide health issues, while bringing back to our shores the more enlightened approaches to long-term care that exist in many other developed countries.
- All of the young wipper-snapper Dean supporters (I'm 34, so not so young) will meet a bunch of amazing elders in our communities -- folks who were kids during the Depression and who know a thing or two about survival in an unfair world.
- Dean can claim some generational leadership as the Baby Boomer who stopped denying his own aging and acted so that future generations won't be left to wonder: Why exactly should we give a damn about Old Baby Boomers when they didn't lift a finger to prepare the way for their own aging?
- Long-term care is a very human issue that requires citizens to step out of their role as spectactors and act. We are all affected by this issue (either through grandparents, parents, or ourselves directly). And we're all going to be there someday.