If I have one thing to say...one message to give as the West Coast officially says goodbye to the day that was June 28th and we gear up for a July that will truly change the political atmosphere like you will not believe...
it is, to paraphrase the great Simple Minds song that inspired this diary title:
don't forget about Howard Dean. Don't forget about how you felt when you first got inspired by him or how he changed the entire tone of this year's election way back in 2003...
What's about to happen is going to be brutal in some ways. It's going to be about winning. It's going to be about John Kerry and George Bush. It's gonna get played out on the merciless stage of national ads and Middle America appeals for the swing voter...and, I predict, with some downright sleazy tactics from the Rove machine and some real tests of the Kerry campaign and for Democrats in general.
The one thing the other side doesn't have is not Michael Moore, or music stars or Hollywood...and it's not something you can buy, or manufacture or build up from your organization. It's the grass roots phenomenon that all of you who were members of the Dean campaign created, and the man who was the center of that campaign, Howard Dean.
I have to admit that as I sat watching Moore's film, Dean was on my mind. Watching that movie, and being reminded of the history of these last four years, and of 2002 in particular, it became really clear to me that Dean was more than right about the war...he was right about having backbone, he was right about the sorry state of his fellow candidates that summer, and he was right to stand up and do something about it.
This isn't an argument I used to make. I don't think it's an argument I always understood. But F9/11 helped me understand, as someone who was for Gephardt and then for Kerry...where those of you who were for Howard were coming from, and the inertia you were fighting against, and how you were right and clear-eyed about this war and this President, and what we needed to do about it.
I can't honestly say that had we chosen Dean we could replicate what John Kerry has going right now...but I do know what Howard Dean brought to the Democratic Party is something that is essential to our success in 2004: the will to fight. the ability to talk straight. and the boldness to dream big and to inspire folks to rally around that dream.
We forget Howard Dean and his movement at our peril, as a political party and as citizens. (that goes for you double John Kerry) I, for one, hope Howard gives one hell of a speech at the convention...
Far be it from me to tell Dean supporters what to do...but humming one of the better Simple Minds songs of all time isn't a bad idea.