I'd like to get a couple things off my chest....
so...3 thoughts...and a word...
Please take the following as an honest attempt to come to terms with the moment we're in here....
Maxim 1: the single greatest "negative" political motivator is the burned-in memory of a political defeat.
What we do and how we respond to a defeat shapes our politics for years to come....
ask anyone who ever lost a race or cause they cared about and invested themselves in, and you'll find it's true...
which is why what's gone down on dKos and in the Dean campaign the last few weeks as Dean's campaign imploded and the general consensus here (which I differ with) has been that "politics as usual" defeated "you have the power!" is so significant.
I'd like to make the point that I am not surprised so much by the fact that some folks have "gone off" and basically betrayed the very rationale and ethos of the Dean campaign, "let's defeat Bush and build a movement" versus "screw the media, John Kerry, & the DNC..."...as much as...
suprised that the voices here to pick up the pieces....rally the troops...and rechannel the energies...have been so weak and far between.
I think this comes from the top...Howard Dean and Joe Trippi had an obligation to give meaning to the losses in Iowa and NH...and further...to provide a rationale for their supporters and friends to continue a positive engagement in that process....
and it continues into the blogosphere...where outspoken Dean advocates need to engage their colleagues here who are "going negative" and point the movement in a positive direction:
if Dean's candidacy meant something to you, then it is your obligation to continue to support it and grow it even when the chips are down.
Maxim 2:When the well gets poisoned, folks stop taking a drink...but it doesn't mean they're not thirsty.
Cynicism is a followers disease....
once you've planted the seeds of cynicism in a diary or thread, it becomes uncool to come back with an earnest response...
so we get these long "me too" threads where everyone jumps off the same cliff...
because it's ok to be pissed off, unreasonable, angry and depressed...(and, yes, it is, in the context of a blog)...
it's seems that it's also ok to violate the values that your candidate or party espouses defending that candidate. It isn't.
Folks are hungry for positive, because while the negative tastes good....at the end of the day...it's empty calories.
Cynicism is junk food. Tastes good...but...
Maxim 3: What you're left with at the end of the day...when you've lost....tells you alot.
I'm not going to say anything here other than I've found this to be true for myself.
Word:Finally, I have to say...from a Dean outsider point of view...
but as someone who was a Jesse Jackson and Paul Wellstone man...
this is a REALLY dangerous moment for generation Dean. Somone, somehow needs to put this back together again in a way that moves forward and gives the many thousands of earnest Deaniacs a reason to get constructively engaged and stay focused on the work at hand.
Deafeating GWB and taking our country and political process back.
If...and this is an if...Howard Dean is not that man...if he can't find a way to turn his message around and move folks forward...
than someone else needs to do it.
And I would guess that somewhere in the blogosphere there is more than one future leader out there who is more than up to that task.
