What happened and what's next

Once upon a time, I was an enthusiastic supporter of Howard Dean. I went to meetups—if you know me, you understand what it means that I would seek out the company of 50 strangers in a bar. I donated money. I wanted him to win and thought he was the best hope of the Democrats and the nation.

Now, not so much, and I’m clearly not alone. Dean is the same guy, and I don’t know anything about him now that I didn’t then. Why, then, do I not count myself among the the good Doctor’s supporters anymore? Because he did his job.

Last year, like Dean, I wanted to know why Democrats were acting more like boiled noodles than an opposition party. Why they rolled over for Bush’s idiotic and counterproductive war, tax cuts, education policies, Medicare plan, and so on and so on. They displayed no courage, no heart, no brains, and Dorothy was nowhere to be found. Until Dean came along.

He was the frontrunner for so long not because of who he is, nor the specifics of his message, nor the internet fundraising (though that helped), but because he talked nasty about Bush and didn’t apologize. He was the only Democrat running as a Democrat, and the only promise he made that counted was: I will stand up to George Bush and I will not be afraid.

Ok, so it took me a while to figure all this out. It took John Kerry and John Edwards and Wes Clark a bit less long, and they are all singing Dean’s tunes now. This is a good thing. It gives Democrats a genuine choice. I like Dean, personally, but his appeal is clearly limited and his personality polarizing. A lot of people were willing to overlook those flaws when the other guys were looking more like soup than candidates.

I think Josh Marshall and TAPPED are correct that today’s Trippi chucking is incomprehensibly stupid and looks like the beginning of the end. But I’m not upset, because even when Dean the man is out, Dean the message will still be running.

Filed under: politics/2004