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The Dean campaign is dead in the water, and the bilge
is building up fast. The poor Deaniacs don’t know whether to bail,
raise sail or raise bail, but incredibly, they are still at this
late date raising awesome sums of money from their apparently deep-pocketed
grass-roots support.
Friend and fellow Berkman blogger Jim
Moore reports that yesterday the
campaign set a new record for one day contributions, over half a million dollars, and this without
a major organized push for a specific goal. This was individuals
all around the country sending money with the message "don’t give up."
Dean meanwhile announced that if he fails to win Wisconsin he’s out.
The first question that comes to mind is, what are these people thinking?
You can’t get off the canvas in American Politics and undo the kind of mortal
wound in the public image department suffered by Dean’s campaign, at
least not without the aid and abeyance of the very media conglomerates
which inflicted the wound.
Are these contributors masochistic anti-Capitalists determined to disprove
the proverb, Don’t throw Good Money after Bad? Are they merely innocent
neophytes who don’t know you don’t bet on the gate favorite when she
pulls up lame at the clubhouse turn? Can’t they see that the profligate
misspending of their hard-earned dough by these misguided rookies rivals
the legendary Mike Tyson dissipation
of $200 million just as Tyson rivals
Dean in the weiner wars?
The second question is, where is this energy and money going to go when
Dr. Dean, who seems to be a conscionable man, feels too ashamed to continue
fleecing his desperate and gullible supporters? What should a true-beliving
Deaniac do with his or her checks after the good Doctor will no longer
accept them?
We feel the answer depends on the answer to another, related question.
Do you think it makes a difference whether Kerry or Bush wins in November. If
you do, and you really want to make a difference, you should start organizing,
contributing and doing everything you possibly can to help Kerry win,
starting today.
If you don’t think it makes a difference (and many of us have our doubts)
then that same energy and commitment should go to what we see as the
main benefit and achievement of the Dean movement – opening up the political
organizing and fundraising processes to a whole lot of new people, and
making them visible to everybody.
Jim floats the idea of
raising a BILLION DOLLARS (just a million normal folks like you and me
with a thousand dollars to spare – the Dowbrigade could find the
money but is saving it for The
One). He seems to be proposing the money
be used to fund a DFA (Dean
for America) ongoing organization to continue
doing what they’ve been doing. Sounds like a political party, to me.
Which is not a bad idea, although starting it in Dr. Dean’s name at
this point seems obtuse and counter-productive from a karmic point of
view, in addition to being an invitation to demagoguery. Of course, we
understand all of these folks cut their teeth in the Dean Campaign and
will always have a commendable loyalty to the candidate and their campaign,
but in our opinion the tent must be MUCH bigger and more inclusive if
we really hope to wrest the reins of power from the rat-bastards currently
leading us down the garden path to who knows what.
The current campaign is but a rough sketch, a freshman essay, a first
feeble step in the direction of the New Democracy. This revolution is
still in its embryonic stages. We must study and prepare, and be ready
when The
One, the first politician who really "gets it" and understands
the tools well enough to use them to lever history, shows up. And we
sincerely doubt he or she will be either a Democrat or a Republican.
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