> Guardian (London) - February 18, 2004
>
> Spirit of the Dean machine
> Though Vermont's ex-governor is almost certainly out of the presidential
> race, valuable lessons can be learned from his campaign
> Whether the energy Dean has unleashed has a lasting effect or not will
> depend on the great unknown - what the nascent movement that gathered
> around him will do without him. Those who got involved only so that they
> could elect Dean will be disillusioned, because their work stops here
> and does not resonate beyond US shores. Those who joined up so that they
> could make a difference should be delighted, because theirs has only
> just begun and holds a lesson for all of us.
Yeah right, and the 2000 Nader campaign continues to make the Green Party a player in national politics.
This essay is a melange of wishful thinking and poor political analysis. The failed Dean candidacy once again confirms that the American one party system operates by its own set of internal rules that are immune to any amount of faux Dean democracy. There is a reason why I picked the Democratic Party front runner correctly last Fall. Everybody who doesn't vote knows that the American electoral system is a sham. The choice of the Democratic Party was always pre-ordained: the eventual candidate would be a handsome guy, with money, a solid track record within the party, somebody who looked 'presidential', and somebody without boat-rocking crazy ideas. John Kerry was an easy prediction. If Edwards manages to shake things up, it won't change anything because he fits all of these basic factors for picking the Democratic candidate.
The "energy Dean has unleashed" will dissipate by the end of the month. As the election nears, those young people who supported Dean will join the ranks of the majority of disaffected Americans. And if Kerry gets elected, he will predictably go back to the same old party politics of the Democratic Party. We aren't going to be getting universal health care out of President Kerry. We didn't get it out of President Clinton and that was his big campaign issue.
The American Left hastens its own decline into irrelevance with all this talk about these stupid presidential candidates. The Left press is wasting its resources on the election instead of covering more important issues. It's almost like the Left press puts on its dunce cap every four years and bores us with all this superficial analysis about the presidential campaign. Anybody But Bush!? Isn't that what we were sold back in 1992?
Don't vote, it only encourages them!
Chuck0