For Dean's movement, an unlikely inspiration

[ProudToBeLiberal]

For Dean's movement, an unlikely inspiration
By Nina J. Easton, Globe Staff | February 11, 2005

WASHINGTON -- As Howard Dean's presidential campaign sputtered to closure one year ago, the candidate and a half dozen trusted aides began gathering in his Burlington, Vt., office, scribbling ideas on a white board about where to channel the fierce voter and donor energy that had already become his legacy to the Democratic Party.

Within weeks, the former Vermont governor concluded that he needed to reach back in history and borrow a page from a grass-roots movement that most of his supporters revile -- the Christian Coalition.

Fourteen years after the Rev. Pat Robertson's failed Republican presidential bid morphed into the Christian Coalition, Dean copied the TV evangelist by launching a political action committee to field and financially support scores of like-minded candidates across the country, for offices from town clerk to Congress. The network helped convince Democratic state-party representatives to back Dean for his party's most prominent job: chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Now, as DNC delegates gather in Washington for an election tomorrow that will almost certainly make Dean the next party chairman, the Dean team hopes the candidates he backed in 2004 can seed a movement to tug his party away from the center, as evangelicals succeeded in doing inside the GOP in the early 1990s.

more at...http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/02/11/for_deans_movement_an_unlikely_inspiration/
_________________________________________________________________
Long but a definite read. Many insights.

[dsc]

1. I can see the replys now

How dare he copy winning tactics. If we refuse to learn from our enemies success we are doomed to repeat our failures for all time.

[Larkspur]

2. Excellent and a fair piece from the Boston Globe

All the Christian Coalition did is use the resources at hand to build their movement and frankly, those resources are available to all in our democracy.

The difference between the Christian Coalition and progressives right now is dedicated leadership that is willing to pursue the goal and defend core principles. Dean is dedicated and willing to defend core Democratic principles. But the big difference between Dean's leadership style and the Reichwing is that Dean is a Servant Leader, not a dictator, and he is willing to share power with the grassroots.

The revolution officially begins the moment Dean is officially the DNC Chair.

[Zensea]

3. Sounds like he's been reading Thomas Frank

excellent

[KurtNYC]

4. Love this quote: "The entrenched interests will fight to the end and are n

"The entrenched interests will fight to the end and are not going to be nice about giving up their ability to take our money and spend it on their friends."

-H. Dean

I think it shows the pragmatism of his strategy and insight. He sets expectations and acknowledges reality in one simple sentence.

[bemildred]

5. Nice piece, but I wish they would stop calling corruption "the center". nt

[David__77]

6. There's nothing wrong in that.

But they cannot be copied mechanically, of course. And Dean knows this. The progressive movement is a movement entirely unlike the fascist movement. But the organizational methods of the pseudo-populist CC can indeed by learned from.

[Johnyawl]

7. I liked the quote the article ended with

...After the Democrats' losses in November, Dean made it clear he intended to change the party hierarchy, not be changed by it. In a December speech titled "The Future of the Democratic Party," he laid down his marker with a quote from Harry S Truman: "We're not going to get anywhere by trimming or by appeasing. And we ought not to try it."