Good commentary on Dean by Vermonter Holhut

[Casablanca]

"The press still hasn't gotten a handle on what Dean's campaign did with the Internet. Dean's ability to quickly raise massive sums of money from average individuals proved that a candidate didn't have to rely on special interest money and corporate fat cats to fund a campaign.

That proved to be a threat to the Democratic Party apparatchiks, who decided the key to electoral success was to not be too liberal so that the big donors wouldn't get rattled. The party's accomplices in the media also saw Dean as a threat. Years from now, folks will study the news coverage of the Dean campaign as a perfect example of how to take down a candidate with relentlessly negative reporting and imagery. ..."

"There was a reason why so many young people flocked to Dean. He offered an alternative to the tepid, clapped-out, Republican-lite offerings of Democratic Leadership Council-approved candidates like John Kerry and Joe Lieberman. And Dean's campaign organization wasn't afraid to be a bottom-up movement that gave his supporters more of a role in running things than any previous campaign.

At first, this was done because Dean had little money. But the people who donated their time and talent helped kick-start a new approach to politics - what some have called an "open source" campaign; a two-way collaboration between the candidate's organization and its supporters where ideas and creativity flow both ways.

The twenty-somethings that came of age in a world of file-sharing, chat rooms, instant messaging, blogs and e-mail have begun to shape the political process to the communication processes they were comfortable with. It's not going to supplant the old ways just yet, but what we saw with Dean was a start.

But none of that would have happened without Dean's message of hope. His campaign wasn't about "rage," as the press kept saying. It was about empowerment. Unfortunately, the Democratic establishment is not interested in empowering voters and did everything it could to make sure Dean failed."

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=15036

[Auntie Bush]

1. The damn media helped build Dean up and they took him

down when they saw fit. They did the same thing too Gore in 2000 and they prevented Clark from advancing... Lets face it folks... the media control our elections. They build up or take down anyone they want when they want. It's really, really scary!

[NewYorkerfromMass]

2. This Vermonter had another opinion

Ruth Dwyer really ran in 1998. An energetic state legislator, Ms. Dwyer appealed to rural Vermonters angry over many of the education and environmental laws those liberals down in Montpeculiar had been passing. But she was also a deeply flawed candidate prone to outrageous statements, such as likening a state logging regulation to the Holocaust. She won 41 percent of the vote in 1998.

So she tried again in 2000, but despite anger over the civil unions law, she did worse. Dr. Dean actually had to campaign against Ms. Dwyer, and met her and the Progressive Party candidate, Anthony Pollina, in debates. Mr. Pollina won them all. Dr. Dean was almost always stiff.

So what made him so much better as a candidate for president? Well, practice makes better, if not perfect, and Dr. Dean improved. Besides, after his February 2003 speech to the Democratic National Committee, when he asked why so many Democrats in Washington weren't standing up against the war in Iraq, he had a following.

Millions of rank-and-file Democrats had been wondering the same thing, and they flocked to the Dean cause. For months, he drew adoring crowds. He was on a roll, and as long as it lasted, he was a good campaigner.

But he did not react well to adversity, perhaps because he had known so little of it..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/19/opinion/19MARG.html?pagewanted=print&position=