A Dean supporter responds to Josh Marshall

unfrigginreal

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Mon Dec-29-03 08:58 PM
Original message

A Dean supporter responds to Josh Marshall

Edited on Mon Dec-29-03 09:00 PM by unfrigginreal

I thought that I'd share what a friend of mine wrote in a response to Marshall.
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I've been observing -- and supporting -- Howard Dean for nearly a year now, well before the famous CA speech (tho that would've gotten me were I not already a supporter). He has pledged repeatedly that he will not only endorse whoever is the nominee but also urge his supporters to do so.

But that's really not the issue. To understand what he means, you have to actually understand his campaign, by which I mean the WHOLE campaign including just who his supporters are. Legions of them are formerly apathetic, formerly (self-) disenfranchised non-voters. They see in Howard Dean, as I do, someone who is worthy of their support for the first time in their lives.

"These kids" (as he put it) -- not all of them are kids, by any means -- are NOT necessarily transferrable. I'm not exactly one of them. At age 55 I've been voting for a lot of years, and Dem each and every time without fail. BUT if Howard Dean doesn't get the nomination, it will be very hard for me to vote for someone else. I will -- unless my state isn't in play, in which case I won't.

We are soooo sick of politics as usual, the pandering, the venality, the greed, the kinds of political calculus that goes into voting, for example, for an unjust, unjustifiable, immoral, illegal war on a country was was no threat to us at all.

We want the TRUTH, and we want real representation for a change. Howard Dean and Joe Trippi have not only been listening to us, they've been empowering us. I'll never go back to the way it was before. Never. Vote for someone else? Only if I absolutely must, but it'll take a force of willpower stronger than just about any I've ever conjured up prior to this.

And just where do these Democratic candidates get off thinking that they are somehow entitled our votes? Seems to me this one thing is a good bit of what has been wrong with some of their campaigns: a sense of entitlement. Newsflash: If a candidate wants my vote, then he goldarned better do something -- or better yet BE something -- worth voting for.

Are we transferrable? Not really. We all want Bush out -- desperately, but it's possible that more than that we want a revolution in what it means to be a Democrat, what it means to have a real political process, what it means to be an American.

Yeah, I'll vote for "whomever," if I must -- but there'll be no money from me, no volunteerism from me, no email address of mine in any DLC database. Howard Dean speaks for me 99.9% of the time, but he doesn't own my vote. Anyone who wants that vote, let alone any greater form of commitment, better pay close attention.

Unfortunately, you're not helping these guys get it. Perhaps that's because you don't get it either. Pity.