Almost anyway. Or as Rachel says....maybe not.
The Vindication of Howard DeanMarkos Moulitsas has
a post today about the vindication of Howard Dean's 50-state strategy. He's right. When Dean launched the project, many thought it was foolhardy. As late as October 2006, top Dem strategists and elected officials were bemoaning the way Dean had spread the party's money around instead of concentrating it on targets of immediate opportunity. The Obama campaign adopted the idea and hitched it to a candidate with the message and the appeal to capitalize on it in a national race. It helped that the Republican brand was in the process of imploding. But Dean and Obama put themselves and the Democratic Party in position to exploit their opponents' failures and maximize their own returns. That took both vision and political guts. And it took the netroots activism of people like Markos, who takes a bow for the collective. We'll know in a week just how well it worked.
From the post by Markos:
I keep saying it since I doubt people believe me -- when we were agitating for the 50-state strategy in 2003, 2004, and 2005, it was hugely controversial. Crashing the Gate may seem like a fairly conventional book today, but when Jerome and I wrote it in 2006, it was mocked as crazy talk. Funny how two years and a little success completely changed everything.
..."Ah yes, us loony bloggers, fighting for universal health care, to protect social security, to keep our government from unconstitutionally spying on us, and to promote a sane foreign policy that doesn't unnecessarily cost us blood and treasure. You know, loony things supported by a majority of the (apparently also loony) American people.
Here's what too many people still don't understand -- there's nothing loony about the netroots. This isn't fertile territory for the McKinneys and Kuciniches of our party. This is fertile territory for the Howard Deans of our party -- sensible, pragmatic progressives who aren't afraid to be Democrats. Why? Because we're the nation. We're not clustered in DC and NYC, we're spread out over all 50 states, and we know better than anyone what it takes to win in our own backyards.
We didn't rally around Webb, Tester, Schweitzer, Trauner, Brown, Massa, Burner and so many other moderate Democrats because they were little Kucinich clones, but because they were perfectly suited for the states and districts they seek to represent. It's that simple. Howard Dean wasn't an anomaly. He was our ideal.
My only concern about picking who can win in each backyard.....is a real one. We are sacrificing the rights of the gay community and the rights of women in order to win.
I can not get over that...these are the sacrificial lambs of the new Democratic party.
So if we win, though Rachel doesn't think so....maybe we can do something about it then. If it's not too late.