The Revolutionary

Howard Dean is the most important politician of his time. (Picture by Alessandra Petlin for The New York Times.)

Not George W. Bush. Not Al Gore. It's Dean's importance that will resonate through the next generation, just as Barry Goldwater still resonates today.

The reason is that Dean understands how, in an Internet age, a political party must exist everywhere to be effective. As Matt Bai's New York Times feature makes clear, Dean has sacrificed his own political ambitions to a four-year stint building a new Democratic Party from the ground-up.

When Dean showed up on the national stage nearly four years ago asking to "represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" it resonated with many liberals. When he embraced the Netroots, it resonated with many bloggers. His speeches, if you read them, are revelations, great and simple writing that deserve attention regardless of your political affiliation.

But what he is doing now will mark him, because it's so absolutely vital.

Critics like to say Dean's 50-state strategy will "destroy the Democratic  party" and claim there "is no Democratic establishment." Both claims are specious. There are in fact two parties, one composed of activists who believe in what the party is all about, the other consisting of professionals who say they are trying to implement that vision.

Once people cross the line from just complaining (as bloggers often do) to getting in the line and working (which Dean wants people to do) these lines start to blur a bit. Those who were just complaining start to see the problems more clearly. They may find themselves fighting corporate interests within the party, even waging primary fights, but their involvement is what makes the party go.

Second, a campaign based on TV ads won't work anymore. Many folks are smarter than that. The Internet is pushing political knowledge, and political bullshit detectors, further-and-further down into the body politic. You can now design, and implement, a TV ad campaign for just $4,000. The depth of knowledge available to even the lowliest political Indian is incredible. In this kind of environment it's the side with the best Indians, not the best chiefs and not necessarily even the most Indians, that is going to prevail.

Dean's 50-state strategy is designed to create activists. It's designed to turn bloggers into activists, to turn people concerned with just local issues into activists, and to connect all these people to the top reaches of the party through the Internet and a self-sustaining pyramid of bloggers acting as a "jungle telegraph" between the bottom and the top.

There is an immense difference between Dean's strategy and even the Republicans' Netroots strategy, one that many in the Democratic blogosphere still don't get. Dean is trying to get all people working from the bottom-up, with the blogosphere working to transfer information between the bottom and the top. The Republican blogosphere strategy works from the top down, with politicians holding meetings and giving orders, talking points to be repeated endlessly on the Internet.

Dean is engaged in the practical politics of open source, not just the online version. He doesn't want the Internet to live just in the ether, but also in the real world. While everything about Republican strategy remains proprietary.

This is not just going to impact the 2006 election (its impact on the results this year will, in fact, be minimal) but every election for decades to come. When every citizen has access to the party apparatus, and when that apparatus is responsive to the concerns of every local group. you have a sea change in how government works. That sea change is happening. Dean is taking advantage of it.

Those who claim that Howard Dean is risking some gains for 2006 are right. But he's also making the party apparatus ready for 2016. In that year he will be "just" 66 years old, and ready to become the Ronald Reagan of our childrens' time.

Can the same man be the Barry Goldwater, the Richard Viguerie, the Pat Robertson, and the Ronald Reagan of the same political movement?

Maybe not. But that's what Howard Dean aims to do. And I wouldn't bet against his succeeding.

Comments

[Subway Serenade]

Howard Dean in Twenty Sixteen.

I like the sound of that.

Goper's Lament (Hard To Be A Republican)

[Red State Donkey]

It's always surprising when DonkeyDigest gets noticed by a blogger with the superb credentials that Dana Blankenhorn has. But like many bloggers, Mr. Blankenhorn veers off the beaten path of rational thought when it comes to Howard Dean. In his response to a couple of my posts (here and here), his bias is clear. Blankenhorn admits that Dean's 50 state strategy puts Democratic wins this year at risk. But, he contends, "he's also making the party apparatus ready for 2016. In that year he will be 'just' 66 years old, and ready to become the Ronald Reagan of our childrens' time."

I'm a firm believer in keeping party squabbles in the family, but consider what is being stated here. The Democrats have been out of power for 12 years. 2006 offers us our best opportunity in that time period to regain control over one or both houses of Congress, a majority party is in a much better position to spread their influence far and wide, but Dana Blankenhorn finds losing again to be an acceptable risk if Howard Dean can reshape the Democratic party in his image in time to run for President in 2016 and become the Ronald Reagan of Democrats.

Anyone else see a problem there? All the platitudes concerning Howard Dean, the banal hero worship, the emotionally motivated adoration, and the factually-challenged historical view of things, won't change one simple fact. Howard Dean missed his opportunity to be the George McGovern of our generation, but his 50 state strategy might very well earn him that distinction without him ever becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. Explanation forthcoming.

Like Dean, McGovern himself set out to rebuild the Democratic party when he was named chairman of a Reform Commission that significantly reduced the role of party officials in the Presidential nomination process and mandated quotas for proportional black, women, and youth delegate representation. Then, by catering to these and other groups, McGovern set himself up to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 1972 - a race he lost in an electoral landslide. But the precedent had been set and each Democratic nominee after McGovern (Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis) pandered to an ever growing list of special interests to garner enough approval to win the party's nomination. In fact, it's said that Walter Mondale couldn't tie his shoes without checking in with his interest groups.

Bill Clinton, attempting to deviate from that method, echoed Harry Truman's and JFK's sentiments and ran a campaign of the nation's interests over special interests in 1992 - and caught hell for it. Clinton, being the most gifted politician of our generation, surely had seen the polls. In 1964, when asked, “Would you say the government is run by a few big interests looking out for themselves or that it is run for the benefit of all people,” nearly 40 percent more people agreed with the latter than with the former. In 1992 that sentiment had reversed itself, with 60 percent more people believing that the government was run for the benefit of special interests than those who believed it was run for the benefit of all. (Stanley and Niemi: 169).

Now here comes Howard Dean or, rather, his supporters, who put him before the welfare of the party and the country and who see electoral losses as pefectly acceptable if that is what it takes to propel him to the highest office in the land on the backs of another artificially manufactured "people powered" movement. Or as Blankenhorn refers to them in his piece, "a jungle telegraph of activists and bloggers" who will purport to speak for the very rank and file Democrats who have continuously rejected their chosen candidates at the polls - Dean included.

Blankenhorn waves off Nicholas Confessore's piece on the myth of the Democratic establishment as "specious" because to embrace the fact of how dysfunctional and impotent the Democratic power base has become 12 years out of power would negate the motivating factor behind the latest "progressive" move to remake the party. And while the GOP's symbol is the elephant, it's old Democrats that will never forget each time the party's "liberal wing" has gotten on it's high horse and tried to change the rules to give them a better outcome.

1946 - "progressives" splintered from the party and ran Henry Wallace against moderate Harry Truman. Wallace got 2% of the popular vote.

1972 - "Progressive" McGovern lost in an electoral landslide after changing the way the Democrats selected their nominee.

1980 - "Progressive" Ted Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter, his own party's sitting President, for the Democratic nomination. Kennedy brought his fight to the convention, tried to alter the accepted method and get delegates released from their voting commitment, and did not pull out until that second night at New York. He refused to hold Carter’s hand in the air, much as Carter tried, and the result was that on all networks you saw this image of Carter almost chasing Kennedy around the podium trying to get him to hold up his arm, and Kennedy politely shaking hands and trying to leave. Carter was nominated for re-election, but the party's divisions brought on by Kennedy contributed to the victory won by Reagan.

2000 - "Progressive" Ralph Nader gets 2.7% of the popular vote, tips Florida to Bush.

Finally, Howard Dean did not "sacrifice his own political ambitions to a four-year stint building a new Democratic Party from the ground-up." Dean's political ambition was shattered on a cold night in Iowa when he was the voter's third choice behind John Edwards and John Kerry. Second and third place finishes in New Hampshire and Wisconsin sealed the deal.

Would I bet against Dean having any political resurgence? Yes I would, especially if his apathy concerning the upcoming midterm elections, and his obsession (or perhaps only the obsession of his followers) with rebuilding the party in his image dooms the Democrats to another electoral failure in November.

[Terri]

Well, I'd say it's a darn good thing for me that I'm one of Howard Dean's special interests: AfricanAmerican, middle-aged female, who never bothered to vote at all (mainly because of listening to the extended bloviations of both parties over the years).

Howard Dean motivating me (and many, many others who've never even been on a blog) to participate in politics for the first time in my life might be called artificial by pundits, but I never paid any attention to those people anyway, and I think most Americans don't. Out here in the real world, where every day is a struggle and getting worse by the moment, the Gov. tells the truth and makes good common sense: even if some people want to say that Iowa in 2003 is the same as America in 2006.

Like the kids say: "Whatever." Gotta go spread that civic motivation, like good Dean Democrats do.

[Marcia Moody]

Howard Dean is absolutely right. I am proof of his efforts. I was never involved in politics in my life before he ran his presidential campaign and gave us all hoep. Because of him, I ran for office as a write-in candidate for State Representative and won. I am completing my first term and am now running for re-election. You bet he gets us involved.

[Marcia Moody]

I should have used the "preview" I meant to say "before he ran his presidential campaign and gave us all hope (not hoep)" He was and is the most forward thinking man of our time. Your opening sentence in the above article is absolutely correct Howard Dean IS the most important politician of his time, of our time and is also a very compasionate caring human being. He is a very analytical thinker. How much better off we would all be today had he won the Democratic nomination in 2004. He is the ONLY candidate that the Re;ublican Party spent millions of dollars to defeat. They knew he could beat George W. Bush.