Chip Off The Old Block

In all the hoop-de-doo over the Gore endorsement few people realized Carter has been working for Dean for months.

Chip Carter, that is.

Chip, the eldest son of Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter of Plains, Georgia, is now a neighbor of mine in Decatur, Georgia. But he hasn't been around town much. Mostly he's been in Iowa, working hard for Howard Dean. And when the technology failed at the Atlanta Holiday Party, he was brought up to explain why.

He starts off slowly, with a 60s-inflected vocabulary, but then he gets into it and you suddenly hear a very familiar voice, a man who loves his father's work, and who has devoted his life to the heart of it:

“It reminds me of a long time ago. It feels really good.

“My father won the Nobel Peace Prize. I’m a little different than most people. I’m for Dean for the peace.

I’ve been to 81 countries, 82 soon. And as I traveled there was no question that America was the moral leader of the world, that we stood for human rights both at home and abroad. Now I travel and people are looking for a new leader in the world, and not to America. I’ve studied all the candidates, and I think the new world leader should be Howard Dean.

“He has the capacity, the commitment, the courage. People say he’s angry. I remember reading in books that Harry Truman was feisty. Dean anger is like Truman feisty.

“It means more now than at any other time.

“One fourth the people on Earth live on less than $1 per day. More than half live on less than $2 per day. Those are the people America ought to be trying to help. No other President has ever done this preemption stuff man.

“The people can change the world. We can take it over. What people say in Washington, that’s Washington-speak. Let’s get a real person, a person from Vermont who’s balanced a budget, who’s done health care. Let’s get a doctor who cares about all the people on Earth, not just those rich white folks that cash their dividend checks.”

As the direction of the campaign changes, toward proving our dominance, toward uniting the party, and toward destroying the Bush Neocon Machine, let's also give thanks for what we're for, and who is with us.