Ideas vs Logistics
I have been reflecting more on why I think Dean is a better choice for DNC Chair than Smon Rosenberg - and why I fully understand why Trippi could not endorse Dean. It boils down to ideas vs logistics.
During the campaign, Dean was in many ways the ideas visionary, and Trippi the logistics visionary. The reason there is a cult of personality around Dean is because he spoke plainly about what he believed and those beliefs were grounded in common sense, and a real belief in the power of the ordinary citizen to effect change. Given that he was governor of the state where Ethan Allen once marshaled his boys, I think that Dean represented a raw form of the American political tradition, one that we haven't seen in a century or two and thus was all the more powerful in its impact.
What I am getting at is that Dean attracted me long before I'd heard of Trippi (as the first post at Dean Nation plainly shows). Was he ever really Presidential material? I think that the definition of Presidential material has decayed - and to make attaining the Presidency possible for men like Dean again, we need to rectify that. Read on...
So, I am for Dean for DNC Chair because I think he can effect the kind of change upon the political system that will bring that raw, citizen-first political tradition back to the fore. The DNC, remade as Dean has proposed into greater emphasis at the local and state level, is more uniquely suited to this task than the GOP, which is a strictly top-down monoparty structure. While Simon Rosenberg has great ideas, I don't see in him the same revolutionary spirit. I see Simon Rosenberg as a Trippi kind of guy, not a Dean kind of guy- and so I think that with Dean as DNC Chair, and Simon in a supporting role, we can get teh best of both worlds and transform state politics the way that Dean and Tripp transformed presidential politics.
If Simon gets the nod, then there will be reform, but not transformation. The Trippi guys can't achieve that on their own - they don't inspire the cult of personality which motivates the common man to think, "hey, it really is about ME.". It's not surprising at all that Trippi endorses Simon because he never really grokked that Dean himself was the inspiration; to Trippi, it was all about the netroots and the mechanics. Trippi dismisses Dean in the first chapter of his book with his Iowa anecdote; he never really saw how central Dean was to the revolution.
So, it's the transformation towards citizen politics (as opposed to politician politics) that I want to see. Dean would have been a fine President, but he can't get there until *after* that transformation is complete. He may never be President (and I'm already leaning Hillary for 2008, so Dean as DNC Chair also makes any divisive competition between them largely a moot issue) but as DNC Chair he will make it possible for men (or women) like him to someday again be President.
During the campaign, Dean was in many ways the ideas visionary, and Trippi the logistics visionary. The reason there is a cult of personality around Dean is because he spoke plainly about what he believed and those beliefs were grounded in common sense, and a real belief in the power of the ordinary citizen to effect change. Given that he was governor of the state where Ethan Allen once marshaled his boys, I think that Dean represented a raw form of the American political tradition, one that we haven't seen in a century or two and thus was all the more powerful in its impact.
What I am getting at is that Dean attracted me long before I'd heard of Trippi (as the first post at Dean Nation plainly shows). Was he ever really Presidential material? I think that the definition of Presidential material has decayed - and to make attaining the Presidency possible for men like Dean again, we need to rectify that. Read on...
So, I am for Dean for DNC Chair because I think he can effect the kind of change upon the political system that will bring that raw, citizen-first political tradition back to the fore. The DNC, remade as Dean has proposed into greater emphasis at the local and state level, is more uniquely suited to this task than the GOP, which is a strictly top-down monoparty structure. While Simon Rosenberg has great ideas, I don't see in him the same revolutionary spirit. I see Simon Rosenberg as a Trippi kind of guy, not a Dean kind of guy- and so I think that with Dean as DNC Chair, and Simon in a supporting role, we can get teh best of both worlds and transform state politics the way that Dean and Tripp transformed presidential politics.
If Simon gets the nod, then there will be reform, but not transformation. The Trippi guys can't achieve that on their own - they don't inspire the cult of personality which motivates the common man to think, "hey, it really is about ME.". It's not surprising at all that Trippi endorses Simon because he never really grokked that Dean himself was the inspiration; to Trippi, it was all about the netroots and the mechanics. Trippi dismisses Dean in the first chapter of his book with his Iowa anecdote; he never really saw how central Dean was to the revolution.
So, it's the transformation towards citizen politics (as opposed to politician politics) that I want to see. Dean would have been a fine President, but he can't get there until *after* that transformation is complete. He may never be President (and I'm already leaning Hillary for 2008, so Dean as DNC Chair also makes any divisive competition between them largely a moot issue) but as DNC Chair he will make it possible for men (or women) like him to someday again be President.
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