Nation-Building >> Phase II: Students for Dean | return to front page

Dean National, super-blogger, and all around good guy Ezra Klein may not be a genius, but he sure is making a difference.

I just finished up an amazing phone call with a guy who is almost certainly the most interesting Dean activist I've spoken with to date -- and with Dean fans, that is really saying something. Jeff Travis is a senior at Bakersfield's Centennial High, and just happens to be the first future voter in California to register a highschool group at Ezra's brain-baby, Students for Dean. He's planning on attending our Dean Meetup Wednesday, and he's full of great ideas and pure enthusiasm. Though Travis will not be able to vote in the primary, he has plans that simply floor me. Now mind you, I've been in the political world for longer than I care to say, and though I started young, I've never personally come across an individual quite this inspiring. Travis is the co-founder of the political society at his local highschool. He's the editor of his school newspaper. He's the President of our fast-growing Students for Dean group in Bakersfield. And, he's hoping to attend Annapolis Naval Academy. (Who says military-minded Americans don't support Dean?) Hrumph -- I'm jealous. I was never this keck-ash at seventeen. Please note, all this, in a very conservative town –-- it's Bush country.

Further, Jeff is just one leader among hundreds in Student for Dean groups all over the nation. If they are all planning campus flyers, student voter registration drives, and inter-campus bi-partisan activism, well, how can we lose? Bakersfield is lucky to have him -- and so is Dean. Dean, more than any Democrat in my lifetime (and yes, I include Bill Clinton) is firing-up an entire generation of Democratic leaders. These folks are the future of our party. The future of the United States. And, quite literally, the future of the free peoples of the world.

So get out of your seat. Stand up. Clap. We are gonna win this election, one Ezra Klein and one Jeff Travis at a time. Hey, we can all say that we knew them when...and their stories are the stories of the New American Revolution.

Note: Cross-posted at Points West.