Greider Weighs In

Dean's Rough Ride at the Nation's website, is a good summary of Howard Dean's flame-out. I find the last three paragraphs pretty compelling:

Despite the spectacle of his cratered campaign, Howard Dean did accomplish something real for democracy. First, he confirmed the existence of an energetic, informed dissent within the husk of the Democratic Party. An amorphous force, to be sure, but I do not think it will go away. Don't hold me to the numbers, but one campaign veteran told me 70 percent of the citizens on Dean's much-admired computer list are over 30--a broader base than the stereotype. On the other hand, 25 percent of the money contributed came from people under 30--impressive too. The Dean campaign demonstrated, most dramatically, that people can make their own politics via the Internet and elsewhere by raising lots of money from outsiders, i.e., mere citizens.

This momentous knowledge is liberating--if people figure out how to use it in other places. I can imagine, for instance, insurgent challenges launched by young unknowns against Congressional incumbents, especially in Democratic primaries. Most of these incumbents haven't faced serious opposition in years. At a minimum, it would scare the crap out of them--always healthy for politicians. In my Washington experience, nothing alters voting behavior in Congress like seeing a few of their colleagues taken down by surprise--defeated by an outsider whose ideas they did not take seriously.

What the Dean campaign clearly did not accomplish (in addition to formulating a smart countermedia strategy) was to find ways to develop the flesh-and-blood relationships that can become enduring building blocks in politics--de Tocqueville's "associations" or labor's "collective action." The Meet-Ups are a rough start. MoveOn.org is an impressive organizing engine. We may be witnessing the early stages of small-d democratic renewal, in which people impose new technologies and new social realities on tired old institutions. As Howard Dean's rough ride reminds, established power, including the media, will resist change tenaciously. But the doctor may yet be remembered as the herald of something new.

The entire essay is worth reading--I'm not the biggest fan of William Greider, but this article makes a number of good points.