Howard Dean's the Real Deal 2004

Comments from Lisa Pease on the Dean for America Campaign.

This blogger logs my interest in and support for Dr. Howard Dean's run for the Presidency in 2004.

Links

Dean For America (Official Campaign Site)
My picture at a recent Meetup (see http://dean2004.meetup.com). I'm on the left.
Howard Dean 2004 Portal

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Saturday, July 05, 2003
 
This Guardian piece, from that wonderful British paper, has an excellent article explaining the deep differences between the Democrats and the Republicans. Yes, the two parties share certain concerns. Yes, the top people in both parties are to varying degrees beholden to the same elite. But there is a profound and important difference in how the Democrats and Republicans view the role of government. I once worked with a Republican who asked me, in all earnestness, "Why do we really need a government anyway?" I'm sure I formed some blundering answer when I recovered from the shock of the question. The Guardian piece states:

...America is poorly understood in Britain. Above all, we don't understand the American Right - its roots, reflex reactions, ambitions and the profundity of its ideology. It's been a commonplace for too long that Republicans and Democrats are essentially the same and that their differences are minuscule. It is a view that has even been held in parts of the US, though with ever decreasing conviction as events unfold.

The truth is that there is a fundamental fissure. There is the pro-federal tradition - a golden thread that runs from the founding fathers, through Lincoln, the Roosevelts, Kennedy and Johnson to Bill Clinton. And there is the anti-federal tradition that crystallised in the south during the American Civil War and which runs as an equally golden thread through the key twentieth-century figures of the American Right - William Taft, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and now George Bush.

It is the quintessential American conflict, fuelled by visceral emotions over race, sexuality and gender. On the one hand, there is a belief in the power of government and rationality to improve the lot of all Americans. On the other, there is a belief in the rawest system of individual penalties and rewards to create a conservative concept of good Christian character - vast incomes for the entrepreneurial, vicious punishment for the antisocial. Nothing should be allowed to inhibit the prosecution of these allegedly natural instincts. ....


Howard Dean is reminding us once again that government can be used to bring us closer together by giving us shared healthcare, a place in the world where we are not viewed with abhorrence. A place where the world is mostly gray, and not black and white as Bush would have us believe. (Note: I cannot call him by his presumed title since Bush was never elected. He's lucky I use his name instead of some other epithet.)


 
Okay - are the rest of you completely addicted now to the Campaign Blog? I easily spend a couple of hours a day reading the posts and comments there. And even so, I'm sure I haven't read it all. But it's endlessly fascinating.

For the fifth day in a row, I've been out in public with a Dean message on, one way or another, and continue to be impressed with the visibility Dean has, although let's face it, this IS Seattle, after all!

The Washington Post has been doing a series on each of the candidates running for the Democratic nomination. The one on Dean came out today and is titled Short-fused Populist, Breathing Fire at Bush.

Today I had the great pleasure of hooking up with a Dean supporter I might never otherwise have met, from Port Angeles. She and her Dean-supporting daughter came to visit in Seattle and we met for lunch and the wondrous, beautiful movie Whale Rider, which I'd highly recommend for those who need a little break from campaigning! ;-)


Friday, July 04, 2003
 
I found this most appropos column for today, the 4th of July, to share.

From http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/07/04/MN269241.DTL


The other day I met Chris Zychowski, a young San Franciscan who is working locally to elect Howard Dean president. Zychowski was passing out leaflets headlined "Take Our Country Back."

"The average donation to Dean is $66," said Zychowski. "This is nothing like those $2,000 hot dogs Bush is selling."
Those little donations add up. A lot of folks are angry about the corporate takeover of America -- as well as the failing takeover of Iraq. Dean, who just months ago was the unknown governor of Vermont, raised more money in the last quarter than any other Democratic presidential hopeful.

Zychowski, who reminded me of the kids who campaigned for Eugene McCarthy in 1968, talked about a couple of tools that Dean has that McCarthy didn't. One is the Internet and the other goes by the homey name of "Dean Meetup Days."
On Wednesday, Dean supporters in the Bay Area got together to write personal e-mails to people who would be voting in the Iowa caucuses. They even included digital photographs of themselves. Bay Area locals connected with Iowa locals to possibly affect global events.

This is not an endorsement of Dean, although it might be nice to have a chief executive who balances budgets, provides health care and doesn't play John Wayne with other people's lives.

No, this is an endorsement of people like Chris Zychowski, who hasn't succumbed to the cynicism and passivity politicians are buying with their money. This is an endorsement of the people of the Bay Area, who are sick of unthinking labels like liberal and conservative.

Americans are more alike than they are different. Take a look at them tonight, by the rockets' red glare.

... Rob Morse at rmorse@sfchronicle.com.




Thursday, July 03, 2003
 
I returned nearly five hours after I left to help setup for the Dean Meetup at Piecora's Pizza in Seattle. People started arriving nearly an hour before, as the place is ALWAYS crowded, and the last letter writers were still at work when I finally left at about 9:45 pm. WOW. John Taylor was leading the group and asked at the start, how many had heard that we would be writing Iowans. Nearly everyone raised their hands. I had fully expected maybe half would not feel comfortable writing letters to people they didn't know, but was genuinely surprised, thrilled, and encouraged by the absolute commitment shown by the 80 or so people who showed up. We did split off a group of people who had come looking for information and who weren't necessarily ready to write a letter, but after they had been talked to (at a little park just a half a block away) many of them dove in as well. It was awe-inspiring. And we had a reporter there from a local weekly. I can't wait to see what he writes about this!




Monday, June 30, 2003
 
Gawd I love the Internet. I've been watching Dean raise money all day. What a thrill it's been to watch the numbers on the bat rise, rise, rise. They're over 7.1 million and it's not yet midnight on the West Coast. I also don't believe that includes the funds Dean raised in person at a couple of events, so there's more counting going on still, in Vermont, past midnight their time. So while I've been watching and refreshing the www.blogforamerica.com page, I've also been looking for jobs, submitting resumes, and scheduling interviews by e-mail for the book I recently co-authored and co-edited. The book is The Assassinations and is about the killing off of the left in this country in the sixties through the assassinations of President John Kennedy, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King and Senator Robert Kennedy. Very interesting. Check it out for some really eye-opening (if hair-raising) offline reading. In addition, I'm helping a small team of great volunteers set up the 'official' Washington for Dean site (soon to be seen at www.wa4dean.com), which has, to date, been manned by a single, wonderful volunteer, Ray Minchew. But we needed something that could grow as the campaign grows, so we're starting over with a new site based on Moveable Type technology. Very cool. Or so we hope!

Tomorrow, I have to put my car in the shop for some $1000 of brake work! (I'd rather be giving it to HD, but what's a girl to do without a car??) Fortunately, there's a Starbucks nearby, and in the Starbucks, there's a T-Mobile wireless network that I have access to. So I will continue to be plugged in all day while I wait for my car. I'll also have my cell phone, which is good because I'm in the process of selling my condo, and agents are calling constantly to ask if they can show the place. What a wild, connected world. And how sad that we're one of the few countries really getting the benefits of this. In Africa, many places don't have much electricity, let alone computers and wireless Internet access. So as much as I enjoy wallowing in this, I can never forget those for whom making a living wage and finding food for the family is a constant struggle. That's why I'm a Democrat. This is still, last I checked, the party that thinks beyond the confines of self and family to the greater community of humanity.


 
Doo do-do-do do dooo...When you're hot your hot! A record-breaking day for Team Dean! This is amazing and unprecendented. How cool it is to be part of the online revolution! May politics never be the same again. And may the power of netroots sweep Bush out of office in 2004!! By 10:00pm Eastern Time, the Dean for America campaign has raised over $7 mil for the campaign. AMAZING and WONDROUS. Way to go, fellow Americans!!


 
Here's the little logo I made for "Team Dean" in Seattle. If you know of other "Team Dean" logos from other areas, send me a link! Thanks.



 
WOW. Things are happening so fast I barely have time to keep up. Dean has raised nearly 6.5 million as of this morning in this quarter alone. The amazing thing is how much of it came in over just the last few days. Dean gave his announcement speech and got a lot of press, not just from his appearance on Meet the Press but also about his appearance on Meet the Press.

The Washington Press is so insulated they think they speak for the country when they say Dean's performance was a flop or a disaster. Remember, the Washington Press is a propaganda arm of the establishment, and they're reporting with a heavy dose of wishful thinking. In reality, all those I talked to who actually saw the broadcast, rather than read about the reporting of it, were very impressed with Dean's thoughtful answers.

A friend of mine wrote this GREAT letter to Russert, which I'll share for you now. Remember when Dean questioned the accuracy of Russert's numbers on needed tax increases? Looks like Russert may have been the beneficiary of books cooked by the Bush administration expressly for political purposes! Check this out:

Dear Mr. Russert,

I was rather surprised to see you grill and cross-examine Governor Howard Dean with such tenacity last Sunday on Meet the Press. You seemed intent upon challenging Dean on virtually every position he has ever taken and trapping him into seeming contradictions. It was thus with some distress that I later read in the Washington Post that at least one of your questions, dealing with the Bush tax cut, was the product of “a highly selective analysis” that was prepared by the White House “at the request of Meet the Press.” (Washington Post June 23, 2003)

In looking back at some of your earlier interviews I noticed that members of the Bush administration have received far gentler treatment at your hands than was afforded Governor Dean.

On March 9, 2003 you asked Secretary of State Colin Powell about revelations that documents linking Saddam Hussein to attempted purchases of Uranium from Niger cited by the President in his State of the Union speech, were forgeries. His astonishing response: “It was information that we had. We provided it. If that information was inaccurate, fine.” Most impartial observers would contend that such a glib response to such a serious issue required follow-up, but you apparently felt otherwise.

On March 16, 2003 Vice President Dick Cheney, on the eve of war, said on Meet the Press: “We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.” This statement was in conflict with the opinion of the United Nations IAEC, and no one else in the administration had previously made such a claim, yet you made no attempt to inquire of the Vice President as to the basis for his very serious charge.

On April 13, 2003, despite published accounts that the Defense Department had been warned well in advance of the danger of looting at the Baghdad Museum and still failed to protect it you allowed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to say, unchallenged: “We didn’t allow it. It happened… We don’t allow bad things to happen. Bad things happen in life, and people do loot.”

On June 8th National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice was given a virtual unfettered platform on your program to make a number of questionable remarks. You did not challenge or question her when she made the dubious claim that “maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the [CIA]” that the Niger documents were forgeries when the President cited them in his State of the Union message, “but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions.” You did not challenge her contention, re: the failure to discover WMD in Iraq, that “no one ever said we knew precisely where all of these were, where they were stored,” despite the fact that Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld had both alleged that the administration knew where WMD were. You also did not press her when, in response to charges that Vice President Cheney had pressured the CIA to cook intelligence re: WMD, she said, with no supporting evidence: “Simply not true, ” nor when she dismissed criticism of senior administration officials as “revisionist history.”

On June 15th 2003 you had an opportunity to probe further into a potential major news story when former General Wesley Clark said on your program that “there was a concerted effort during the Fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11 to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein… It came from the White House. It came from the people around the White House. It came from all over.” General Clark said that on September 11th he was urged to go on CNN and “say this is connected… this has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.” Clark said he asked for evidence but received none. One would have thought that an enterprising journalist would have probed General Clark as to just who in and around the White House had engaged in this provocative activity, but instead you quoted Tom Delay as saying people like Clark oughtn’t to be trusted because they are Presidential candidates and have agendas. You then cross-examined Clark at length as to whether he was a Democrat and as to whether he did indeed plan to run for President. That type of tough questioning might have been appropriate if you had also engaged in it when you interviewed Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld or Condoleeza Rice. Curiously, when one visits the Meet the Press web site there is a window specifically referencing the Clark interview, but it does not mention his 9/11 revelations. Rather it mentions his belief that Saddam Hussein is still alive. I doubt that many people who viewed that program would have chosen to highlight that particular portion of the interview.

As I said at the beginning of this letter, it is troubling that you would seek help from the White House in preparing your questioning of Howard Dean, one of the administration’s harshest critics. It is even more troubling when seen in the light of your consistent gentle handling of members of the Bush administration. I think your viewers have a right to a little more evenhandedness from Tim Russert, NBC News, and Meet the Press.

Sincerely,

Jerry Policoff

---
Great letter! Thanks, Jerry.

Re my own activism, after thinking long and hard about my future, I've decided to sell my condo, leave Seattle, and head for Vermont to see if I can get a job with the campaign. I did work on a presidential campaign once before, in 1992, and it was the time of my life. I'm looking forward to diving into the thick of things again. And I've never spent more than a summer, long ago, in that part of the country. (I went to Tanglewood, a summer music camp, for one summer. But without a car, I didn't get far beyond the camp and the lovely town of Stockbridge.) I am especially looking forward to seeing hte famous fall foliage there!

This weekend, I yelled myself hoarse participating in the Pride parade in Seattle. I'm not gay, but I have lots of friends who are so it felt good to share my support. But of course, I was there primarily for Dean. I had a homemade sign and walked the edges of the parade telling people, "THIS is the guy who's going to beat Bush. You can join us now, or join us later, but you must join us." And when people whistled, hooted or clapped for Dean, I'd point to them and in my best Howardian style, yell "YOU have the power!" It was great fun.

I've also been helping get the new Washington for Dean site ready. It should go live in time for Meetup. This next meetup we'll be asked to write to people in Iowa to tell them about Dean. This is an interesting experiment in people-to-people campaigning. I'll be very interested to see how this turns out!

Okay - have to run. Lots to do today. More later!






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