Wednesday, August 06, 2003

The whirlwind about to hit the Democratic Party Remember this mathematical problem?  If the lilies in a 100 acre pond double in area every day, and it takes 30 days for them to cover the entire pond, how much is covered on the 29th day.  If you answered 29 / 30ths you're wrong.  Actually the pond will be only half covered on the 29th day.    Here is another way to think about this.  With a 100 acre pond, it would take eight days before lily pads covered even 1 square foot.  It would take 24 days before the lilies covered more than 1 acre.  But 5 days later, on the 29th day, the lilies would cover 50 acres, or half the pond.   This is an approximation of what is currently happening in the Dean campaign.  The meetup tonight in Waltham felt like we were in the fourth or fifth day of the cycle.   Here are some of my observations.  First, most of the people there had been to other meetups or Dean events—maybe the ratio of first time participants to people who had come before was 1 to 3.  Growing 25% in a month may not sound like much—but what has happened in Boston is that in the past several months, the meetups have spread from a single venue with 8 people (our original lily pad) to 8 locations in Eastern Mass, with 25 to 100 or more people at each one.  In Waltham, over 50 people turned up.   Secondly, the meeting felt good- and more organized than past meetups.  The format was first, to show a couple of clips of Howard Dean, including his closing remarks to the AFL-CIO last night, and some of the ads currently running.  Then we discussed learning more about Dean, how to gain the attention of the more establishment democratic politicians ( who mostly support Kerry in this state), and finally how to expand local organizing.   By a show of hands, we identified about ten different towns people came from, and in some cases, the towns grouped up to work together.   We discussed how to bring more of the anti-war activists into the Dean camp.  Some support Kucinich, some are disgusted with electoral politics, some can’t abide working hard for someone whom they don’t agree with 100%.  But the power of the movement will draw them in.   I am part of the Dean campaign because that is where the democratic energy is flowing in this country.  Without exception, everyone in that room felt something of value had been taken away from them—their trust in the political process, their belief in the honesty and integrity of politicians, lack of resources for schools, health care, jobs, not too mention the disaster of the U.S. pinned down policing the world in Iraq and elsewhere.    For myself, not a day goes by that I am not angry at George Bush for what he and his party have done to our country.   One member of a local town democratic committee stood up and said he had not seen any campaign so energized since Gene McCarthy in 1968—and he had been active in the democratic party since Roosevelt’s last election in 1944.   All Gene McCarthy did, by the way, was force a sitting President to not run.   Another person talked about heavier duty fund raising—the kind that Dean will need in addition to his small grassroots donations.  This person worked with Steve Grossman, the chair of Dean’s fundraising in Massachusetts, and a stalwart democratic fundraiser.   The combination of the activism with some of the experienced democratic heavy weights is very significant.  Another high powered fund raising party was likely to come out of this meeting—simply through the networking and contacts.   Finally, everyone there wrote letters to democratic and independent voters in New Hampshire.  The letters are a start of a long conversation about Howard Dean—and they are something no other candidate can pull off.   So, those of us who are supporters came away with more commitment, with more organizing to do, with more contacts, with more opportunities to involve friends and neighbors—this is what exponential growth is all about.   All this is under the radar of the DLC and many of the traditional campaigns.  There is a movement building here that is strong enough to sweep Bush out of office.   Many of the latest crop of pundits writing about Dean’s being too left wing, about his being unacceptable to the mainstream voters, about the “McGovern” tag, have completely missed what is happening on the ground.  Where we are, the lily pads are growing, even though the people paid to survey the pond cannot see them yet.    This movement is what Dean means when he says we can take America back.  The Republican leadership has moved far to the right of the country as a whole, and in the pond, a new centrist alignment is taking place.  Dean’s real surprise is that he represents the center in this election.  And when the mainstream press finds that out, he will be very electable.   10:34:09 PM   comment []

© Copyright 2003 Toby Sackton. Last update: 9/27/2003; 4:51:43 PM.