What is it that Dean achieved?
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What is it that Dean achieved?
Just the exposure he acheived really. He went about it in a really unique way, especially involving the internet.
As far as what he accomplished, I think he really brought out some issues that the other candidates might not have done on their own. Plus he got lots of younger people involved too.
But how did he get those younger people involved? By whipping them into a frenzy and becoming the darling of the worst parts of the Democratic Party. He was riding high in the beginning because the vocal minority (made up of shit like MoveOn.org and its ilk) loved him. But, and thank the Lord for this, those sorts of fools do not make up the majority of the Democrats in the US.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mman
I mean, in all seriousness, the guy was a failure, a total bust. I dont see why anyone in their right mind would want to emulate him in the future. A manager of a baseball team may have a new, daring approach to managing baseball, but if his team loses 100 games in the season, then that approach is gonna vanish.
Yeah, but for what?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mman
He proved that if you:
1.) Get loads of donations from individual donors.
2.) Excite young people and get interested in the political process.
3.) Turn the Internet into a massive political instrument.
and
4.) Energize the base.
You can...get your ass kicked by the guy with nothing more on his side other than that he looks like the mainstream choice.
Dean showed me that the internet community is currently almost wholly unreflective of the Democratic party as a whole (something I've been saying for a while), that you can't get anywhere by just playing to your base, that centrism (or triangulation) is the correct policy for modern presidents to adopt, that dumbass Berkely polisci professors don't know shit about electoral politics, etc.
The point of government is to get as close as possible to the political center without pissing too many of the fanatics on your 'side' off. This is a good thing.
If the 2004 Presidential Race was the Superbowl, then Dean was Janet Jackson.
Dean failed because of his politics and his personality.
Dean only had a chance to fail because of his campaign tactics and the way he energized a whole class of disenfranchise voters. The Democratic nominee needs those votes, and thanks to Dean, he's going to get a lot of them.
No offense, but you're 22 and poor. Where do your politics come from?Quote:
Originally Posted by diffusionx
As a Republican, I agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike
Same here, too bad he dropped out, I might've voted for him.Quote:
Originally Posted by MVS
Get him to run against Bush then. :) That'd make things very interesting.
Lieberman's anti-videogame speeches ruined his chances as a top-tier candidate because there was no way he could ever hope to win cherished support from the TNL demographic.
Well, no, thanks to Bush, he's going to get a lot of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by burgundy
The vast majority of the people who made up the Dean movement were ABB (Anyone But Bush) voters, people who have completely bought into the image of Bush as being an oil-drinking-baby-killing-damn-frat-boy-who-teased-me-in-third-grade-and-was-successful-when-I-wasn't-and-god-damn-it-it-isn't-fair-because-look-I'm-smart-and-can-speak-in-complete-sentences-unlike-Bush-so-why-isn't-my-life-better-it-must-be-because-of-the-establishment-bastards-like-Bush-son-of-a-bitch.
The "Bush Lied, People Died" troopers were going to show up at the polls whether or not Dean was there, since most of them think the country is going to spontaneously combust sometime in the next four years if Bush remains president.
Dean was useful in presenting himself as an enemy for the eventual Democratic nominee to vanquish, and in that, he did prove himself useful. If I was the head of the Democrats, each primary season, I would use the media to slowly prop up candidates (Dean is the frontrunner...Clark's in the race, now he's the frontrunner!) in order to give the real, eventual candidate grist for his mill.
The primary season is free publicity, and it will overshadow the campaigning of the sitting candidate as long as it continues - it's in the Democratic Party's interest to keep the primary season going as long as it is possible to do that without one of the candidates self-destructing on the other.
I wonder whether presidential candidates really run against each other (like a competition), or whether they run against themselves - the difference between boxing and skateboarding. Each one has to do a better job of turning themselves into a President.