whichwayup.org

02/21/04 12:42 AM: Democratic Presidential Primary

I promised it, and here it is:

At this point in the 2004 Election, there remain two major candidates in the running for the Democratic nomination. The field thinned quickly, as the Iowa caucuses were only about a month ago. As most of you know, I was/am a Howard Dean supporter. Seeing him leave the race was very upsetting.

That being said, though, I think his campaign set the tone for this election and helped the Democratic party greatly. Howard Dean’s campaign brought in thousands of new people to the political process, and gave them a reason to excited about politics. I include myself in this group, as I have never actively campaigned for a candidate before Dean. I can tell you I would not have travelled to Iowa for any of the other Democrats.

There was something about being part of the Dean movement that made you feel like you really did have the power to change things. And we did change things. The DNC and the other candidates have all adpoted Dean’s fiesty “take our country back” attitude.

But most people ask, what went wrong? I don’t know. You can point to internal miscalculations and mistakes, or you can point to a media that seemed hell-bent on discrediting Dean, or you can point to the infamous Iowa scream. Regardless, Dean captured an audience that had not been tapped by other candidates, and enjoyed several months as the Democratic front-runner because of it.

But now that Dean has taken himself out of the running, what am I to do? I cannot in good faith support John Kerry. He’s too slick and too fake. He voting record doesn’t make any sense. He helped pay for ads smearing Howard Dean with images of Osama bin Laden.

What about John Edwards? Before I learned of Dean’s campaign, I was leaning towards Edwards. I support Edwards over Kerry, but I know I won’t contribute financially to his campaign. I like Edwards because he seems optimistic and nice, but his policies aren’t that much better than Kerry. He still voted for the war, and for the Patriot Act.

Where does that leave us? I don’t know. I’ll be voting for the Democratic candidate, but I maintain that the primary system stinks and doesn’t always provide us with the best candidate.

What I do know is that all of the Democrats owe Howard Dean a big thanks for reinvigorating a party that seemed to be on its last legs. Howard Dean helped restore my faith that there are people out there who really want to make a difference.

Like the good doctor said, the power to change America is in our hands.

Let’s get to work.