Now I love me some LG, but there is a big post hoc, logical fallacy in his normally crystal clear thinking. But first, this…
I guess the plan is to win hearts and minds with an air war. Sounds reasonable.
Why not both? Air war and ground war. Withholding votes from Democrats and working inside the party are not mutually exclusive. I don’t plan on working inside the party, but knock yourself out. AND don’t vote for Dems who haven’t earned your liberal vote.
If you are clamoring for the Democratic Party to move to the left, but are unwilling to actively participate in politics outside of election day, you will be left with exactly what you already have.
The only reason that there are any progressive voices around here is due to the Dean campaign. The beauty in his campaign was the ability to get people involved in the campaign. There were meetups, blogs were started (this one included) and people stepped up to join committees and start organizations (like PDD).
And why were people involved? Because Dean delivered a Democratic message that resonated. The blogs and meetups were not contrived to move Dean onto a traditional Democratic message. You’ve confused cause and effect.
A decade has passed since then. Some of us are still involved, some have settled in for armchair bitching and some have dropped out of politics altogether. But if you don’t think that the Howard Dean message was “Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work”, you weren’t paying attention.
Settled in for armchair bitching…? I resemble that comment. Again, the message “Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work” was the rejoinder to the main message… “The Democratic Party is the Party that looks out for the little guy.”
Rolling up my sleeves to help John Carney help the banks? That wasn’t Dean’s message.