Remember the time...(fall of 2003)?
This picture was taken when I was a true blue believer in Democratic politics (still am - because once it's in the blood, it's in the blood, but now I truly understand how twisted, rotten, evil, and inherently self-serving the whole suck ass game really is).
Case in point: I was really down with Howard Dean's trip and I worked hard to help him out. I met him (the picture looks like I am freaking him out with my words of wisdom - and maybe I am - but he needed them) in Charleston, SC at a bar called L.J.'s after he gave a speech at the campus of the College of Charleston. As we all know, he would freak out a few months later on stage (the scream) after getting his ass handed to him in Iowa. Now he runs the DNC. Anyway, I just came across this shot on the web and I have no idea who took it but as I watch this new crop running around the country (though primarily Iowa and New Hampshire) I can't help but be reminded of my own time in the trenches as it were. A lot of lessons can be learned from Dean's campaign (Ron Paul's kids are now ripping a few pages out the old Dean playbook, but I know it's not going to help him, just like it did not help Dean).
When I met him, Dean was the friggin' man, on the cover of the all the national news mags, THE FRONT RUNNER and the man to beat. Paul is out there still on the masturbating fringe - fueled by late night tweakers who have nothing to do but give their money away to a campaign so they can set one day "records" for fundraising. Oh, and don't get me wrong, we (the Dean kids) did the same delusional thing. We to were out on that same masturbating fringe - completely convinced that we were going all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania avenue with the good doctor. We set Dean's sights so high - but in the end - those 3000 tattooed, pierced, orange beany bedecked freaks from NYC, LA and SF who descended upon Iowa freaked out those farmers so bad that old Howard came in a distant 3rd on caucus night and hence the scream heard round the world. Farmers don't read blogs or sit up at night hitting the "send $50 dollars" button on their candidates Paypal accounts.
It's going be very interesting to see whose screaming after the Iowa caucuses in a few weeks.
posted by Unknown at 12/19/2007 11:27:00 AM
1 Comments:
Ah, the days of fund raisers with too many cubed cheese trays and not nearly enough liquor. While I am not currently running for office (nor do I have plans in the immediate future) I still feel excitement when I read posts by sage political commentators like RTO. Iowa and NH are going to either prove to me that Americans (well, Democrats at least) have not completely sold out to the greedheads or it will reaffirm my growing fear of the slow suicide that is modern America. The thought, however, of abandoning the United States--the land, the the conflagration of competing ideas settled upon in the late 18th century and penned in the name of liberty, as well as many of its sons and daughters--still disturbs me. I do not wear well the moniker of Ex-Pat. But at what point do you choose to abandon ship or start the mutiny? Dean's battleship sank with all hands aboard. My campaign, which set sail in only a 10-ft. dinghy, with only the captain, a few mates but carrying a loaded 12-ton cannon aboard, met an equally watery end--but we all made efforts to start the democratic revolution. Will it ever happen? Can it ever happen? Audaciously hoping appears all that is left for right now. Shooting up a flare.
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