Madfloridian's Journal - TPM Cafe Book Club....books about the legacy of the Dean campaign.

There are two books recently out about various aspects for our party about the campaign and what it meant. It is rather moving to read the posts this week, as it is the first week I have actually come to the realization...or perhaps the first time I have admitted it to myself...that we really might not "have the power" to change things after all.

I really did believe it, and only recently am I seeing that the phrase Howard Dean used might not be true for many many years to come. He said "You have the power". You can change things, he said, not me.

I told a person who called from the DSCC tonight that same thing. She sounded rather wistful, and said she agreed. That we might not have the power after all. That it lies elsewhere for now. We both agreed that the people could eventually bring change by demanding it and not accepting the old way of compliance with the GOP ideals. But not right now.

Here is the link to the various posts by people who have contributed to the two books.

This Week: The Legacy of the Dean Campaign

TPM Book Club

Welcome to TPMCafe's Book Club table. This week we're hosting a discussion on Garrett M. Graff's new book, The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House, and Zephyr Teachout and Thomas Streeter's Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope: Lessons from the Howard Dean Campaign for the Future of Internet Politics.

Zephyr Teachout was first to post.

Reflections on Power and Language in Internet Campaigns

Tom Streeter and I argue in the final chapter of Mousepads, Shoe Leather and Hope that decentralized power is different than decentralized tasks. The internet enables both, but the former increases democracy, whereas the latter increases heirarchical control. The Dean campaign decentralized power; many campaigns have borrowed the tools and innovations from that cycle, but primarily for decentralizing tasks.

Zephyr also mentioned the "language" of the campaign in addition to the decentralization.

The language of the Dean campaign was strong, elegant, and civic; it did not focus on the rhetorical habits of the past generation ("are you better off now than you were…"; "pocketbook issues") but instead put the public, and the idea of a shared public good, at the center of the rhetoric. Even when talking about health care, the language was public and moral. Much of this came from Dean, but a civic language infused the entire campaign.

Aldon Hynes, Jerome Armstrong, Garrett Graff have written posts as well. Aldon says the most important lesson was this.

My experience of the Dean campaign was that everyone believed what Gov. Dean said when he told us volunteers, “The biggest lie people like me tell people like you, is that if you vote for me, I’ll solve all your problems. The truth is You Have The Power.”

I thought Tom Swan's post was great today. He was aka Swanny on the Lamont campaign.

Looking Forward: Prospects for Carrying on the Legacies of the Dean and Lamont Campaigns

It is difficult to write about the legacy of the Dean campaign because the forces that catapulted that campaign are still actively trying to change the public discourse and it will be years before the real impact can be measured. It should be noted that much of the leadership of the Lamont campaign was active in Connecticut on the Dean campaign and had even spent some time in New Hampshire for the primary.

The Dean and Lamont campaigns in many ways were closer to movements than any other recent consultant driven political campaigns I can think of. They challenged political orthodoxies, threatened Washington insiders, and provided hope and opportunities to be involved for thousands of people at the grassroots level in a personalized way.

The campaigns were a visible part a larger change in American politics. We were blessed with candidates that had the courage to take significant risks and were willing to speak out against George Bush’s illegal war in Iraq, but the candidacies were only a part of the change.

Here is the website they set up for Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope, with excerpts and articles.

I have felt I could make a difference and help fix conditions in the party that allowed us to drive this country into a war of pre-emption with no end. I finally, after watching Congress at work, after watching the so-called strategists say meaningless things on TV...realize that perhaps I no longer believed what I believed in 2004.

I believed that we had to stay steady and hang in there, donate to the party and vote loyally...that we would make a difference.

I am trying to still trust, but it appears lately there is an agenda already pre-set that doesn't need us and in fact finds the netroots rather cumbersome to have hanging around.

I hope I am wrong.