One concern with Dean...

[opstachuck]

First off, i like Dean more than any other candidate by a long shot. i will give my money and my support to him because his grassroots movement truly is revolutionary and he has very reasonable policies; however, the thing that makes him so appealing is also the thing that could make him so vulnerable. I've heard all the candidates, i know their policies, I know what they're like on the stump, and they're OK, but they are not Dean. Dean's success is clearly not an accident. However, we cannot deny his weaknesses. I tend to overlook them because I've seen and heard so much that outweighs the negative, but he is a vulnerable candidate because he doesn't sit in one place ideologically. He really is a pragmatist and that could be a problem because the mass media will grab onto the slightest misstep and try to define him by it. Now, if you are a pragmatist you should 'entertain' a whole spectrum of ways to solve a particular problem despite political ideology, but in doing that you can isolate a number of people. so, for example he wants to repeal the tax cut to pay for social services but he also considers other ways to address the problem like increasing the age of retirement by a year. therefore, he's considering supporting social services and cutting them at the same time. however, any true intellectual will tell you that a consideration is a long way off from being an endorsement. so he might consider something and he might communicate that by saying 'i would entertain such and such', but he never really endorsed it. now someone like kucinich comes along and says dean WILL raise the age to such and such and dean, knowing his intentions maybe better than his latest remarks will say 'no, i never said that' because there is a big difference between endorsing something and entertaining something. when you are an ideologue it is SO EASY to state your position and stick to it because there aren't nearly as many factors to consider. so kucinich, i don't think, understands that dean wants to have a balanced budget, AND save social security, AND have universal health care AND all the other stuff. Dean has more of a consolidated view of what needs to be done and i think he understands the dynamics of the situation because he has been in the situation, as governor, where he has had to balance needs against each other and make some tough decisions. Believe me, I used to be a naive socialist myself - actually, i really miss those days. But, what really takes courage and what really takes political savvy is to be able to weigh the fervor of your ideology against the reality of the political environment without sacrificing your integrity. So, it is extremely easy to say he's just a wolf in sheep's clothing, because a complex mind is an unpredictable one too and some might try to classify it as being untrustworthy. anyway, i guess that could be the difficulty in expanding his appeal. There's a reason why intellectuals don't make good politicians and Dean could have too much of that in him, but he could also have just the right combination, at least I hope so.

and for what it's worth, Dean has almost single-handedly made me optimistic about the future of our party and our country.

these are the clips that really struck me. please take a listen, if you haven't already. i'll shut up now

an interview on npr...
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2002/07/20020703_a_main.asp

an interview with The Nation...
http://stream.realimpact.net/rihurl.ram?file=webactive/radionation/rn20030709.rm

a video of a speech in san fran...
http://www.howarddean.tv/clips/SanFran_DeanSpeech02.mov

a public tv special about his campaign...
http://www.nhptv.org/outlook/sprogramdate.asp?prog_num_id=668

a video of a speech in front of the california teacher's union
http://www.howarddean.tv/clips/CaliTeachersAssoc_Dean.mov