Dean : "Letting go of central control"gives activists "real power".

[madfloridian]

Howard Dean said it in his book You Have the Power. He said it much better than I can say it.


"We have to rebuild our grassroots organization."

From page 155 of the book:

Letting go of central control in campaigns is what gives the electorate--particularly activists--real power. I learned this by doing it. When I first used the phrase "You have the power," I didn't at first realize the full impact of what I was saying. I meant only that Americans through working together to change America, could overcome the forces of the right wing and reassume their constitutional role in running the country.

What I didn't understand was that "You have the power" was a lot more than a rhetorical phrase. It didn't apply only to people's power to change a country, it also applied to their ability to direct a campaign.

He further mentions that the idea of a decentralized campaign terrifies most politicians who have grown used to giving out their ideas and letting others respond. He points out that learning to trust the grassroots is not easy, but necessary for the future.


And his point about building up a pool from which to draw candidates is vital. It is vital to our future as a party.
From page 158:

Without the involvement and commitment of people at the ground level, you don't really have a party. You have no pool from which to draw future congresspeople, senators, and presidents. And you have no genuine excitement.

He says we have to put people back at the center of political campaigns, that we must stay centered on our traditional Democratic values, which are about people. He says "the truth is when you trade your values for the hope of winning, you end up losing and having no values--so you keep losing."

In my own opinion this next area is where the Democratic party has failed us badly. The continuing effort to force picked candidates into races shows that some are not paying attention yet on this.

From page 163:
We have to reconnect to the base.

In recent years the Democrats, in our pursuit of big dollars, have neglected the people we're there to serve. We let our connection to our base atrophy and have forgotten, as they say in politics, who brought us to the dance. In service to a falsely named "centrism," we've sidestepped every major request from labor unions, especially on including worker protections in our free-trade agreements.

And I think this would be his answer, if by chance he could even give one in these situations, that we can't keep "searching for someone to come along and unlock the door...and heal what ails our country."

From page 187:
The truth is that person is you, not me or any other politician or leader.

If our country's in trouble, it's not only because George Bush is an inept president and the Democrats haven't stood up to him. It's because we always looking for someone to come along and save us. What I learned during the campaign is that the only way for people for find this kind of salvation is by saving themselves.....by tapping into the power that's already inside them and figuring how to use that power in the outside world.

It is coming down to primaries as a means to change the party. I realize I stand pretty much alone on that here at DU, but it is what I believe. I don't think you can fundamentally change the way something works unless you get new people involved. To do that you need primaries.