Sometimes I think I’m really slow on the uptake. Despite a number of signals I should have noted, I didn’t take much notice of Howard Dean’s run to be the Democrats’ Presidential Candidate. Maybe it was because I was looking for a winner and he looked like just another political maverick. Whatever the reason, the Dean campaign looks significant, even if he doesn’t get much further. What is significant about the campaign is that it looks as if it represents a shift away from the idea of politics as a subset of marketing to the idea of politics as if people matter. My sense is that this is a phenomenon that won?t go away. My evidence is in the links below:
The web’s candidate for President
Dean for America
Peer-to-Peer Politics
Why I’m for Dean
Voters Have Come Alive
Unelectable, My Ass!
A simple, poetic indictment
The Doctor Is In
The Great American Restoration
On the other hand maybe Michael Wolff is right and the very success of the campaign so far carries the seeds of its own destruction.
Candidate.com
Whatever the outcome, this one is worth watching.