Mr. Dean's Army

If Howard Dean is nominated, will he:

Stand up at the Democratic National Convention and swear to raise everybody’s taxes?

Take a ride in an Abrams tank, wearing a silly helmet that makes him look like Snoopy?

Break down and cry on camera because some right-wing nut case of a newspaper publisher wrote nasty things about his wife?

Slap a ton of orange pancake makeup on his face and sigh loudly into his mike every time his opponent tries to get a word in edgewise in the next presidential debate?

All of these, of course, are stupid things that were actually done by the party establishment's favored candidates.

My point is that if the establishment is going to throw George McGovern in our faces, then progressives should have the right to throw some of the establishment's turkey candidates back in its collective face.

What does interest me – fascinate me, really – is whether Dean’s campaign has invented a fundraising model that will finally allow Democratic candidates, or at least, Democratic presidential candidates, to cope with the GOP’s money advantage.

Democrats can look to two major groups to form the base for a majority coalition. One is the same segment of society that Democrats have always relied on: the poor and working class. This population segment is being expanded by growing income inequality, by immigration and by above-average birth rates in several key ethnic communities, Hispanics in particular.

The other potential Democratic bastion, however, is much higher up the social ladder. It can be found in the growing ranks of skilled, educated professionals – the "knowledge workers" who are the backbone of the New Economy.

The kind of money that Dean is raising is money that could also be used to organize the other part of the Democratic base -- the lowest level of the pyramid. It could allow the Dems to intensify their "ground war," the GOTV and grassroots organizing work that helps offset the GOP media-based "air war."


A lot of interesting things here.