Nervously raising my hand to ask a question in a tiny tiny voice

is it ok if I go back to loving Dean again?

It's not that I don't like Kerry anymore, though I am a bit baffled by the early concession. I do still respect him greatly.

It's just that, well, I read the speech Dean gave just recently about how we should not join with the republicans just to engage in damage control..and I agreed totally with him.

Yes he was my first choice but I wasn't all bitter about it and I didn't engage in any flame wars here during the primaries. I promise I won't ever say he should have been the nominee. That's a stupid thing to say anyway, because he wasn't (I'm very reality-based). And I don't care if he doesn't have a shot in hell of ever winning political office again, I just....I just love him and he really speaks for me.

I do hope he is allowed to do big things within the Democratic party.

Anyway, don't hate me. I'm not going to start other threads about him or anything, I just wanted to kind of check to see how that would go over....

Probably one of the smartest public figures of this day and age.

Charge on.

Proud of it, never said I hated any of our candidates. Who might have won? Aw, that's water under the bridge.

I've been saying, "If only we'd run Dean" about once an hour for a week now.

-Joshua

Both "Dean" and "Kucinich" are, imho, names that need to start being spoken loudly and often :)


MDN

He's another great voice in the struggle to reclaim America's greatness.

But something about Dean just resonates with me, I don't know...

But Kucinich actually had to win me over. I give him significant credit for accomplishing that :)


MDN

Kucinich said universal health care, no PATRIOT Act, get out of Iraq, end the War on Some Drugs, bilateral trade agreements instead of NAFTA and WTO.

Dean essentially invited everyone to participate in the system a lot more, and forget about specifics until later. Not that that's a bad thing, though--that approach has its good points.

The man is brilliant and he really cares about this country. It shows. You can't fake that. Maybe he couldn't have won, who knows, but he is an important voice in the progressive movement. May he continue to inspire.... :yourock:

the reason I asked so tentatively (and the reason I asked in the Lounge) is because I have noticed some people being rather obnoxious about it, as in "I KNEW WE SHOULD HAVE NOMINATED DEAN!" and stuff like that.

I didn't want to be seen as being like that.

Definitely did not come off as that. :)

I never gave up on him, though, and he didn't give up either. I was proud of him -- he didn't slink off and sulk, he just repurposed the organization.

DFA was moderately successful, especially for being something Dean took on after he failed to achieve the nomination -- and he barely missed a beat. As you, I'm realistic about his chances, had he been the nominee -- I think things ultimately would have come out no different.

I wanted him to keep going after he bailed out on the nomination for the same reason he got into the ugly racket of running for office in the first place -- there were things he was saying that might not have gotten said otherwise.

Once I feel really recovered, I may haul my butt to a DFA meeting again -- I'm lucky enough to have a local Democracy For America org that's continued to be pretty lively, apparently. Our local Dem party is a pile of status quo-satisfied pashas who've forgotten the dictionary definition of the word 'fight' -- we're on our own, here.

When you ain't got nothin' you got nothin' to lose, as Mr. Zimmerman said.

So you're not alone -- in fact, I feel very much the same way you do about it all.

:7

heck a lot of our government programs are socialist in nature. I love to tell freepers that and watch them freak.

Hee hee.

just out of curiosity? Thanks.

I've always been very anti-Dean, but i have to say............No, i better not say..... yet.

heck I think he's fan-fucking-tastic.

The speeches he has given in the last year---whew! That man is on FIRE. Love it.

I guess it's someone who basically agrees with socialism but doesn't call themselves a socialist?

I don't know, I made up the term. I do agree with many of the tenets of socialism.

semi-socialist before, but I kinda like the term!

Infrastructure et al. When you say semi-socialist, you obviously mean that not everything should be in the public sphere, as in the old Soviet Union. Plain common sense, IMO.

Kerry was always only a temporary solution for me. I would have liked for him to be a longer temporary fix, but it didn't happen.

I'll be joining the Greens unless Deans voice is front and center for the Democrats from now on.

I am a Democrat heart and soul.

And I did really come to love Kerry (truly, I am not just saying that).

But I hear ya.

I'm still a bit too disillusioned with the whole of politics to think I could support any of these assclowns ever again. They're really all just actors who aren't good enough to get into movies, but impress each other in big formal groups talking about people's lives as if they were some abtract philsophical concept. I voted Kerry, and held my nose 'cause I knew it meant I was voting for John Edwards, too. Smarmy fuckin' smile in a suit is all that guy ever was. There's something wrong with a party that puts that out as a presidential ticket. That's why I'm registered "unaffiliated."

thankfully, (from what I've heard), it was before my time here. You are spot on about his principles. He wouldn't sell out.