February 19, 2004
Under Cover Howie
What happened yesterday in the Dean for America campaign has to be interpreted in a positive light. What's Howard done? Well, he's decided that he's done being a shill for the corporated media--done running from pillar to post trailing a host of reporters and equipment so they can gather news footage on the cheap.
There isn't really any reason why a candidate for the office of President of the United States should be subjected to crass commercial interests--generating ratings in competition with sports spectaculars and pastied breasts. It's demeaning how the people we are interviewing
to be our country's leaders are pummelled by the media.
Talk about a lack of respect! And we expect the rest of the world to kowtow to us after watching (yes, the whole world is watching) this circus!
Get real.
So, the message for the day should be that Howard Dean is still the preferred candidate of a significant number of people who are about to be engaged in a more decorous and substantive campaign to persuade the nation that the platform he stands on is the right one for this great nation.
If we send him enough money, he'll still be able to attend a picnic or a fish fry now and then, but the rabid media horde won't be invited. If they want to know what the supporters are up to, they'll come when they're invited to our visibilities, of which there will be many.
I had to jump back on here to tell you all what just happened (I work from home, and so am nocturnal). I live in a very 'hood' area of Brooklyn-- voter turnout is low here, and I had spent the past three weeks talking to local residents, handing out voter registration cards, returning to houses to collect voter registration cards, passing around flyers, doing as much as I could in a neighborhood that otherwise wouldn't be well-informed. I just heard a group of people outside my outside door, and looked out to see who it was.
A group of teenagers had made new photocopies of one of the Dean flyers I'd passed around (mainly focused on healthcare and minimum wage), and at the top, had written the following in marker:
He's staying on the ballot. We'll represent.
They are these under welcome mats, tucked in front gates, and shoved under doors of every building I can see. I came out to speak with them, and they say they're going to cover 10 blocks a day. I explained the delegate selection issue, and they told me they'd make it 20. I told them to come back tomorrow, and I'd give them new flyers.
(And it's nearly 4AM here... which reminds me, a couple of them were definitely still school-aged)
Posted by chau at February 19, 2004 03:51 AM