My mom describes herself as a "yellow dog Democrat".... for those unfamiliar with the term, it means someone who'd vote for a yellow dog as long as they were a Democrat. (Of course, in my family, just being a dog is generally enough.) But I was raised on Democratic mother's milk, in a union family where I learned lightning would strike me dead if I crossed a picket line (something that to this day I have never done). So when I left the Democratic party to become a "decline to state," it was a momentous decision.
I had not voted for a major party candidate since Mondale-Ferraro, when I traveled from Milan to London to pick up my absentee ballot and vote for the first woman to run for Vice-President. Since then, I'd cast my vote for third party candidates as a form of protest. I never voted for Bill Clinton, who I saw as too corporation-friendly, socially liberal but economically? Might as well have been a Republican.
I'm a progressive like many others who have gone unrecognized in the mainstream media: Deeply spiritual and committed to social justice and the alleviation of human suffering; fiscally responsible and horrified at deficits both personal and public; anti-war but wanting a strong, well-trained, respected military in the interests of world peace; fundamentally libertarian in that we want the government out of our bedrooms and personal lives but classically liberal in supporting social programs that put roofs over heads and food in bellies, and get healthcare for kids. I don't believe corporations are individuals. I think taxes are an investment in the infrastructure of our country and the dues we pay to live in a civilized society, but I sure don't like seeing them wasted and thrown away on pork. I also think that Americans should be able to own guns, but don't object to having to jump through a few hoops to get one, as long as it's not much more onerous than getting a driver's license.
So, one day a guy came along and he seemed to believe everything I believed. And he said he was from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. And so Howard Dean got me to become a registered Democrat again, so I could vote for him in the California primary. And then I cast my vote for John Kerry instead, because Howard Dean asked us to, only to have my heart break when Kerry was narrowly defeated by a man I consider a danger to our nation and the world.
And then the Democratic Party went to pieces, pointing fingers, assigning blame, and turning on each other like hyenas over a carcass. And those of us who had phone banked and gone door-to-door and donated money and blogged for Kerry and the Democrats, suddenly realized that things really, really had to change. The status quo would not work; the current party leadership was lost, in the thrall of consultants and egos who wouldn't easily give up their power. Real people with real values needed to stand up and take their party back, and make it the voice for America again, to turn the lights back on for the dreams and aspirations of FDR and the New Deal - not repeal it and strip it bare. The Democratic wing of the Democratic party had to take it over.
I wrote last week to all 20 of my state's voting members of the DNC, imploring them to support Howard Dean for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, even before I knew for sure he'd run. And that effort was not, it turns out, for nothing. Today, Governor Dean announced that he is running.
I'm scared to believe again, even though the scale this time is so much smaller. But I know that we need change, deep and fundamental and powerful, and I don't know anyone who can articulate that change so well as Howard Dean - or get so many other prickly, stubborn, suspicious independents like me to get all starry-eyed again, either. So one more time I'm going down the road with Howard Dean, to try and take our country back.
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