Last May, The New York Times Magazine did a cover story on college Republicans. Nothing terribly illuminating about the article. Apparently there are Republicans who attend college, and apparently many of them are "activists." (The term is "movement conservative.")
But the cover is worthy of note.
They're giving out this "Children of the Corn" vibe. I scratch my head, pondering how anyone could love a politician.
Months later, I'm reading over what I guess is the most prominent of the network of Howard Dean blogs, and I read this:
Proud announcement that at a Howard Dean rally, the crowd chanted "We Are Dean! We Are Dean! We are Dean!"
I squint my eye. "Oh. Kay." and wonder if our nation would be better served replacing the office of the President with a slate composed of various administrators. Something to defeat the "Cult of Personality."
And by the way: Dean is a "metrosexual." Type the two words into google, and you'll find the story.
And somehow I do not believe for a minute that Howard Dean's favourite song is WyClef Jean's "Jaspora".
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1-20-04 His voice rises with each state that he mentions:
"Not only are we going to New Hampshire. We're going to South Carolina and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and we're going to California and Texas and New York. And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan. And then we're going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House."
And the money shot: everybody's Kung-Fu fighting: "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"
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Yes. It's over-analyzed. A "hot" moment for a "cool" medium, reaction shows more about the media than the candidate. See this column here.
It's still funny, though.
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1/28
As the campaign falls apart after disappointing showings in Iowa and New Hampshire.
As we watch Trippi be stripped of his perch atop the Dean Empire and replaced by old Gore hand Roy Neel -- a decent symbol showing the shift toward traditional politics... the strategist is replaced by the tactician... The Movement is gone and replaced by the Political Campaign... the cliche from the chattering classes is that the Dean Internet bubble burst.
None of this matters to me. Actually all I really want to say is that the major Dean blogs ougta be time-capsuled for further research in future political science courses.
Throw in the Internet remixes of his ultimately underwhelming speech while we're at it.
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2/5
The land in the sand in Wisconsin. Dean's hope is to parlay a victory in Washington State into momentum to win Wisconsin into momentum into the next bundle of states.
Lieberman had Delaware. Dean has Wisconsin. Dean's last stand.
Read the blogs. They're entertaining.
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No. Really. Read the blogs. They're entertaining. Depressing, and amusing in equal measure. They're ghost-towns of the cyberage.
I picked up on Dean's web-centric campaign early, before his blogs proliferated, and when his webpage was rather skeletal. He was doing interviews with various Internet publications of the liberal-bent. Truthout.org, for example. Getting his message out to the liberal Democratic activist. I thought "good use of the Internet."
In the summer, the Dean-Internet effect became hyped. Sure. Meetups. Internet funding. All good tools. But... the effect of the hype was...
...silly.
I've heard the complaint that the Dean E-Mail Spamming, if you get stuck on the email list ... it's a displeasure and aggrevation. So what do you do with the email list? Trippi does have good points here to make.
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