canadiansfordean

They're beginning to get it. The media. Look what they did for Bush.
Defining Dean (washingtonpost.com)

From the Undersecretary of Blogs

Hear Dean speak

I knew it. I just knew it.

The dawgs are in the house

The Declaration of Interdependence

Dean is the medium.

A conduit. A channeller. The man carrying the sandwich board.

Dean's thing says: I will not speak for you. I will speak for myself.

The Others say, I speak for the union man, I speak for the underprivileged. I speak for the farmer. I speak for no one on behalf of my self.

I speak for the Big Ass Groups.

But Dean's thing says: Groups are choosing to speak for me.

Fatsos For Dean. African Americans for Dean. Americans for Dean. Clean for Dean. Deaf America for Dean. Doctors for Dean. Gays for Dean. Geeks for Dean. Grassroots for Dean. Hack 4 Dean. Med Students for Dean. One Father For Dean. Out for Dean. Republicans for Dean. Rock for Dean. Seniors for Dean. Students for Dean. Tabling for Dean. Translate for Dean. Two Uncles for Dean. Unemployed for Dean.org. Unemployed for Dean.com. Volunteers for Dean. Women for Dean. Alaska for Dean. Alabama for Dean. Arizona for Dean. Arizona for Dean Blog. Arkansas for Dean. Brooklyn for Dean. California for Dean. So. California for Dean. Bay Area for Dean. Beach Cities for Dean. Chabot College for Dean. CSU Long Beach for Dean. East Bay for Dean. Inland Empire for Dean. Los Angeles for Dean. North Bay for Dean. NE Los Angeles for Dean. Marin County for Dean. Orange County for Dean. Sacramento for Dean. San Bernardino for Dean. San Diego for Dean. San Francisco for Dean. SF for Dean. Santa Cruz for Dean. UC Berkeley for Dean. UCLA Bruins for Dean. UC Santa Barbara for Dean. Valley for Dean. Ventura County for Dean. Colorado for Dean. Aims College for Dean. Connecticut for Dean. Connecticut forDean.org. Fairfield for Dean. New Haven for Dean. Florida for Dean. Florida for Dean 2. Broward County for Dean. Jacksonville for Dean. Miami for Dean. Sarasota for Dean. Seminole County for Dean. Tampa for Dean. Georgia for Dean. Hawaii for Dean. Illinois for Dean. Chicago forDean.org. Indiana for Dean. Iowa for Dean. Drake Bulldogs for Dean Kentucky for Dean. Kentucky for Dean 2. Lexington for Dean. Maine for Dean. Maryland for Dean. Baltimore for Dean. Prince George's County for Dean. Massachusetts for Dean. MassforDean Blog. Western Mass. for Dean. Berkshires for Dean. Michigan for Dean. Minnesota for Dean. UMN for Dean. Missouri for Dean. St. Louis University for Dean. Montana for Dean. Montanans for Dean. UNN for Dean. Nevada for Dean. No. Nevada for Dean. New Hampshire for Dean. New Jersey for Dean. New Mexico for Dean. New York for Dean. Albany for Dean. Central NY for Dean. Cornell University for Dean. Long Island for Dean. New York City for Dean. North Carolina for Dean. UNC Chapel Hill for Dean. North Dakota for Dean. Ohio for Dean. Oregon for Dean. Central Oregon for Dean. Lewis & Clark for Dean. Pennsylvania for Dean. Bucks County for Dean. Lehigh Valley for Dean. Centre County for Dean. Philadelphia for Dean. Rhode Island for Dean. South Carolina for Dean. South Dakota for Dean. Tennessee for Dean.
Tennessee for Dean 2. East TN for Dean. Knoxville for Dean. Tri-Cities for Dean. Texas for Dean. Texas forDean.org. San Antonio for Dean. Sudeep forDean.org. West Texas for Dean. Utah for Dean. Rutland County for Dean. Virginia for Dean. Virginia for Dean 2. Northern Virginia for Dean. Washington for Dean. Kitsap County for Dean. Pierce County for Dean. Seattle for Dean. Vancouver for Dean. DC for Dean. Wisconsin for Dean
Madison for Dean. Wyoming for Dean.

Where are these people coming from? From where they live.

Individuals are defining themselves, coming in from the margins, and choosing to speak of themselves. With pride. For a change.

Pride of place is a very inviting emotive force. A very tasty message. Like a decent sandwich.

Smoked meat, medium fat. With a slice of pickle, a side of fries, and a cold soda.

Have a bun for Dean.

We sweat to remove the right wing threat. We bleed and the hate proceeds. We cry for the Bush Big Lie.

Most policy wonks wank.

In the end voters care zip about policy. They vote not with their heads. Nor their hearts. They vote with either their pocketbooks, to invoke an old cliche, or they vote with their groins.

This upsets policy wonks.

Policy wonks fail to understand - or, better, acknowledge - or, better yet, begrdugingly acknowledge somewhere in the backs of their academically trained and casestudy-molded minds, petri dishes to to their mouldy social scientific thinking, - that an electorate acts only ever on a near emotional plain, on instinct.

Not that facts and arguments don't 'suade them. And not that demagoguery necessarily works.

But the decision to vote for candidate A over candidate B is always more habitual than rational, more instinctual than intellectual. And policy wonks being in their plastic hearts aspiring intellects, take a dim view of anything that threatens their world view and social order and their high ranking therein - at least by any measurable quanitfiable means. Like the bracket paypacket bracket racket they particapte in.

Policy is developed. An admirable pursuit by the way. But when it is developed with an eye on 'selling' it, the end policy is doomed.

If, as it is being developed, policy is seen as an important item to be added to the bill of goods, policy and the policy makers are doomed to a sort of developmental palsy. Leave the bill of goods to the pitchmen.

Democrats seem particularly prone to this sort of autism. Not that autism and palsy are connected. "The people won't buy that the people won't buy that. We can't go there because it won't sell."

Policy is a precursor of product. Policy is not product. And not message. Policy is twice removed from product. This is the acadmeic methodolgy. (Perhaps that's the problem with today's wonk. They've been brought up to believe in the interdiscplinary academe, the ecumenical crockpot of post postmodern Thought.)

Democrats are forever worrying about how their policy will carry, as product. Bad approach. Live for the moment. Be the white paper, pundit baby.

But oh no. Everybody's gotta unzip and hang it out there.

In the end, policy wonks end up standing around the halls with a big stiffy, a big woody which nobody is particularly interested in looking at or touching.

You are then, dear wonk, alone in the executional bathroom, so to speak.

Republicans understand this in their souls. They keep their wonks locked up in the hyperbaric chamber, pumping in the high octane carbon monoxide.

Stay on message.

Like car salesmen. And not in the pejorative sense. Engineering and design will only take you so far. Comfort and ride count. Fit. This car, this minavn, this SUV fits you, it's an extension of your penis (or your clit, vagina, womb whatever - sporty to midsize sedan to family vanagon) - I'm telling you, it's you..

That's the Rep method.

Democrats will go on about their warranty, about safety. You know what: everybody has the same warranty. Shut up about it. Show me the monthly payments and let me see what this puppy feels like in a corner.

Democrats will then say. Okay, let's go for a test drive, but I'll drive.

Democrats are currently attempting to design one big ass motherfucking union made in America publically insured SUV that runs on a hybrid of solar power and sunflower oil and wears a condom that not only protects but also promotes pleasure.

The all new, four wheel drive 2004 Generic Momo Replicator.

The Dean message, oddly enough, runs contrary to all of this. And is distinct from every other Democratic candidate. {Each is selling a brand of car. From Gephardt (a Ford Taurus) and Lieberman (a Caprice Classic) to the potentialities of a remodedlled Gore (have you seen that new boxy Honda thing, looks like a sort of Range Rover put together with Lego at a Saturn plant) and a very much previously owned Hilary (a late '90s Dodge Ram diesel pickup)} Each is being peddled like a kind of car, or peddling the car like Fred Flintstone.

But Republicans are the Party of the Car. Why play their game, by their rules, on the road at that?

The Dean machine is not a car, or a way. Oddly, Dean is selling a place. Which is much more appealing to stay at home Democrats.

And swing Republicans as well. It speaks to something like 'core competencies'. Dem wonks are currently trying to carve off a share of the Republican market.

Dean's place is completely reactionary. Non progressive. Chaotic. Dysfuntional. Whacky.

It's a field party, a block party, a clam bake. It is inclusionary.

And that is a threat to the professional Democratic pundits of the penis.

Here's the thing.

America is about enter a very critical period of complete and total crisis. Constitutional, economic, whatever. (Or, rather, that period has already been entered. There's just a lag, a gap.) And the crisis will not be the contrived fear mongering crisis peddled by the current administration, but a crisis of its (America's) own undoing.

Crisis. Blame Bush. Blame Clinton. Who cares. Things are cyclical. Get over it.

In crisis people react in one of two ways. They deny, retreat, and withdraw. Or, they come together, engage, and fuck their brains out. Regardless, they work it out for themsleves. People act in ways they never knew they could. Policy, planning, and bipartsanship be damned. There is a republic to be run.

You can run it like a Humvee, as the Republicans do. Or you can run it like a pale derivative knockoff, as some Democrats would.

Or, you can run it on your own loose agenda. Like an all ages house party. May go till four. Show up when you can. But please do come. It will be a good time. And you know what, you might just meet somebody.

That's the Dean 'thing'. Policy arises. Read the comments boxes. Listen. Learn. Look for not that which you can sell, but what has already been sold. Supply the demand.

This is a real threat to the professional political class, who believe that policy notions descend from the heavens and touch them alone. The Muses speak to them alone. The finger wagging and cynical pundits. The puritanical policy wonks. The pros. They know.

There's a political party happening. The Democratic policy wonks aren't coming.

Well, they are...but, alone. Dicks in hand, heads up a donkey's ass.

After much soul searching, and lengthy consultations with a leading senior advisor in the Dean for America campaign, I decided to plunge face first into this venture: the Canadians For Dean For America Weblog.

Why Dean?

Why not Dean?

Dean seems to get under the skin of American Democrats more than Republicans. He is an antidote to the policy wonkers of the dem party who seem to think for some reason that a plan is more important than extemporaneous execution.

Dean has a gut. And in that gut, a bit of fire.

Politics is a drag. It really is. A real drag. Listen to the pundits and the analysts. They are voices from the grave.

According to these dickgephardtheads Dean is so wrong. So wrong he's right.

Enough said. Dean represents a bit of fun.

Below is the email in which I talked myself into doing this.

I received an email yesterday from a woman in London England.
She's organizing a website resource - a Foreigners for Dean sort of thing. It seems I have been put on her list as the Canadian contact after I had posted:

http://www.bmoeasy.com/canadiansfordean.html

It was a bit of a gag, but at the same time I really am quite seriously interested in the whole idea of Americans and non-Americans living outside the US interested in the Dean cause. I had intended to attend the last meetup in TO (to do a Lydon *a sort of audio blogging* - my provider just freed up 50 mb for a flat 50 bucks - now that's a deal!) until I found out the meetup was to be held in the Annex in Toronto at an unlicensed bakery and would probably be overrun with a cadre of Birkenstocking socialists and other ne'er-do-wellness types.

Actually, I had to work.

Nevertheless, I find myself in a moral muddle (It's not even noon!) I am a somewhat serious human being, have been on the extreme periphery of three successful ON provincial election campaigns (three different parties - non-partisan whore that I am) on the communications side of things - I'm kind of a good luck charm - and would like to do something with this Dean thing - even though it began as something of a joke (I do no think getting rid of Bush is a joke, and I think Dean, despite some dems' reservations, is the guy - no wait, the rep - remember that idea? when elected officials were representatives, not Icons of a Brand of Character? - anyway yeah he's the rep to do it, and to a greater purpose I think the entire 'web-initiative' thing is about the only salvation for democracy in the bigger picture - enough of that from me for now)

After all, it's not about me. It's about you.

At the next Dean Meetup in Toronto (and the voting for that location is open now, see here, my suggestion is the Windsor Arms Hotel Bar, not because you can get a drink there, but because it's spacious, comfortable and about the only spot in Toronto that still remembers how to make a decent pot of tea.)

I will be travelling to Toronto in order that I might ask you some questions. I would like to record these interviews - one on one, so there's no need to be shy in front of other people -and post them here on this blog.

As well, if there is anyone who cannot attend the TO Meetup and is interested in submitting themselves to the gruelling torture of a telephone interview, let me know. That we can do, as well.

Word. Peace out.

Sort of.

Dennis Kucinich has a tidy little post on lessig's blog about air travel. Keep in mind this is a guy who is campaigning to become President of the US. Remember, you are the criminal!

Falls Church VA, Milwaukee WI, Seattle WA, Portland OR, Spokane WA, San Antonio TX, Chicago IL, New York, NY.

These are the places Howard Dean will be visiting from Aug 23 - 26. Giving speeches, meeting people. In the US this is what is known as stumping.

It is going into the corners, elbows up, digging, grinding, cycling the puck.

...and welcome to the Canadians for Dean for America weblog.

If you would like to participate in the weblog, be patient. We'll be migrating the blog to another server, shortly, complete with a comments section.

So hang in there!