There have been some wonderful summing up of Howard Dean's effect on and departure from the Democratic Primary around the blogosphere at Burnt Orange Report, Collective Sigh, Cal Pundit, Daily Kos, and this wonderful shakespeare riff by Lambert at Corrente. However, I wanted to talk about my impressions.
I'm sorry the Governor is going, I was rather looking forward to casting a ballot for him on March 2nd. Now, I'll probably vote for Edwards, but my mind could still change in between now and then. But this ain't about that. You see, in this country, it seemed nobody was willing to stand up to Bush and Co and do something about the way the country was being destroyed. The Dems pretty much gave Bush what he wanted, only stopping to fight the occasional judicial nomination. It was a bleak time, when daring to not toe the party line would get you told that you were "French" or that "if you don't like the country, leave it", and I was seriously pondering doing the latter.
And then along came this guy, with fire in his voice, and the guts to stand up against a popular president and his war, who said he represented "the Democratic wing of the Democrat Party", and it was all "yeah! this guy knows what he's talking about! We have to stand up to Bush to win!"
So, for the first time in my relatively young political life, I started to pay attention, and I started to maybe believe there just might be hope for my country. I even made my first political donation to the Howard Dean campaign, twenty dollars, it wasn't much, but it was all I could spare.
And now there's chinks in Bush's armour, and cracks in the facade, and the Democrats have a spine again, and it's all because of Dean. And he's going to stay active in politics, and try to get Dems elected to Congress. And for that I just have to say:
Thank you, Governor Dean, once again, for this attempt, and please note that it wasn't in vain. You got a lot of people excited again. Thank you.
Posted by katster at February 19, 2004 06:01 PM