On The Iowa Trail with Dean's Texas Rangers-- Afterword http://www.earthwire.net/dean/iowa/afterwd.

asp

ON THE IOWA TRAIL WITH DEAN’S TEXAS RANGERS

by M. Martin (copyright 2004, all rights reserved)

Introduction
AFT ERWORD—FEBRUARY 18T H, 2004
Part One
Part Two T he phone rang just as I found the c hannel I wanted. It was one of
Part Three my business partners. He wanted to disc uss the latest revisions to a
Part Four c lient proposal. "Let me c all you bac k in a little while. Howard Dean’s
Afterword about to announc e his withdrawal from the rac e."

"Well, DUH!!" was the exasperated response. "It’s not he’s won a single
primary."

I switc hed off the phone and turned up the T V. Dean was taking the
podium. However muc h the announc ement might’ve been a done
deal, it was still an emotional moment for me. In a mere 30 days,
Howard Dean had gone from front-runner to also-ran. His speec h was
predic tably c ut short, so CNN’s analysts c ould pontific ate on "the
most stunning politic al upset in fifty years." I probably wasn’t the only
person watc hing who wanted to hear Dean outline his future plans.
Not that it mattered; the talking heads needed their airtime. I
shrugged and turned off the set. With any luc k, Ms. T and I c ould
watc h it later on CSPAN. Worse c ase sc enario, we c ould download it
from Dean’s website.

One month before I had seen Howard Dean speak on three separate
oc c asions. Many other speec hes oc c urred that same day. One reason
Dean was relatively c irc umspec t in later appearanc es during the New
Hampshire Primary was that his voc al c ords were in serious danger of
simply giving out.

T he speec h that oc c urred that evening before we left Iowa was one
of the finest I have ever seen. T he room was pac ked with people who
had traveled thousands of miles, worked hundreds of hours, and spent
hundreds if not thousands of dollars of their own money to be there.
T hey had c ome for a vic tory, they were getting third plac e. As Dean
himself has said, he owed those people something—and being the
kinda guy Howard Dean is, he gave it to them. T he 3500 or so people
who were in that ballroom were yelling just as loudly as Howard
was—c heering on themselves and him. T hose people needed a
sense of vic tory and a sense of purpose. Howard Dean gave them
that…and more.

Unfortunately, he also inadvertently gave his numerous detrac tors on

every side a piec e of ammunition none of his supporters c ould’ve
antic ipated. If anything united Dean and his supporters, all the way
from his various c ampaign managers to the most rec ent volunteer
bloc k-walker, it was and is passion. It is a passion for the endless
possibility of the Americ an Experienc e, a passion for the justic e and
equality so strikingly absent in George W. Bush’s version of Americ a.
It’s passion to ac hieve something greater than mere “business as
usual.” Above all, passion for true and legitimate c hange.

By c ontrast, if anything unites George Bush and his supporters, it is a

smirking and shallow belief in a status quo that serves inc reasingly
well an inc reasingly small number of those who need no help
whatsoever—and leaves inc reasing numbers of average Americ ans
bereft of hope, inspiration, and any real belief that Americ a is their
c ountry.

When I was marc hing ac ross Des Moines on the day of the Cauc uses
with a plac ard in my hand, I was stopped twic e and interviewed by

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both loc al and out-of-town media. In both c ases, I was asked why I
supported Howard Dean. T o answer that question, I must turn to my
personal history:

I was on the 14th floor of the Enron building three years ago. When
George W. Bush’s elec toral win by judic ial fiat was announc ed, I
c learly rec all the c heers of energy industry plutoc rats around me. I
remember equally well wondering why exac tly they were c heering
what seemed to me the beginning of the end of Americ an
democ rac y. Like many other people, I was soon thereafter no longer
working at Enron or any other plac e. I no longer rec all whether my
voter registration lapsed first, or my unemployment benefits. I do
rec all that in both c ases, I had long sinc e c eased to c are.

A signific ant fac tor in the elec toral debac le of 2000 was the
c andidac y of Ralph Nader. George Bush might well have stolen the
elec tion even if Nader had not taken votes away from Gore….but it
might have been a little harder, the theft a bit more apparent. Many
of those who supported Nader in 2000 later dec lared their support for
Dean in 2004.

I supported Howard Dean in his bid to run for president bec ause he
had mobilized people like me who had lost faith in the system, as
well as a huge c adre of those who had never partic ipated, at any
level, in Americ an politic s. Defeating George Bush in November is a
diffic ult, almost impossible task. It is doubtful that a business as usual
c andidate like John Kerry-- mobilizing no more than the democ rats
and independents among the less than half of Americ ans who still
bother to vote-- c an ac c omplish this task. Howard Dean, inspiring and
motivating those who had either forgotten or been forgotten by the
system, just might stand a c hanc e.

Unfortunately, Dean has been denied that c hanc e. Very few aspirants
to offic e have been so thoroughly attac ked by their own party. Even
more rare is the way the media built up Dean as a front-runner before
a single vote had been c ast-- and then just as arbitrarily removed that
status, setting into motion the virtual c anonization of John Kerry as
the 2004 Democ ratic c andidate for President. T o understand this,
you must understand that mainstream media is anything but a
disinterested player in Americ an national politic s. Under the Bush
Administration, media behemoths like T imer-Warner, Clear Channel
Communic ations, and Viac om have enjoyed unprec edented
freedom to monopolize at the expense of diversity. T he c urrent
administration has never met a large c orporation it didn’t like. T he
affec tion is entirely rec iproc al, henc e the media portrayal of a
red-fac ed, shouting Howard Dean (for those of you who fail to realize
it, T he Daily Show is a produc tion of Comedy Central, Inc —a
partnership venture between Viac om and T ime Warner). T he same
c irc umstanc e explains the inc reasingly Kennedy-esque portrayal of
John Kerry—who, whether he wins or not, is c ertainly no threat to the
status quo.

A truly sobering thought is the extent to whic h Americ ans rely on

these same c orporate giants to inform them on everything from
national politic s to events happening at the end of their
street…without ever onc e wondering if the information they rec eive
might simply be a lie.

T he number of individuals who agreed to travel outside their home

state as volunteers for Howard Dean was c ertainly within one to two
magnitudes of the number of people who were willing to journey
below the Mason-Dixon line in the early days of the c ivil rights
movement, or protest the early phase of the Vietnam War. T hat wave

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of youthful idealism was one of the princ ipal triggers of the tidal wave
of soc ial c hange that eventually c ame to be c alled T he Sixties.

Frequently in his speec hes, Dean harks bac k to that time, the tim e of
his own youth, and the impac t it had on his life and on this c ountry. It
is a sad irony how little that legac y is remembered. Sadder still: that
those few who do remember those times show so little respec t for
those who are fortunate enough to be young and idealistic now. With
the end of the Dean c andidac y, we stand to lose muc h more than
merely an opportunity to c hange the direc tion of this c ountry. We
may lose an opportunity to empower and impassion a generation that
has more potential to c hange and uplift this c ounty--and the world we
live in--than any that have gone before it. Howard Dean owes an
enormous debt and has an enormous responsibility to the youth of
this c ountry. Fortunately, he knows it.

On the day that Howard Dean announc ed the end of his c andidac y,
the banner on his website read “A Beginning, not an End.” In his
speec h, Dean promised to c ontinue to keep his organization intac t
and c ontinue to fight for c hange. It is a promise I believe in. Dean
ended the speec h as he has always ended—by reminding us that the
biggest lie told by any c andidate is that they, the c andidate, will fix
the problems of we who vote for them…. when in fac t, the power to
fix or c hange anything is ours and ours alone.

Regardless the end of Howard Dean’s c andidac y, this c ountry’s best

hope going forward into the 21st c entury remains “Dean’s T exas
Rangers” and volunteers like them, in every part of the United States.
I'm very proud that I had the opportunity to be one of those people, if
only for a few days. T he "Iowa T rail" may've c ome to an end. T he
fight to win bac k our lives from c ynic ism, indifferenc e, and
c omplac enc y has just begun.

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