The old insider system is over, and, so too, is the system of television bombardment - one failed to include a large section of America that didn't happen to be born with the right skin colour - and the other made money so overwhelmingly important, that the American people were a mere rubberstamp of which ad campaign they liked better. The new system has changed that - now it must be made into a system which is understandable, and which is open to general participation, rather than merely the participation of those who know it is going on. That is the challenge, not to somehow restore the cigar smoke to the process.
2003 saw us take the first halting steps into a process which is restoring people's ability, not merely to be counted, but to be heard. Heard as individuals, heard in full, and heard in depth and detail. Democracy, it should be underlined, is not about balloting: there are plenty of nations that ballot with clockwork regularity, but in which the people have no voice. The definition of Democracy which America gave to the world comes from the debates over the Bill of Rights in 1789:
"Democracy is where the people are sovereign. The nation is a Democracy."
To be soveriegn means, above all, to be able to change the rules - and in 2003, the American people began to do just that. Voting is at the culmination of the Democratic process. The primary system placed a premium on organizing early, and in the Democratic Party, that often meant building a network of fundraising and connections. But Jimmy Carter wasn't the choice of the insiders, nor was Micheal Dukakis. Clinton was, but he prevailed, to no small extent, because he had found a way to connect with a committed core. The change in 2003 - the new politics itself - was simply that anyone with access to the internet could join a committed core and make a difference. Some candidates got it - some didn't. Some got it, and then forgot it.
http://www.bopnews.com/archives/000122.html#000122
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