On a Thursday morning in July -- before heading to meet undecided voters in Keokuk County, Oskaloosa and Ottumwa -- Howard Dean joined his volunteers filling bags of groceries at the Johnson County Food Bank.
Nothing new here, you could say: Politician proves he's caring and compassionate by spending 10 minutes helping out in front of cameras and microphones at orphanage or soup kitchen before leaving for very private, no-press-allowed fund-raiser with distinguished citizens who seek only a minor change in the tax code that would exclude "those corporations founded in Delaware before January 31, 1975," or something similar.
What potentially makes this scene quite different is that the campaign volunteers, dubbed the Dean Corps, encouraged and inspired by Ross Wilburn, have made a commitment to return each and every week to the food bank.
Dean legitimately boasted that his local volunteers had brought 320 pounds of groceries, this week alone, to the food bank. The governor gives credit for the Dean Corps idea to "the young people." He sees it as a way to show that "campaigns are not just about votes, but, more importantly, are about people." http://edition.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/28/column.shields.opinion.dean/Back in the early/mid decades of the 20th Century -- a time when the Democractic Party was all but invincible in many of America's most populous urban areas -- working families, poor families, recent immigrant families, even middle-class families (especially those familiar with hard times, as so many were then,) knew what to do when the wolf showed up at the door:
Trot down to the neighborhood Democratic Party headquarters and tell your troubles to a local ward-heeler over a cup of coffee (or maybe something stronger.)
Within days, maybe hours, someone would stop by with the warm winter coats the children desperately needed, a box of food would show up on the doorstep, and maybe someone would phone up to let you know they were hiring down at the meat packing plant, and if you mentioned Mr. So-and-so's name, they'd see you got a few days' work, at least.
This was known as "machine politics" by the Goo-Goo GOPpies, and with hard work and plenty of bribes to the right media connections, this kind of political organizing tactic became inextricably linked with genuinely corrupt practices that undeniably occurred in many Democratic Machine cities. (Although the genuinely corrupt practices such as cronyism, bribery, nepotism, etc., weren't by any means limited to Democratic politicians and their handlers.)
This kind of practical, neighborly, give-a-friend-a-hand political organizing got a bad name and fell out of favor with a Democratic leadership eager to purge itself of real corruption and advance an agenda of openness, transparency, public access, fairness, etc.
Too bad, because it was the glue that held the Democratic juggernaut together. It was the real reason why the Democratic Party was "the Party of the people." The people knew damn' well what they needed, and it wasn't policy analysts making $100,000 a year developing economic strategies for Wall Street.
I haven't made up my mind yet about which of the current candidates would make the best President in '04. But I can tell you this--- if Howard Dean succeeds in reinventing the great Democratic Machine by putting Democratic Party politics back on the streets, back in the church basements, back in the free clinics, etc., it's going to be a tidal pull of massive power.
I think it might surprise hell out of some of the establishment pundits and the policy wonks.
It'll be fascinating to see if the Dean campaign recognizes this and pursues it as a real, conscious strategy. And if they do, what results.
prognosticatorially,
Bright
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