Got a pleasant surprise from Clark supporters yesterday...

[Larkspur]

I was helping the Dean campaign in Manchester, NH area from Sat - Tues. and was assigned to the Bedford, NH polling place on Primary Day.

While I was holding signs at Bedford with the local Dean supporters, the Clark supporters were next to us. They approached us and wanted to make an alliance with us.

As most of you know, I do not like Gen. Clark, but was open to why the Clark supporters wanted to make an alliance with us Dean supporters.

On Sunday or Monday when they had a Clark rally in Manchester. The Clark supporters said that the Dean and Edwards supporters, who were also there doing visibility also, were very nice and the Kucinich supporters were kooky but nice. It was the Kerry supporters who behaved like creeps and bullies.

The Kerry supporters arrived at the Clark event. They shoved, pushed, and elbowed the Women for Clark supporters, who where doing visibility, at the event. The Kerry supporters also tried to block the Clark signs by fronting the Clark supporters holding signs. The Kerry supporters were just plain rude, said the Clark supporters. The Clark supporter, who approached me yesterday morning to make the alliance, said that if Clark exits the race, he's joining Dean's campaign because he wants to keep opposing Kerry. This Clark supporter also said that the Kerry gang were passing out flyers in Manchester with Dean's, Clark's, and Kerry's pictures on it. The flyer was distorting Dean's and Clark's positions and praising Kerry's leadership. I never saw this flyer, but I had heard on TV the day before that Dean had forced the Kerry campaign in Michigan to withdraw a similar type of flyer being spread in Michigan.

If Kerry wins the nomination, he will have a hard time rallying activists, like the Clark supporters I met and me. I'll vote ABB, but I'm begining to despise Kerry more than ever before and have no ambition to give him my effort or dollars.

I hope that Dean's campaign, if it can't get Dean the nomination, can remain a movement to help keep pushing the Democratic Party back to the center and to keep challenging Bush and the Repukes. Maybe they can unite with MoveOn.org to form a powerful block within the Dem Party.

Kerry does not elicit the kind of enthusiasm or charisma that Dean does. He depends upon Party machine politics. Kerry is good at Dem machine politics, but it will be no match for Bush & Rove.

If Dean can keep his supporters together, Dean can be a powerful power broker at the national convention. Kerry can not defeat Bush with Dem Party machine politics alone. Dean can't do it with the grassroots campaign alone. It will take a marriage between Dean's grassroots and the Dem Party machine to defeat Bush.

We already have seen in Iowa that Dean has made an impact on this race. Kerry, Edwards, and Gephardt co-opted Dean's campaign language as well as they started standing up against Bush more forcefully. Kerry and Edwards and to some extent Clark still co-opt Dean's message. The problem with cooption, is that the coopters don't believe what they are stealing. Dean needs to keep them honest.

If Dean can keep getting delegates in every primary as well as maintain his awesome fundraising ability, the Boston convention could be a very interesting convention.

[oldshoe]

1. Unity

Let's not judge Kerry by his supporters' actions, especially on secondhand reports.

Kerry is my least favorite of the majors, but my complaints are not so great in comparison with W.

We have 4 good contenders, any of whom would do a much better job than Bush, and each of home has something about them I would like to see changed.

You never get everything you want from another person. We have to be good about keeping our criticism from becoming toxic, and accept a little chafe in the flour.

The goal is November, not each other.

I hope the primaries go on a while and hit a few more regions before it's settled so we see who plays well and where.

We can win this in November, if we stick together and argue as brothers, not adversaries.

[Larkspur]

2. I sense that Kerry doesn't want to be a brother

He was the annointed one after Gore bowed out.

I've never been impressed with him. I mean in all the years Kerry was in Congress, he never authored a single piece of legislation and most of his major votes were wrong.

Why should I be inspired by his lackluster and waffling credentials?