Howard Dean and His fellow Americans

[T_i_B]

Interesting article about the people that Howard Dean is bringing into politics.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=476725

A few months ago, Kimmy Cash was just another disaffected 28-year-old California punk with a pierced nose looking for a cause to believe in. Then she stumbled on Howard Dean, the man who would be George W Bush's Democratic challenger in next November's presidential election, and her life changed in dramatic and unexpected ways. She has turned into the queen of her own pet enterprise, which is to politicise America's two million punks and get them interested in electoral politics for the first time in their lives.

Another presidential campaign might have insisted that she subject her ideas to committee approval. Another campaign might have got nervous about having a punk fan club at all. But the Dean people, with their radical new approach to grassroots organizing, told her to go right ahead, no questions asked, and the results have been little short of extraordinary.

Her website, www.punxfor dean.org, is receiving thousands of hits each day. In less than three months, she has signed up a staggering 13,000 volunteers to hand out literature at punk clubs and concert venues across all 50 states. She is organizing a nationwide series of concerts, the first rule of which is that every attendee must be registered to vote. (The registration forms will be on hand at the door.) Next month, her site is putting out a CD of underground punk bands named after the Dean slogan "Taking Back America". By now, interest has grown so high from other youth groups that Cash is thinking of starting up new websites catering to hip-hoppers for Dean and skaters for Dean.

"Nobody's ever tapped into this demographic, and it kicks ass," she says on the phone from Arizona, where she is setting up new chapters of her organization. The way she sees it, she's helping to effect a seismic shift in the way American politics operates by energising the half of the electorate that never usually votes. As she writes on her website: "We have preached 'fuck the system' long enough. Now, it's time to change it." Given that the margin between Al Gore and George Bush in several states in 2000 came down to just a few hundred votes - in Oregon, New Mexico, New Hampshire as well as Florida - the punk factor could turn out to be no trivial matter. "We are more powerful than people might like to think," she says.

http://www.punxfordean.org/

[vi5]

1. Neither for nor against Dean, but Clinton did this....

I was and continue to be involved in the punk scene and Clinton energized a ton of younger voters, and there were so many musicians who supported Clinton and campaigned for him and got young voters out there for him.

So it's definitely not a bad thing that Dean is getting these people motivated, but it's also not particularly new. I'm glad to see this since I think one of the problems was that the arts community, both artists, as well as patrons, and fans were lackluster in their support of Gore compared to how they were for Clinton.

So if we're getting these people back then that is a good thing.

[T_i_B]

5. Why not Gore?

Well during the 2000 election a lot of US bands, when asked about it in the music press (UK publications such as NME and Kerrang) had reservations about Gore's stance on censorship. He was seen as being a bit too pro-censorship for some.

[vi5]

9. I would say that is a large part of the reason...

Plus, I know I'll get grief for this but Gore lacked the charisma to appeal to a lot of rock musicians and rock fans as well.

Clinton acted like a rock star and rock stars and rock fans responded to that. Al Gore acted more like the understanding father who took his 13 year old kid to a rock concert and looked awkward slightly swaying to the music.

It sucks that this is the way it was and was so superficial but I really think this was true.

[demothinker]

14. Oh, absolutely!

Gore was a career politician and came across as one. That's neither good nor bad in and of itself-I'm sure that appealed to a lot of more "conservative" (in attitude, not politics) voters. And also, a lot of us were still upset over Tipper Gore's involvement in the PMRC in the 80's.

Gore was many positive things, but dynamic and inspiring in demeanor or message to the young he wasn't.

On edit: Corrected spelling mistakes.

[Padraig18]

2. I've been to the site!

And I've registered several punks myself (and some ravers and goths). :)

[HFishbine]

3. Punks and ravers and goths, oh my!

This could get interesting.

[Padraig18]

6. Hehe!

I'm going to be watching the election judges' faces in March very closely; wish I could bring a camera to record the blue-haired ladies' looks when the first two or three come in to vote. :P

[HFishbine]

10. They'll ask two questions:

1) What party?
2) Didn't that hurt?

[Padraig18]

12. LOL!

How about "Honey, the color in your mohawk clashes with your eyes"? :P

[HFishbine]

13. Good one. How about...

"How did you get that shade of blue? It's just what I've been looking for."

[Padraig18]

17. *grin*

Yeah, I can see that happening. Also, "Would you like some cookies or a donut? You look like you're not eating enough." (They're ALL grandmothers here). :)

[KittyWampus]

4. Sounds Like Kimmy Cash Is More Interested In Her Own Personal Gain

and is simply using Dean and politics as her hook.

By the way, I'm not talking about money...

[Padraig18]

7. So?

It gets votes for the Democrats, doesn't it?:shrug:

[meow mix]

11. if any actually show up to vote

then ill be amazed!

all i know is.. (at least around the hollywood/la scene)
rivet-heads like clark - and are not likely to be impressed
with some lame website.

[LuminousX]

15. Prepare to be impressed than

will your rivet-heads show up to vote for Clark?

[exclark4dean]

19. That's funny

The anarchist punks and wannabes being attracted to a career military man.

You are kidding, no ?

[Rose Siding]

8. This would be your impression

if she were supporting a different candidate?

Ironically, your New Years pic and sig line encourage me to be *less* cynical. Good choices.

[demothinker]

16. hmmm...

I don't usually go so far as to tattoo myself for "personal gain", but maybe that's just me...

As far as that being her "hook", perhaps, but it's telling that he inspired her enough for her to choose him as it, and it certainly seems that she's doing a very effective job of getting out the message and mobilizing previously disaffected voters regardless.

[T_i_B]

18. Here is an interesting bit from the article

Usually, people aspiring to become president decide first that they are going to run, and settle only afterwards on a campaign platform. In other words, it is a top-down operation, staffed by professional political operatives and funded by special-interest lobbyists hoping to incorporate their own agenda into the candidate's. Dean has turned that logic on its head, putting himself at the service of the agenda, not the other way around. He started out identifying his constituency and then staked his claim to high public office by articulating its concerns and aspirations in ways not reflected either in Washington or in the mainstream news media. He assembled all the broken shards of discontent that people were feeling about a seemingly popular President and fashioned them back into a coherent whole. Because he believed in what he was saying and was not acting as a front for other interests, the sincerity of his delivery leapt out at people and accounts for much of his appeal.

What he picked up on was people's helpless sense of anger: anger about the overweening power of corporations; anger about job losses and overseas factory relocations; anger about the loosening of environmental regulations; anger about the looting of company pension funds; anger about tax cuts that seemed to benefit only the rich; anger about the White House's failure to bail out cash-strapped states and prevent cuts in hospitals and other basic services; anger about the hit-and-miss approach to public safety in the wake of September 11; anger about the way the Bush administration has wrapped itself in the mantle of patriotism and exploited the fear of ordinary Americans to justify an assault on civil liberties; and, perhaps most importantly, anger at the lies and phoney intelligence used to justify the war on Iraq.

The internet was the obvious place to bring together all of these elements. First, because that was where they were already being discussed, in the absence of adequate coverage in the mainstream media. And, secondly, because that was where several precursors to the Dean candidacy had taken up residence to organize and develop their own overlapping sense of community