In a post about Rall's endorsement Glenn Reynolds quotes the following email from a Dean supporter, extolling what the emailist thinks is just a reasonable and pragmatic political strategy.
I like Dean, but the posting of the Rall endorsement on Dean's blog is a definite negative to me. Still, I'm hesitant to say it means much about Dean's policies or even his basic sentiments (so I think your post takes a correct low-temperature approach to this). Purely tactically, in fact, I don't know that I'd call it negative. Deaniacs, bloggers, blog readers, and other political addicts are following the presidential race, but hardly anyone else is. So although Dean is old news to us in the addict camp and we're ready for him to start getting statesmanlike and reaching out to the moderate middle, in terms of his national campaign Dean is probably still in keep-the-base-fired-up mode. I doubt touting the Rall endorsement will hurt him with the mass of his current supporters. If I were Dean, even with my own moderate instincts and generally pro-war stance, I don't know that I'd take rejecting Ted Rall and all his works as a Sister Souljah moment. Doing a Sister Souljah moment now would just echo into the void.
Yes, probably so. But if so this suggests that the two-party system may finally be succumbing to the multi-dimensional political world rather than moderating its excesses. If we are really willing to give Dean a pass in order to accommodate his near-term political exigencies then what prevents a Napoleon from shape-shifting his way into office? If our short term memories have become so "Memento-like," that a candidate can openly rejoice at the endorsement of a half-literate unabashedly treasonous fellow like Rall, and not pay a political penalty a few months later, then why don't we all just drop acid and join Ram Dass in "being here now?" And why not just forget what happened in September, 2001, while we're at it? It's so 9/12.
Posted by Demosophist at November 24, 2003 11:01 AM | TrackBack