[wordup] Dan Gilmore on Gore's Endorsement of Howard Dean.

[Adam Shand]

From:  
http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/ 
001569.shtml#001569

December 08, 2003
The Congruity of Gore's Dean Endorsement
Posted by Dan Gillmor 08:11 PM

In retrospect, Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean for president seems  
almost inevitable.

Re-read Gore's major public addresses from the past year or so  
(examples here, here, here). In each of those speeches, Gore expressed  
some of the same fundamental outrage at the Bush record that has driven  
so many people around America into Dean's camp.

Then remember a key piece of Gore's record. More than any elected  
official I can name during the past 15 years, he grasped the potential  
of the Internet and did his best to help bring it to the masses. Again,  
a natural fit with the candidate who -- thanks to prescient aides who  
saw the power coming from the edges of the networks -- melded the Net  
with a more traditional campaign.

Plainly, the endorsement is a pivot point in the 2004 presidential  
campaign. It's a huge step toward the Democratic nomination for the  
formerly "can't-win" outsider who's gaining major credibility among  
mainstream Democrats, as Josh Marshallexplains. (Ardent Dean-folk would  
be wise to heed Marshall's implicit reproof, by the way, when he  
rightly notes: "It's difficult to write anything about Howard Dean  
without Dean's fans thinking you're bashing him -- except, of course,  
if you're adoring him or cheering him on.")

Gore is no longer an establishment Democrat. His speeches make that  
clear. He's not siding anymore with the congressional Democrats  
(including candidates Kerry, Lieberman, Edwards and Gephardt) who have  
abandoned so many principles during the Bush years. They've  
collectively allowed the Republican Party to ram an assortment of  
radical policies down America's throat, including a contempt for civil  
liberties. They've collaborated on what will eventually be understood  
as the most reckless fiscal meltdown in history. About the only thing  
they've done as a party … and this has been useful … is to prevent  
confirmation of some extreme right-wingers as federal appeals judges.

No, Gore is siding with the people who are fed up with the foulness of  
politics-as-usual -- some of which Gore, to his discredit, helped  
foster during his stints in high public office -- not just an  
administration they want to replace. They've created Dean's powerful  
surge as much any thing he's done.

Joe Trippi, Dean's Silicon Valley-connected campaign manager, and his  
Net-adept staff have done more than tap the anger among so many  
Democrats. They've tapped -- but crucially not tried to control -- the  
growing ability of people at the edges to express themselves,  
collaborate and ultimately help drive a larger movement.

I remember talking to Gore about the Internet in 1991, when he was a  
U.S. senator. He knew a lot more about it than I did, though I think he  
saw it as much as a giant library as anything else. Most people did.  
The potential of the read-write Web, where we could have our say and  
organize ourselves as well as look at other people's material, was  
still years away.

Gore didn't get it in 2000, that's for sure. Since then he's joined the  
board of directors at Apple Computer, which is threading the Net into  
everything it makes. More important, note who helped put together --  
and promoted -- several of his recent speeches: MoveOn.org and its  
largely decentralized membership. Surely that was enlightening to Gore,  
who is too smart not to have seen the dynamism inherent in the  
multi-dimensional Net.

Dean's people have taken the notion much further. But you can see the  
growing affinity, of substance and style, between the 2000 Democratic  
nominee and the man he wants to be running against Bush in 2004.

As far as I can tell, Gore only alluded in his short endorsement speech  
to Dean's use of online methods to fuel real-world political fervor.  
But in mentioning Dean's ability to inspire ""enthusiasm at the  
grassroots,'' Gore was noting this campaign's signal achievement so  
far: nurturing a 21st century grassroots activism and maybe, for the  
first time in a long while, a genuine conversation among Americans and  
the people who would lead us.

I hope in coming months Gore will push Dean hard to say how he'll  
protect the Internet, the network of networks that Gore was so  
instrumental in making part of our lives. The forces of central control  
… including a copyright cartel that in recent times has just about  
owned the Washington establishment, particularly Democrats … fear the  
Internet's liberty-creating aspects and are doing their best to bring  
it to heel. (I also hope Gore will get Dean to back off on his sudden,  
dismaying conversion to trade protectionism and other policies that  
contradict his previous stands in ways that smell of sheer pandering.)

Some of the post-endorsement commentary had Gore playing Machiavelli  
(examples here, here) in Tuesday's endorsement: arranging chess pieces  
for the 2008 presidential race, assuming a Dean defeat next year. I  
hope that's wrong -- that the former vice president is truly going with  
his gut and intellect to back a candidate who is trying something  
genuinely different.

Blending online and offline, Dean is bringing people into politics,  
many for the first time and others who had given up, in a way that  
could truly be the beginning of something new in American  
self-governance. I hope Gore sees the possibilities, and wants to help  
make them permanent.