  Tell me oh older disaffected ones: is this the road to jaded? Is this the first step on whatever road you took that made you drop your values, your ideology? Is this the road littered with VW vans, MIA bracelets, and CCR records? Did you, too, one day believe so strongly in a political candidate, someone you felt sure was the one glimmer of good in a world of black hats, only to have your heart crushed when the forces that be denied that candidates entry to power?
Now you shake your head at the foolish youth of we who believe, knowing we too will feel the pain, and lose belief. I, like so many young educated liberals, became involved enough in politics this past year to actually donate to a campaign, big shock: Dean's. In my short, financially productive years, I've given money to many charities: Green Peace, Doctors without Borders, UNICEF, the church, etc. But never before did I feel a political candidate was as interested in or capable of changing the world as one of these organizations, until Dean. Now, the almighty primary system has shown me the folly of my ways. Midwestern primary voters aren't interested in enacting progress or changing the world.
They want the stay the course, continue the status quo candidate of Kerry. I hate Kerry. He'll continue every policy and program Bush has, only he'll put the Democratic name to it. At least if Bush remains president for a few more years, all this shit raining down will still just be Republican when my kids read about it in their someday History books. I'm a good southwestern girl with strong liberal roots. My mom's a Methodist pastor, and my dad just retired as the United Transportation Union regional chairman.
I work with non-profit grassroots agencies to build sustainable living options and improve the quality of living for inner-city youth. It doesn't get much more child of the left than that. Two years ago, I heard Howard Dean speak for the first time. My husband and I said to any friend or family member who would listen: that's the man to beat George Bush. This year, at a Dean event here in Houston, a reporter from Florida came up to John to get his take (20-something white man holding a baby being the standard for such quotes, right?). When he asked John's employer and John answered he was a NASA engineer, I could see the reporter salivate at the paragraph that would lead. This reporter asked John why he was there supporting Dean and John answered that aside from Dean's policy plans, the main thing was that Howard Dean is the best man to beat George Bush.
The man did a double take: what? He actually said, "but that's what people say is wrong with him. " And John said they're wrong, then. We need a true alternative here. The man sunk. Visibly wilted. Needless to say, John's quotes never made a newspaper printing. Even then, no one really believed in Howard Dean. Maybe Americans, even liberal ones, are afraid of change, afraid of the slimmer regions of the bell curve.
I think modern America wouldn't even have voted for Kennedy. The only ones who can make these decisions, like which candidate should get the Democratic party's nomination, are very comfortable in their lives with big houses, big cars, big dogs. Change would only make them feel uncomfortable. That's why we call it the powers that be , instead of the powers that could be . The idealistic youth should be called the powers that will never be . These would be the powers that believe in peaceful international solutions, believe in ending world hunger, believe in true equality regardless of age, race, religion, or sexual orientation. Would be. Blissful thought. Won't be now. The big farce is that the Bush makers have fooled everyone into thinking he's somewhere in the middle too, when he's really a pretty freakish right-wing wacko. He's enacting plenty of changes, and they're all evil bad ones. But I don't want to think about that, because I hate politics now.
Politics suck. But still, considering how open and available to the public (through the internet) Dean made himself throughout his campaign, wouldn't it have been great to have had a president who was open and in touch with the country he headed? There I go again with the woulds. Wouldn't it. My efforts for the Dean campaign were wasted because, simply by taking a stand on anything, he was doomed from the start. Poor Dean, he believed most of all. Maybe it's better that the system crushed him now rather than some uncertain future where the power corrupts him instead. 
