In my absence from blogging, I pretty much missed the 2008 US election campaign except for a couple of posts in January (and a couple on the Exvisu blog: [1], [2]). That’s not to say that I haven’t been following the campaign very closely, however.
Of the hundred interesting stories and analyses of Obama’s stunning victory last night, though, there’s one in particular that seems to have been underplayed: the role that Howard Dean has played in the Democratic resurgence.
Obama is a unique leader, but so was (and is) Howard Dean, and well beyond their formal political relationship (Dean is the chairman of the DNC), there is clearly a sympatico between the two and their basic approach to politics and their vision of how not just to win elections, but to address a much wider public than many Democrats have attempted to address.
Rayna says
I totally agree. Howard Dean was the innovator of using the internet to push his campaign and Obama just took it one step farther mostly by actually winning.