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I need to say this first. I am a Clark supporter but I will vote for whomever my party nominates to run against Bush.
I talk to a good number of people about our upcomming choice for President. The talks I have with people tell me that support for Bush is not so deep as the polls show, that there is a lot more dissatisfaction than the news media seem to be aware of. What I have not seen, and this bothers me a bit, are very many people who have a clue who the competition might be. What is conspiciously absent is anyone showing actual support for any potential Democratic Candidate. Despite his supposed support I have yet to run across a single person who has said something like 'Dean is my guy' or 'thank goodness for Dean'. Not a word that is even similar. So while I appreciate the strong showing of support he gets here I think its a pretty shallow base of support. I also tend to think that national polls that rely on data collected in early primary states is basically meaningless too. Those states are in the process of being saturated with possible candidate's names, so they tend to recognize them all, whereas states where the vote won't be cast until late winter or early spring couldn't name you 5 of the candidates if their lives depended on it and on top of that couldn't correctly spell 3 of the 5 names.
So, while I hope Dean supporters well, and I may end up in the line myself even though I think Clark a better choice, it seems to me that a lot more needs to be done to get some name recognition out there for our guys (and gal). This is not something that requires big money from well financed candidates, its something that every one of us concerned Democrats (and God Damned proud to be one too) can do at no cost at all to any potential candidate or party. Get out there and talk your guy up. Its easy, and can be fun too.
Thom
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