In Black and White Day 3: The Memory of Martin Luther King Jr

The Building of a Movement: 2004, 2006, 2008

The world doesn’t seem much different than when this video came out in 2004. That’s when Dean still had promise, Kerry was looking tired and in need of another round of Botox, and some couch-potato Democrats were just starting to get tired of the Iraq war. There were signs though that something was happening and the youth movement (those 18 to 30) in this country was building.

The video director, Ian Inaba, has a great explanation of the impact this video had when it was released. While the video didn’t unleash the flood of youth votes critics would have required before making this a news story, a 9% increase is a nice amount.

Now in 2008 we have another movement, or more correctly, a continuation of the original Dean movement, except this time there’s no scream to stop it in it’s tracks. And this is what is frustrating Republicans. After nearly a decade of failed policy advocated by their party, (I’d like to actually include the Clinton post-1993 term in that as well), people are tired, but they also realize that they have a voice, that one vote does matter when added to enough other votes.