This week the TPM Bookclub is talking about The Legacy of the Dean Campaign, and two books, The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House, by Garrett Graff and Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope: Lessons from the Howard Dean Campaign for the Future of Internet Politics, edited by Zephyr Teachout and Thomas Streeter. I wrote one of the chapters for Mousepads and am participating in the discussion at TPM. Below is my first contribution to the discussion there.

Zephyr has written about the nature of power and language. Garrett has written about message and medium. I’d like to focus on another aspect of what happened. It’s all about change.

When you get right down to it, that is a fundamental aspect of any campaign. Do we stay with the status quo, or do we embrace change? Incumbents argue for the status quo, challengers argue for change. In a primary of different challengers, the question becomes who will be the most effective agent of change, and what will that change look like.

In some cases, we look at the rhetoric that the candidates offer. This one with change this, that one will change that. Yet, we should look deeper. What sort of change is the candidate bringing about in his or her campaign?

My experience of the Dean campaign was that everyone believed what Gov. Dean said when he told us volunteers, “The biggest lie people like me tell people like you, is that if you vote for me, I’ll solve all your problems. The truth is You Have The Power.”

That, for me, and for many of my friends, was a fundamental change that many of us were longing to hear. We have been seeking to return our government to be a government of the people, for the people, and by the people.

Unfortunately, many campaigns don’t seem to believe that campaigns should be by the people, and I have to wonder if the candidates, when they are elected would support a government by the people.

So, for me, a key aspect of the Dean campaign is what I like to call the invitation to innovate; the welcoming of new ideas by a campaign. The Dean campaign welcomed new ideas. We tried to be welcoming of new ideas in the Lamont campaign. Garrett was right to talk about the importance of listening, but this goes beyond the typical listening tour that candidates like to engage in, it takes the listening to the very core of the campaign.

As I look at the 2008 campaigns, it seems like people have taken ideas that volunteers came up with in 2004 and have tried to find ways to incorporate them into the structure of the 2008 campaigns. Yet they have done this in a way that misses what was really important, the invitation to innovate; the welcoming of new ideas and new energy into the campaigns.

Will any of the campaigns in 2008 or 2012 show the sort of bold courageous leadership necessary to have a campaign that is of, by and for the people? Will any of the candidates show an interest in real change in how our country is run, and not simply the change between two different flavors for the same thing, like Coke and Pepsi? I hope so. Otherwise, the legacy of the Dean campaign might get lost.