Pushing Dean Out And Ending 50 State Strategy Was A BIG Mistake For Democrats.

[TheMastersNemesis]

It is too bad that Obama took Rahm's advice and pushed Dean out. It was the end of the 50 state strategy pushed by Dr. Howard Dean. And it was I think Obama won. By forcing the PUKES to at least defend in every state it weakened them. What probably cost the Dems in 2010 was not having a 50 state strategy. By conceding certain ground the PUKES were able to use the money from "safe" areas and put it in other places to counter the Dems.

The other problem was allowing the GOP to misrepresent the "fictional" cuts in Medicare. By allowing them that narrative seniors freaked. Obama and the Dems were not particularly strong with seniors anyway. A lot of seniors are so racist they would not take water from a minority if at the risk of their life.

The 50 state strategy was really a brilliant idea. And you will never make inroads into red areas as long as you concede them without any kind of resistance or competition. From my point of view waiting for demographics is problematic. By the time demographics matters the GOP can solidify a lot of its positions. They can screw up the vote enough to delay things considerably.

[Doctor_J]

1. bad for the rank and file. great for the dc dems

Sucking up to the Koch brothers is much more lucrative than battling for poor, immigrants, teachers and so forth.

Rec

[Scuba]

29. Bingo!

[rhett o rick]

32. This is a very important point. While the rank and file still stand for Democratic Values

the "DC Dems" don't. They have sold out. Obama used Dean and the Left to win the presidency, then threw them aside. Why so brutally you ask? Because he wanted the Center-Right to see him trash the Left. He represents the Center-Right and his appointments prove it. I saw it at Rick Warren. Obama couldn't wait until after his inauguration, he wanted to slap the Left in the face as soon as possible. Then came Rahmbo, and the rest is history. The DC DEms are Center-Right Conservatives.

[wavesofeuphoria]

38. Nice post.

[rhett o rick]

40. Thanks. GOTV

[reimaginethis]

47. Agree completely, rhett o rick

The Obama administration is in many ways simply the 90s DLC reborn.

[arcane1]

53. Word n/t

[Enthusiast]

63. Rahm = genuine POS.

[Bohunk68]

69. Absolutely positively

NO SPINE and that is true for the whole DC Dems. Just take that cash from the PTB.

[Jerry442]

74. Back then I thought Warren was just a mistake. Nope. :( NT

[ReRe]

91. And what happened, when PO made those...

... decisions at the beginning of his time in the WH? How's that going for him, the "trash the left and pander to the right" strategy? Don't answer, I know you and all of us know.

[SomeGuyInEagan]

48. Ding, Ding, Ding!! You are correct. N/T

[davidn3600]

2. Yeah but how liberal were those Democrats in red states?

Most of them were blue dogs.

Look how hard it was to get ACA passed. Democrats were not able to get much done as a party because of them. You can't get blue progressives elected in conservative red populations and hold the seats for more than 1 election.

[TheMastersNemesis]

3. Unfortunately You Make A Good Point.

That fact was a problem. The real problem is in the poor slobs who vote for politicians who are raping them economically. My take is that they are so blinded by racism they refuse to look at reality.

[Warpy]

4. The worst Democrat is usually better than the best Republican

but you're right, it gave us such dead weight as Max Baucus and most of them were voted out pretty quickly, probably because Dr. Dean was replaced with the DLC business as usual people.

[PassingFair]

24. Max Baucus had been in the senate since 1978

50 State Strategy still beats
Corporate Whore Strategy.

[Warpy]

31. True, but his ridiculous conservatism did him in after the ACA fight

because people would rather vote for a real Republican fetus fetishist than a pallid imitation with a "D" in back of his name. IOW, after he came out as antichoice, he wasn't able to fool the folks back home any longer.

And I agree, the DLC are fools. At least with the 50 state strategy, good Democrats had a chance of winning. Concentrating all the money into safe districts makes sure that only safe Democrats will win screws us all now and in the future.

[cascadiance]

61. And Rahmbo putting all the DCCC's money in to DLC candidates instead of progressive candidates

is what set us up for the fall in 2010 when most of those Dems voted out where the blue dog bums he helped to put in office earlier instead of real Democrats, which helped depress the vote and GOTV efforts in those areas where they lost most of the seats then.

[Enthusiast]

64. Well said, Warpy.

[SharonAnn]

51. Any Democrat adds =1 to headcount which determines the majority (which sets the agenda)

So, even if they were much more conservative than I would like, at least Nancy Pelose set the agenda instead of John Boehner.

[BuelahWitch]

11. Blue dog is better than a Tea Party Crackpot

Which is what replaced our rep in Congress.

[quakerboy]

39. Have they been able to get more done, as a party

in the interim?

I think you can elect a blue progressive in a purple mixed district.

But even if you can only get blue dogs in middle/red districts, if you can elect 200 party stalwarts, and 100 blue dogs, you will likely be able to cobble together enough votes to make progress in most instances. If you have 200 Alan Graysons, and the rest of the house are Michelle Bachmans, you will not get anything useful passed.

[Wella]

88. Yes, but it got done--and ALL with Democrats

Not a single Republican vote. So even the Blue Dogs have their uses. Better a Blue dog than a Republican.

[wyldwolf]

5. Always an interesting topic

1. Democrats, and politicos in general, have known for two decades that demographics would break our way.

The book 'The Emerging Democratic Majority' predicted it for the the mid 2000s.

2. Democratic wins in red states in 2006 - 2008 could much more easily be credited to the American public growing weary of conservative rule and the amount of low hanging fruit in conservative districts.

3. Sinking money in non-winnable races and witholding it from winnable races in 2006 was a fool's gambit.

4. The 50 State strategy should have exclusively concentrated on getting Democrats elected to lower offices and rebuilding state parties. That's how Republicans seemingly came out of nowhere in the 80s. They had great farm teams and a deep bench. To that end, and only that end, I'd be in complete agreement in bringing the strategy back.

5. I've yet to see any in-depth study on the effects of the 50 State Strategy. Eight years later, it's all still still little more than anecdotal. Several threads on DU in 2006-2007 tried to gather some stats but didn't get much.

[Recursion]

13. #4 was how Dean articulated and executed it

It's still operative, too, AFAIK.

[Bandit]

18. I seem to recall A HUGE Democratic Sweep in 2006

And again in 2008, but then what did they do with their HUGE Majorities?

[tabbycat31]

33. #4

What many in politics don't understand is that there's a farm system (very similar to professional baseball). In baseball you have several different minor leagues where everyone's goal is a call up to the majors. Some will be called up and do well, some will suffer career ending injuries in the minors, some won't make it. There's 6 classes in professional baseball ranging from A ball rookie to the big leagues. I look at politics in the same way. Some teams do better with their farm system than others do. As I stated in another thread, the GOP has done much better at recruiting candidates born after 1960 than the Democrats do (most of the GOP 2016 frontrunners were born after 1960). The Democratic frontrunner was born in 1947 and the other challengers mentioned most on DU were also born in the 40s.

A ball rookie-- school board, precinct level elected positions
Class A short season-- Local council members
Class A long season-- mayors*, county board positions
AA-- County executive positions, sheriffs, etc
AAA-- State Senators, State House members (different terms depending on the state)
MLB-- Federal office (congress, senate), statewide office

I'm using a very general system as how many local elected positions there are depends on the locality and state. That goes with statewide ones too. But it's a good picture of where to start. Is it possible for someone to come out of nowhere and advance in politics? Sure. It depends a lot on the political environment and who that person is. (Might be easier for say Bruce Springsteen to run for a statewide office in NJ than Joe Blow Random Dude). But in general if we want to win races, we as Democrats need to focus on the A ball teams and AA teams before looking at the statehouses and their gerrymandered districts (yes the GOP did gerrymander the shit out of the country in 2010). County and city lines are not gerrymandered. We need to develop a pipeline of progressive candidates with a good track record at winning and succeeding in local offices. By winning these non gerrymandered races, we can show independent voters that we can win.

*Mayors depends a good deal on the size of the municipality he/she is mayor of. A mayor of a big city has a lot more chance at reaching the big leagues from that position than one of a small town.

[davidpdx]

94. #4 absolutely

It is important to emphasize recruiting candidates for the lower statewide offices and to make sure we always have good talent coming up through the ranks for the higher state and federal offices. I personally think Oregon does that quite well (granted we are a blue state and have been for a long time).

[wyldwolf]

95. Lower than statewide even

City council races, municipal judges. Hell, draft them out of high school and college debate team.

[davidpdx]

96. Yeah, very true

If someone has the skills and can show they can win.

I'd say in 2018 we have a good handful of people who will run for governor when Kitzhaber retires.

[Deny and Shred]

6. Maybe that was the plan

Dean went out on a limb toward populism. The party responded.

[djean111]

10. That is my thought, exactly.

[MsLeopard]

27. Agree

We could not get screwed as much as we do by the Dem party unless it was planned.

[Scuba]

30. "We could not get screwed as much as we do by the Dem party unless it was planned." Yep.

[Nay]

50. That's always been my suspicion. TPTB didn't want to have to deal with real

populism because it would cut off their access to big money from all those big shots we've come to despise.

[Zorra]

58. +1 nt

[WillyT]

7. K & R !!!

[jwirr]

8. Absolutely.

[polichick]

9. Getting rid of Dean was bad for Dem voters, but crucial for the Dem corporate party.

[BuelahWitch]

12. Sadly, you are likely correct. n/t

[peacebird]

23. Yes, you are right.

[Recursion]

14. Umm... the 50 state strategy was never ended

It means the DNC funds every state party now to have permanent staff.

[rhett o rick]

41. Why do you think Obama dumped Dean so ungraciously? nm

[Recursion]

42. I thought Dean quit because he was mad he wasn't appointed HHS secretary

Beltway gossip is difficult to untangle sometimes.

[rhett o rick]

55. Yeah that's the ticket. And Pres Obama was sad he left and appointed him ....

wait what? Nice try.

[Recursion]

56. "Nice try" what?

The only people who have talked about this are "anonymous Dean supporters" who say he was pushed out.

[rhett o rick]

57. Yeah and the Obama supporters are saying what? That Rahm really did like Dean.

Dean was way to far left for Rahm, Obama and Penny Pritzker.

[Enthusiast]

65. +1 an entire shit load.

[cali]

75. No. He was pushed out. There's plenty of documentation from the time.

I seriously doubt that he had any hopes at all about being named anything in the new administration. He wasn't their guy- and he knew that.

[eridani]

68. The funding has been cut, though

WA State staff has been cut by a third, including a good tech person.

[Qutzupalotl]

15. We need to contest every race, everywhere.

I can't believe we are letting some Republicans go unopposed. At the very least, they might implode in a scandal, and then where are we?

A coherent, consistent message in all 50 states, even without party money, at least lets us define ourselves instead of letting our opponents do it for us.

[AndyTiedye]

16. No Way We Can Do a 50-State Strategy post-Citizens United

The Rapeuglicans now have access to vastly more money than we do and they always will.
The Supreme Court has made sure of that.
If we try to spread our limited resources over all 50 states under these conditions, we'll lose big.
THEY can afford a 50-state strategy, we cannot.

[tabbycat31]

34. I agree with that

Federal and statewide races are expensive and there's limited resources.

However, that does not mean that the county Democratic party can't be a super strong one. Money needs to be invested in local races that way when the open seats pop up, we have a good pipeline of candidates.

[Recursion]

43. But we're outspending the GOP this cycle. By quite a bit.

http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/publications/Election_Spending_2014_0.pdf

And our candidate-specific PACs (something only allowed by Citizens United) are a large part of our margin.

[AndyTiedye]

86. Those Figures Only Count REPORTED Spending

From the article you linked to:

Dark money strongly favors Republicans. Overall, 80 percent of pro-Republican nonparty expenditures came
from dark money groups, compared to 32 percent of outside spending favoring Democrats.18 In addition,
unreported spending — where the leaders are conservative groups like Americans for Prosperity and
Crossroads — leans Republican, meaning the 80 percent figure underestimates the true extent of dark money
supporting GOP candidates.

[HereSince1628]

76. So, if R's have more money and always will, the solution can't lie in just money.

IF that's really true, and I'm not certain it is (-always- is a LONG time) then Dems should never rely on money to produce a win.

How do the d's ever get an amount of money large enough to win anywhere?

If r's can outspend d's in 50 states, the r's can surely outspend the d's in any limited number less than 50 states that the dems choose to focus on. All they have to do is shift their focus to those races as well

You can't ever beat vastly more money with vastly less money.

Clearly the logic of the DNC for concentrating on a few races is actually based on the difference in spending NOT being so vast.

It actually seems to rest on the notion that D's can spend enough of a share of aggregated resources in a few races and to tip the vote toward a dem candidate.

But, that notion hangs critically on having ENOUGH money to win.

What is enough? Well, that's going to vary. And it seems to depend on the balance of party/candidate preference among the electors/voters.

And here is the place where I suspect belief in pragmatic use of money must face the reality of the fundamental importance of populism to democracy: People will likely have a stronger preference and desire to vote for the party/candidate offered to them if the party/candidate represents what the people want, iow, how popular the party's/candidate's agenda appears.


It seems to me that -the party of the people- needs to do a few things.

1) promote populist messages/agendas,

2) whose resonance with majority support gives populist d's a numerical electoral advantage that

3A) doesn't require as much money to market and

3B) requires the r's to spend "vastly" more money

4) on media aimed at overcoming/dissauading people from the appeal of popular ideas that the people actually prefer.


Of course, that idea depends on a couple of things.

The first step is easy...politicians figuring out and appealing to what's popular among at least hundreds of thousands of people, rather than merely agreeing to do address the wish list of a few score of large campaign donors

The second step is hard. It requires a change in politics as usual. Politicians have to shift from accumulating piles of money from a small cadre of the wealthy and quit treating campaign promises as empty vessels. They actually have to come to campaigns with a history or appeal that convinces voters they will follow through on campaign promises and govern to achieve what's is simultaneously popular and in the interest of all the people.


I rather suspect that is the sentiment that swept Obama into office, and just what is so appealing to so many about Elizabeth Warren.

[KittyWampus]

17. This thread= perfect example of posters not knowing wtf they are talking about

and LITERALLY making stuff up to fit their fantasy world.

Edit- the people recommending this thread and agreeing with the OP's premise should be ashamed at such gross ignorance.

http://www.democrats.org/about/fifty_state_strategy

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/democrats-bank-on-local-strategy-to-help-in-red-states/

[Fuddnik]

22. ???

[alp227]

25. So? Does the party even publicize the strategy in more recent times than 2010? nt

[Recursion]

37. Does advertising an internal resource allocation strategy get votes?

Maybe they should, I guess, but that seems really inside-baseball when you think about most voters' concerns.

[Recursion]

35. DU has a very strange idea about what the "50 state strategy" is. Thank you.

I'm particularly galled at the persistent (and perplexing) claim that the strategy has been given up on...

[charliea]

19. Well Conspiracy theorists agree...

If Rahm (I call myself a Democrat) Emmanuel really was the cause of killing the 50 state strategy then maybe he's a mole from the money that really runs our two party system. His disdain of teachers and unions, pushing charter schools to the detriment of a public education system, sure doesn't look like a Democratic stance to me. Maybe he's why Arne Duncan is the Education Secretary.
It's my opinion that the Democratic party, as the supposed party of the people, shouldn't abandon anyone, anywhere. That's why I liked the 50 state strategy, decades ago when I played basketball I thought a full court press was the epitome of serious ball, why let the other team have any breathing room? Even if it is more work.
I'd never considered the long term effects of building the bench everywhere that another commenter mentioned but that's a great reason for putting the policy into effect for the next 6 or 7 elections at least. Otherwise it looks like the Democratic plan is to win enough seats to appear as the opposition and maybe win an occasional Presidency with someone who would have appeared as a Republican a decade or two earlier just to slow the slide into a militaristic oligarchy.
Damn it must be one of my pessimistic days

[NanceGreggs]

59. When it comes to CT theories ...

... this is an award-winner. T

BTW, the basketball anecdote was absolute perfection.

[truebluegreen]

70. I understand your pessimism, but welcome to DU anyway.

[samsingh]

20. this is where i find President Obama difficult to understand

i understand the gop fanatical racist opposition, but even where he could bring people in and stand up for some that were mistreated like Dean he is eerily silent.

[Jamastiene]

21. I liked the 50 state strategy.

I just did not like how it was implemented in some ways. It would be nice to see the national party be able to help the local Democratic Party in each state, though.

[Recursion]

44. Well, good news! They still do.

The DNC still funds all the state parties to make them able to hire permanent staff.

[SoapBox]

26. K & R

[eissa]

28. Not only did his ouster from the DNC surprise me

but not making him Secretary of Health and Human Services really disappointed me. He seemed like a shoe-in for that position.

[frazzled]

36. What a crock

And an old crock at that. DNC chairs don't serve more than four years. Most serve only two. And who said "Rahm" (the generic bogey man) told Obama to get rid of Dean? Presidents always choose the DNC chair when they come to office. Dean had done his service. This is 6 years old. Give it up.

Obama did not win because of Howard Dean, either. He won because he had the most forward-looking, super-organized campaign organization anyone had ever seen, which operated in a long, protracted primary that took in nearly every state in the nation and attracted tens of thousands of on-the-ground volunteers, many from new demographics who had never been involved in politics before. And he pioneered new Internet campaigning and fundraising techniques.

[whathehell]

45. Dean was the first candidate to raise big money on the internet, not Obama.

[frazzled]

52. True, but not as big, and not the on-the-ground organizational capacity

I've worked a lot of campaigns, and this one was really organized in terms of focus and training.

[whathehell]

73. Fine -- Obama's team had four years to improve upon what Dean started.

[davidpdx]

93. I always give credit where credit is due in terms of Dean's pioneering the online campaigning

Obama's campaign was able to pick up where he left off and make improvements, absolutely. It also is worthy to note how poorly Clinton's campaign did in that area as they committed to a mostly conventional campaign.

[Cali_Democrat]

60. I'm sorry, but Obama's machine blew Dean's out of the water

Not even close.

[whathehell]

71. Don't be, as my statement still stands. Dean was the first to blow everyone "out of the water"

in 2004 -- The Obama team noticed.

[frazzled]

77. He blew one small state out of the water: his own

If you recall, Dean won only one primary state: the teeny tiny one of Vermont, of which he had served as governor. Overall, he garnered only 5% of the primary votes that year. That's not "blowing everyone out of the water."

It takes more than an enthusiastic core of supporters, or even successful Internet fundraising, to become a presidential candidate: you have to have the complete message and the demeanor and the bearing and the discipline and the ability to connect to millions of people who really don't tune in that much or who do not have much stake or interest in issues.

Look, I like Howard Dean, but I never thought he was "all that." Neither all that progressive nor all that sharp. And I think his post-political career, working for a big Washington lobbying firm, is not all that great of an example.

I honestly do not know why we are discussing him at this moment.

[whathehell]

78. Oh, I see you've moved the goal post, lol..

Last edited Thu Oct 23, 2014, 10:56 AM - Edit history (1)

l thought we were talking about raising money on the internet rather than the election.

[JI7]

87. the point is Obama's was combined with actual ground support

[whathehell]

89. As I recall,

there was a lot of ground support for Dean as well, but Obama's may well have

been better, I won't argue that point.

[IronLionZion]

46. 50 state strategy does a hell of a lot for national perception of the party

to include everyone and reaffirm the big tent, all are welcome, your vote matters, etc.

But you can either have the 50 state strategy or the liberal strategy. You can't do both nationally since the more conservative areas would have more moderate democrats.

I supported Dean's strategy and was disappointed when Rahm and others attacked him after the Dems won both houses in 2006. It boggled my mind that they thought many of those close races should not have gotten funding.

[Dustlawyer]

49. This explains why there are so many RW nut jobs here! We get little, if any, response to the

Tea Party ads, which creates life long Right Wingers who have been raised on this crap. There was a noticeable difference when Howard Dean sent money here, then back to business as usual.
There is a large untapped reservoir of potential Democratic voters that we need to reach out to and get involved. If we had kept up the 50 state strategy Wendy Davis would probably not be trailing a terrible, evil candidate like Greg Abbott!
When Texas does turn Blue, it's lights out on the Republican Party!

[nikto]

54. Is there even a future anymore for...

The Democratic wing of the Democratic Party?




Has the Clinton/Obama "centrism" basically doomed it to extinction?







GMO food for thought.

[ReRe]

62. No, they haven't doomed us to extinction.

Have a little faith. The battle within the Democratic Party will soon come to a head, perhaps around the 2016 election. Hang in there.

[nikto]

90. Thanks for the encouragement, but...

Politically speaking, I'm feeling sort of extinct already.

[ReRe]

92. Like I said...

... hang in there. You will rise again. Think: Elizabeth Warren. Elizabeth Warren. Elizabeth Warren.

[Mister Nightowl]

66. K&R to THAT!!!

[fadedrose]

72. I saw Dean as being pushed out in 2004 (Iowa)

Last edited Thu Oct 23, 2014, 10:46 AM - Edit history (1)

in Iowa, when the debates occurred....ALL of the candidates on stage attacked Dean in the debate, save one, Barbara Lee. She was the only one who didn't.

After the "Dean is not electable," phrase parroted by the big-time Dems in Iowa, he couldn't get the votes to win, although he was the favorite.....

There are people in DU now who were there in Iowa and I can remember them speaking out in disgust as to what occurred there.

[rtracey]

79. I agree

I agree that Dr. Dean was thrown under the bus. Ms Ackermann-Schultz seems to have done a disappearing act. She needs to be replaced with a more competent DNC chair.....

[libodem]

80. As red state inhabitant

I was thrilled to have Dr Dean show up to Julia Davis park and speak to a crowd that covered the area in front of the band shell.

I took a roll of film that looked like ants and paid $100.00 bucks for the meet and greet later. Point being nobody comes out to rural red states and makes us feel included in the party.

We don't count because of the electoral college. We get 4 points. If three of those 4 points are red, it goes all red.

WE ARE NEVER REPRESENTED! EVER!

Still appreciate Dr Dean's efforts here.

[DhhD]

81. Agreed. And the emerging attack dogs-The 5 Royalist on the Supreme Court getting ready to put off

decisions of state appeals, until after the 2016 election. Example: voter suppression decision put off in Texas until after the 2014 election. Texas women may be looking at voter suppression decision, based on alias documents being issued in Texas for decades, being put off until the 2016 election. Texas women can decide a Blue ticket election.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/10/ginsburg_s_dissent_in_texas_voter_id_law_supreme_court_order.html

[aquart]

82. Yes. It was.

[The CCC]

83. Pushing Dean Out And Ending 50 State Strategy Was A BIG Mistake For Democrats.

Dems seem to never miss an opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot.

[iscooterliberally]

84. Someone posted a story the other day that brought up Lamar Smith R - Texas.

I went and looked him up and he defeated his challengers in the primary, but there was no Democrat running against him in the general election this year. I think Smith is one of the worst people in congress. I can't believe that no Democrat is running against him. Even if there is little chance of defeating him he should still have to work for it. He's an anti-science drug prohibitionist. It's a shame he's going to waltz right into another term.

[Babel_17]

85. We stand for everyone (rich and poor) (red state or blue state)

We stand for everyone (rich and poor) (red state or blue state). Dean has it right in that our fight has to be expressed as being for everyone.