What do people mean when they say the 50-state strategy was "ended"?

[Recursion]

I've seen this in several threads.

The 50 state strategy was and is a plan by the DNC to build up infrastructure in state parties so that they would be capable of hiring permanent staff in every state and field candidates in races we had previously been writing off. The DNC still does that.

So, clearly, this is actually about something else. People who are angry about the alleged death of the 50 state strategy: what is it that the party used to do but doesn't anymore, that's making you say this?

[frazzled]

1. They mean

they don't know anything. And they prefer either to look backward to some idealized, never-existed past, or forward, to some never-to-be realized future. They just can't ever deal with the realities of the present.

[KT2000]

2. it means going for all

50 states - not just the targeted ones and not giving up on sure losses.

[Recursion]

3. And the evidence that we've stopped that is...?

And, anyways, that's not what Dean meant, at least, by that phrase. He meant giving the state parties enough money to hire permanent staff in all 50 states (something the GOP has done for decades) so that they could field local candidates in elections we hadn't been competing in before.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. Well, my evidence is anecdotal.

In that National Dems NEVER put any real money into winning my House district, but instead always abandon it to the Repubs. Hell, sometimes the Repub runs unopposed. But even when he doesn't, the selected Dem candidate never has any money to play with unless they can beg it off friends and family. And as a result, (apart from the unopposed years), the numbers who vote for the Repub and the Dem protest candidate never change much. There is no real effort to 'build infrastructure', and no resources allocated to let it be done.

It's hard to have any enthusiasm for the national party when they treat your district like it doesn't exist other than as a source of money they can send elsewhere.

[Recursion]

5. And did the party directly fund a viable candidate during the Dean years? (nt)

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

8. I'd have to go back and dig out records, but I do know that in that timeframe

was the only time I can ever recall getting political mailers from a Dem candidate from that seat, which was nice. So he had more money than others before or after him, but I can't be sure if that was a result of 'direct party funding' unless I can find some proof.

(Edit: btw, no candidate is going to be 'viable' in this heavily gerrymandered district until the Dems have spent time and money building up a reliable base of people who are willing to vote in every election. You don't just get that out of the gate. You have to convince people you're actually going to continue to stand by them, and not just pretend you've never met them unless you need them.)

[JI7]

6. i don't think people really knew what it was in the first place

[elleng]

7. Looking Back at Howard Dean's 50-State Strategy

'Despite opposition from national Democrats, the former Vermont governor's bid to build up party infrastructure in every state was a success in the unlikeliest of places -- at least while it lasted.

When former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean became chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in early 2005, one of his main efforts was to undertake a "50-state strategy," a bid to build up party infrastructure and candidate recruitment at every level and in every state -- even in solidly Republican bastions.

"We strengthened the parties so sitting governors could find good candidates" for offices high and low, Dean said. "That's much easier to do from Topeka than it is from Washington."

State party chairs loved the idea, but among national strategists, the approach was controversial. Dean bumped heads with then-Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who believed in a more conventional strategy of focusing limited campaign resources on swing districts. On CNN, Paul Begala said Dean's gambit amounted to "hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose." (Begala later apologized.)

Dean has long since left the DNC -- he served four years, departing in early 2009 -- and the 50-state strategy has faded from memories. But looking at it from today's vantage point, the project offers a nifty example of how modest investments in party infrastructure can pay tangible dividends -- and how those dividends can disappear once the investments dry up.'

http://www.governing.com/blogs/politics/gov-democrat-howard-deans-fifty-state-strategy.html

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I attended a presentation with Emanuel and another about his/their 'strategy' book, in DC, as they discussed Democratic strategy toward winning the 2008(?) presidential election. As they discussed, it appeared clearly un-50 State, so I asked, toward the end of the gathering, whether such strategy was in play. He gave me a 'look,' and didn't answer the question. As far as I'm concerned, tptb had decided that Howard Dean's 50-state strategy was not to be.