Denver Post: Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy paying off (in Idaho) [View All]

[madfloridian]

Interesting column about the 50 state strategy and the fact that some unexpected things have happened in unexpected places. Farrell makes the observation which many of us realize...Dean will not get any credit if we do take congress back.

None the less, this columnist has done some research. You really have to scroll way down to see the story.

Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy paying off

When Democratic Chairman Howard Dean sent Idaho Democrats the money to double the size of the state party’s tiny staff, it seemed a vainglorious gesture. Silly. Stupid, even. Few states are as Republican Red as Idaho.

Dean’s critics, and there are many here, call his “50-state strategy” to direct a chunk of the party’s treasury to states that don’t routinely elect Democrats a colossal waste of resources.

Rahm Emanuel, the debonair Chicagoan who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, threw a well-publicized tantrum over Dean’s insistence on nurturing Democratic grassroots in backwoods places like Idaho.

Emanuel’s buddy, Democratic consultant Paul Begala — who once knew a little something and cared a bit about folks who live outside the Washington Beltway — said contemptuously on CNN that Dean was wasting precious money “hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose.”

And he goes on to explain why it is good that Idaho had something going for them.

In part because Dean had the foresight to send a few bucks to Idaho, the state’s Democrats were better prepared to capitalize on the unexpected Republican misfortune. With two weeks to go, centrist Democrat Larry Grant — a onetime Denver lawyer whose experience as a former corporate counsel for the high-tech Micron Technology company fits well with the intermountain West’s slowly changing demographics — has a chance to steal the seat.

“I’m ecstatic,” said the Democrats’ long- suffering Idaho party chairman, former congressman Richard Stallings. The 50-state strategy “has made all the difference.

And just to add on here, Dean is most interested in the West. US News covered this recently.
New Map Out West

"Add it all up, and Democrats hope a new day is dawning. "We intend to contest Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada as a unit next time in the presidential because we think we can win there," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told U.S. News. Dean's theory is that, with a combined total of 29 electoral votes, those four states would make it unnecessary for the Democrats to win Florida, with 27 electoral votes, which they have lost in the last two down-to-the-wire presidential elections. "Bill Clinton won every single one of those states at one time or another," Dean added."