How much blame does Terry McAuliffe really deserve?

[Eric J in MN]

Yes, I want Howard Dean to become the new DNC Chair.

But the DNC raised more money than the RNC during McAuliffe's leadership, and fundraising is one of the main purposes of a DNC Chair.

It was Bob Shrum who told Kerry not to respond to harshly to the Swift Boat Liars, not Terry McAuliffe.

[oldhat]

1. With the DNC actually in a budget surplus after the election?

Not much if you ask me.

[Brucey]

2. The error made by the DNC and the Kerry campaign

was to think that repugs wouldn't rig the voting. They should not have spent a dime or a second of time in Florida or Ohio. I said this well before the election. Those two states are controlled by repugs who as much as said they would rig the vote. Why campaign there? The money and time spent there could have been used in Missouri, Arkansas, New Mexico, Iowa, Lousiana, West Virginia, Virginia, and Nevada: States that might have made a difference. Terry should have known that the rig was on and corrected the campaign to adjust for it.

[DireStrike]

3. Sure, but what did McAuliffe DO to raise that cash?

This will always be a debate - can't be proven either way - but I think that most of the donations and support came in from ABB people.

We'll never get to see what would have happened had McAuliffe stayed... I think people would have given up and "got over it", lost faith and moved on... or else forced a change in party organization.

[Eric J in MN]

4. I'm not saying I wanted McAuliffe to stay.

We should (and will) give someone else a chance to be DNC Chair, after those results.

I'm just asking to what extent the results are Terry McAuliffe's fault.

[catgirl]

22. McAuliffe worked his ass off & helped win the election

[msgadget]

17. Depends on where the money came from.

[Hanover_Fist]

5. All of it

[John_H]

28. Not even close.

[Obviousman]

6. So he raised fist fulls of cash

But how many house seats, senate seats, and presidency races did he lose? Not to mention all the statewide races that went down the crapper.

[Julien Sorel]

11. It's not his job to run elections.

You people need to make up your minds. Is it McCauliffe's fault? the all-powerful DLC's fault? The only thing that's constant is the blame.

[Obviousman]

12. I don't want to get into an argument

But he should have been inspiring the party and leading it through organization. Also, he's in charge of PR/ Everytime I saw him on a talkshow he was underwhelming.

[sonicx]

14. who said we have to blame one person?

the title of the thread says 'how much'

[Robbien]

7. It matters much more what the DNC did with the money, not

just how much they collected. Sitting on a ton of cash and only paying attention to the presidential election hurt the party much more than just losing the WH. During Mr Terry McAwful's tenure the Democrats have lost many many seats in the house and senate. I wonder if Mr Terry McAwful is even aware of that. He only had his eye on money and the WH race.

The GOP has a complete campaign going right now to privatize social security. What is the DNC's plan to counter that? Answer: Nothing

Democrats need to be united and have a plan. The DNC has nothing.

[itzamirakul]

8. How much blame does McAuliffe deserve?

IMO, quite a bit. He sat in a leadership position but he was not a leader. The fundraising you speak of came only after he and the DLC that controls the DNC became aware of the enormous amount of money being raised over the internet through bloggers and by word of mouth. He and the DNC were johnny-come-latelys to the table but now they want to take credit for the feast.

No one would have sent any money to the DNC (grassroots) if we on the internet had not passed their letters on to our mailing lists and urged our friends to register with them and get behind the Party - the DNC being what we considered "headquarters." McAuliffe didn't do a damn thing...the grassroots on the internet did his work for him.
And now he and the DNC/DLC are trying to take credit for this as if they actually did some work.

I sent letter after letter begging McAuliffe to at least speak out when Kerry was being so viciously attacked by the Swift Boat Liars ...SILENCE! Never a response. But the next day, another letter from the DNC requesting more money.

MoveOn began having meet-up partys and what did mary Beth Cahill do? She started trying to have Meet-up parties, too. I wrote to her and asked if she couldn't think of something more important to do to defend Kerry or our position in the campaign...SILENCE. The next day, another letter from the DNC requesting money.

The situation is this...McAuliffe, Cahill, From, et all were caught with their pants down when they SAW that the grassroots wanted to have an active part in the Party. They wanted our money but not our input. They lived under the delusion that they could just raise millions from the same corporate bodies that funded the Republicans and in the long run it didn't really matter to them if the Democrats won or lost, because it didn't affect their power, prestige, influence or position. They could still get paid some rather handsome salaries, I would imagine and network to get good jobs when they left the DNC/DLC. So WHY would they care if we won or lost? On a personal basis, not a one of them had a single thing to lose. But when the grassroots became involved, suddenly they became accountable to us and they didn't and still don't like being put in that position.

A good leader can do more than just fundraise. If McAuliffe was not a good speaker and unable to go out to defend our position, well he has a cadre of well-known, respected politicians in the DLC who could have been sent out to the talk shows on a daily basis. Instead, we saw none of this. Once in awhile some apologetic, mushmouth would show up and weakly state some opinion. McAuliffe had enough money to HIRE a good speaker, a strong consultant to be the voice of the Party - but no - this would have meant that we might offend some invisible swing voters that didn't vote for us anyway.

McAuliffe has poor judgment and made poor choices and more of the same is still going on in the DLC/DNC today. That is why they have not only lost the support but more importantly, they have lost the RESPECT of a large segment of the party's base. As much as I like Dean, even he is not as much of a party reformer as I personally would like. The DLC doesn't have to go away, it just needs to get OUT OF THE WAY.

[jobycom]

9. Who knows? We don't even know for sure if we won or lost!

We know that Democratic votes were not counted as accurately as Republican votes, with as much as a three percent margin in some places, we know that Democrats were denied the right to vote, harassed, delayed and coerced into not voting, etc. We have suspicions that there was outright tampering with the vote counting equipment.

McCauliffe may have led us to a victory of 10% or more, and we wouldn't know.

Until we clean up the voting system, and have everyone's vote cast on a machine that can be verified and that counts all votes with the same accuracy, and until we set up monitors with the teeth to rip apart those who play games with a person's right to vote, then we are just guessing at what the outcomes of elections are, anyway. 2000 proved that elections are meaningless in this nation. It also proved that the American people don't even care.

Sorry, I'll be positive later.

[faithfulcitizen]

10. a lot nt

[muse]

13. For the democratic death spiral the last 8 years? Plenty.

He hasn't exactly "reigned" over the democratic party in its glory years. He got a hold of my money and I haven't exactly seen results. My anger after this election was directed right at him on Nov. 3rd. He was the one asking for my money; he was the one not delivering the goods.

[muse]

16. I'm already projecting 4 years ahead. I meant 4 years. I'm fed up with him

He was the Clinton's golden boy. I read somewhere way back many months ago that Kerry wanted to ditch him and the Clinton's woudn't have it. I don't know if that has any truth to it at all.

[NuttyFluffers]

15. as much blame as it takes to make him cry and go away.

i'd really enjoy that. it'd be a start to making up what his leadership has lost us in opportunity.

[Eric J in MN]

18. A new DNC chair will be chosen in February.

McAuliffe isn't seeking another term.

[NuttyFluffers]

19. then, now i want to see him cry. :)

because i'm a vindictive jerk. :evilgrin:

[quaker bill]

20. More than enough

Responding or not responding to the swifties is not relevant.

Bush wins either way. If Kerry does not respond, then the story is about his not responding. If Kerry responds, the story becomes all about the argument between the campaign and the swifties.

In either case, the focus is off the Bush record. Bush wins the exchange. Christmas came early for Karl Rove.

The democrats had to know this attack was coming. These guys had been used against Kerry several times in the past. The fatal flaw was spending the convention on the Vietnam "war hero" issue. This only served to elevate the stakes of this attack when it came.

The better choice would have been a brief mention of Kerry's war record, followed by a "but that was 35 years ago, let me explain what I am going to do for you now". From this position, once the attack came, "I have proven my record before, but honestly, this was 35 years ago, and what the American People tell me is that the focus of this campaign should be on our problems today. However, if the President wants to go into this subject, I would be happy schedule a debate with him on it."

McAuliffe, Shrum, Al From, and the rest probably had a lot to do with selecting the message and organizing the convention. None of them picked up on what was an obvious strategic flaw. I have seen children play better chess than this.

If for no other reason than this lack of vision, they all need to go.

[Shopaholic]

21. Plenty

too much.

[catgirl]

23. Blah blah blah

Didn't any of the whiners here get any of his e-mails? How can you blast him? What does it take to satisfy you? And why are you blaming a dem when fraud and rigging occurred? Did any of the whiners here get off there asses and volunteer? Reading news and complaining doesn't win elections. Sorry to sound sore but people like Rove, Bush and Cheney are the ones you should be bashing.

[Tinoire]

25. "Did any of the whiners here get off there asses and volunteer?"

:wow:

Maybe you should have started participating in all of "this" months, years ago so you would have a clue about what you're talking about.

Breath-taking.

[SoCalDem]

24. McAuliffe is a bumbler..He speaks too fast.. Appears too "slick"

and just spouts platitudes and wild accusations.. In other words, he sounds just like a repube..

I KNOW he's not, but he's like ANY other "money-man"..He's ODed on his own snakeoil...:puke:

[question everything]

26. A lot, for both the 2002 and 2004

In 2002 the party did not have a clear message and Karl Rove just drove easily.

But his major role was to stack the primaries real close and soon. He wanted - this was his goal - to have an early decision, to prevent primaries attacks that later would provide ammo to the pugs. This was the goal of the leadership.

But... this early selection prevented the airing and exposing of Kerry's vulnerability as we saw later with the swifters and with his initial vote on Iraq.

Also, millions of voters were faced with a done deal when the primaries and caucuses came to their states.

I would like the next leader to seriously pursue rotating regional primaries when, say, the Northeast vote first in one year, the Southeast is the first next, and so on.

Even now, we really did not have clear positive message except to negate what Bush was doing - easily enough. For example, Kerry wanted the U.N involvement at a time when every international aid was fleeing Iraq.

[John_H]

27. Many more people than Terry are also to blame

IMHO, you can go go from the very top to just above intern at the DNC and the Kerry campaign and assemble a amazingly broad collection of arrogant, rove-sodomized, dim bulb, underexperienced-in-real-life, wimpy, and now, 0-3 "operatives," "strategists," and "spokespeople."

Only in the democratic party can you get your asses whipped by your republican counterpart three times in a row and be left in charge. It's like me being a major league reliever: "Hey I may be 3 and 18, but I played last year. When does practice start?"

Guess what? They're going to go 0-4 unless they go bye bye. How about sending the DNC or your favorite elected dem a letter saying, "no more money until the perennial losers leave." It's either that or bending over for Tom Delay.