A heartwarming story about a drop-in visit to the DNC by a young guy...

[madfloridian]

who is one of the founders of Music for America. I knew one of them was a Dean supporter, must have been him. I posted it in the bottom of a thread in another forum, but it is worth a separate post. It tells a lot about the operation of the DNC, then and now, and is warm and funny.

And about what someone learned about how things were working there. It is from the Music for America site. One of the guys who formed it was a Dean person, I don't know about the others. I love this story from last year, and it tells a lot about the new DNC.

Be sure to read the whole thing. It is well-worth it. It gives a good picture of the goals. I think misunderstanding the purpose of each group is not good. This young guy just dropped and spent some great time there.

Just a few snips.
http://www.musicforamerica.org/node/80525

"This spontaneous drop-in turned out to be well-timed, because moments after I stepped off the elevator and asked if anyone wanted to talk to me, Vincent Fry, the Executive Director of the Voting Rights Institute, appeared and led me to a conference room where we spoke for the next 20 minutes.

The Executive Director of the Democrats' voting rights program is a young black man who likes talking to scruffy strangers that show up unannounced. To me that suggested the Dems may be entitled to a little more credit than we usually give them on the authenticity/sincerity angle."

Then this young man asks, but exactly what does the DNC do? He is told they are in the business of electing presidents. He is told the Senate and House have their own organizations to promote their campaigns. He is reminded the DNC is going to work to get a Democratic back in the White House.

Dr. Dean had only been in his new office a month or so, and I gathered from the way Mr. Fry answered some of my questions that the two of them still hadn't had their first serious strategy meeting (possibly a reason I was able to eat up his time). Instead Howard had been in Kansas, in Oklahoma, in places a Fundraiser-Chair wouldn't go because there's more money elsewhere. Folks are paying $50 for a ticket to see him, which is very low in this business. And like his presidential campaign, the crowds have a way of being bigger than expected.

..."The kind of work he has been doing is not frontman, press-corps-in-tow, kind of work. If Mr. Fry is giving an accurate picture, Dean is creating infrastructure now on the local level, so there will be a strong human support system powering the Democratic Party in the future to compliment the strong fundraising system McAuliffe created. It also sounds like that plan expands the DNC's stated job of electing presidents to electing Democrats at the other end of the spectrum. Council members, Sheriffs, dog catchers. That'll strengthen presidential campaign infrastructure, feed new blood up the chain toward the big positions, and generally improve our lives by putting people who share our values, one-by-one into small jobs that affect us.

That last paragraph sounds about like he intended DFA to be set up. Sounds like some changes might be really going on there.

So read up, think about it, and decide if it is the DNC who really let you down. After all, the Governor sided with Kerry and Kennedy the best he could...he has to be careful. Then make your decision.

[sandnsea]

1. The right wing has brainwashed America

It started back in the late 80's when Rush Limbaugh first came on the scene and we laughed because some of us saw that we'd been taking ourselves a tad too seriously. It went from there to full on hate, with Hannity, O'Reilly and the rest jumping on the gravy train.

There isn't anybody to blame, except us. We underestimated their power and we're not going to make up 20 years of brainwashing in a year or two. Deprogram America and not only will they demand Democrats act like Democrats, they'll also demand Republicans act like Republicans; and things like today won't even be in the picture.

[madfloridian]

2. Dean once said it would take decades to get real change.

I am beginning to think he might be right. We might get some victories like we did in November, and we might get some wins this November. But they will still own the media, and they still have the ones they brainwashed.

[madfloridian]

3. Just realized there were comments after the article.

They were interesting. This reinforces Jenny's blog at MyDD, that the main purpose of the DNC is building party structure and electing a president.

http://jenny_greenleaf.mydd.com/story/2006/1/30/175353/545