Time gives full credit for Dem win to 4 people....Dean gives credit to the people of the party. .

madfloridian

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Wed Dec-27-06 04:57 PM
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Time gives full credit for Dem win to 4 people....Dean gives credit to the people of the party. .

I was really hit by the contrast here. It seems the DC insiders and the corporate media have shut out the party activists as to sharing credit. I guess that is pretty typical, and to be expected. But the contrast is amazing in the way they got and took credit, and the way Howard Dean did not. A little comparison.

First from Time:

The Winning Team: Reid, Schumer, Emanuel & Pelosi

How They Turned It Around in November

When NBC canceled The West Wing last January, Jay Leno quipped, "You know things are bad when even fictional Democrats aren't doing well." In less than a year, however, four Democratic leaders took the party from punch line to power, capturing both chambers of Congress in November's midterm elections. It was the biggest Washington upset since the Republican revolution of 1994. How did they do it? San Francisco's Nancy Pelosi, 66, who will become the first female Speaker of the House, kept the spotlight on G.O.P. ethics scandals and Iraq, not herself, neutralizing Republican charges of liberalism and national-security weakness. The former amateur boxer and Nevada centrist Harry Reid, 67, picked the right fights in the Senate, blocking the most controversial Bush appointees, while ducking many of the no-win national-security battles the Republicans launched.

Out in the country, it was Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel, 48, and New York Senator Charles Schumer, 56, the field marshals for the House and Senate campaigns, who drove the Democratic victory, recruiting strong candidates and raising more than $300 million. Both showed cold-eyed skill: Schumer, long a backer of abortion rights, picked a pro-life candidate to take out Pennsylvania's Rick Santorum, the Senate's third-ranking Republican; Emanuel spent heavily against scandal-tainted incumbents, winning surprise victories in normally safe districts from California to New York. The most important thing all four did? As the Republicans reeled from policy failures and ethics scandals, the gang of four knew when to let them collapse on their own and when to give them a push. Keeping their own balance now will be harder, especially in a closely divided Senate. "We need to prove to the American people we are prepared to lead and ready to govern," says Pelosi.

Meanwhile, Dean had a meeting of the DNC, speakers who were winning candidates. He did not brag or take credit, just praised the ones who had worked so hard throughout the 50 states. This part of the blog post was especially profound in showing Dean's understanding that what he is doing will not win much approval from the Democrats in the story above. He is right.

Dean’s 50-State Love-Fest

Just a portion. An hour of the two hour meeting was carried on C-Span.

Finally, as the clock was about to strike 1 p.m. and the praise seemed
never-ending, an aide whispered in Mr. Dean’s ear that it was time to wrap
the meeting up. Mr. Dean concurred that it was time to pull the curtains on
the “love-fest of the 50-state strategy.”

“In this town, of course, you always want to get as much credit as you can,
but there wouldn’t be a 50-state strategy without the 50 states,” said Mr.
Dean, who offered his thanks to the armies of party loyalists who helped put
in place the strategy from Alaska to Alabama and every other state in
between.

With that, Mr. Dean walked through the halls of the hotel, a smell of pine
in the air as he passed nearly a dozen Christmas trees on display. Before
stepping into a black taxi cab, which was waiting beneath the hotel’s
portico, Mr. Dean paused to answer a reporter’s question.
After so much criticism and debate over the 50-state strategy, do you feel
vindicated?

“The best thing to do, instead of speaking about things like vindication is
just say: Look, we won. Everybody had a huge contribution to make –
including some of the participants in all the feuding that was going on,”
Mr. Dean said. “We ought to take comfort in the fact that we all worked
hard, we all get some credit for it and we need to move ahead.”

...."Will his strategy be embraced now by Democratic leaders in Washington?
“That’s not high on my agenda,” Mr. Dean said before waving goodbye.

The main part about the Time article that bothers me....is that gives no credit to all who worked so hard throughout the country. The people who were on the ground were left out of the Time scenario.