Hillary Clinton v. Howard Dean: The Grudge

[Karmadillo]

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060807&s=edsall080706

by Thomas B. Edsall
Post date 07.27.06 | Issue date 08.07.06

During a recent appearance on "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart asked Howard Dean about his controversial "50-state strategy," under which the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is allocating significant resources to parties in red states as well as blue ones. How many states, Stewart wanted to know, do critics of Dean's strategy want the Democrats to focus on? Dean replied, "If they had their choice, probably one--New York."

If that was a shot at Hillary Clinton, consider it retaliation. Even before Dean took over the DNC in February 2005, Washington-based Democratic operatives, some aligned with Clinton's presidential campaign, tossed around the idea of trying to sideline Dean in 2008 by creating a position called "general chairman" and appointing Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell to fill it. The putsch was quickly abandoned--Dean had built too much loyalty among the DNC's 447 members to make the plan viable--but Clinton's backers remain determined to prevent a man they view as a loose cannon from undermining their bid for the White House.

The result? Dean and Clinton--the Democratic Party's two power centers--find themselves locked in a struggle for intraparty supremacy. Each camp considers the other's political strategy fundamentally flawed. Dean loyalists dislike Clinton's stance on Iraq and her cautious approach to leadership, and they also fear she is too polarizing a figure to win a general election. Meanwhile, Clinton partisans doubt Dean's competence in managing the DNC and believe him to be just the sort of antiwar, elitist, left-wing Democrat who will scare off white middle- and working-class voters.

What makes the Dean-Clinton struggle so interesting is that it represents an inversion of the party's previous power structure. When Dean began his rise to national prominence in 2003, he portrayed himself as an insurgent who would challenge both the Democratic Party's Washington establishment and the ideological legacy of Clintonism, which he argued had pushed the party too far to the center. That tactic once looked likely to propel Dean to the Democratic nomination. But, today, Dean heads the DNC, and it is Clinton who wants her party's nomination. To win, she will have to make inroads among Dean's followers and loosen his grip on the party's apparatus. This time, it is the Clintons who are the insurgents, but insurgents who represent the Democratic establishment.

more...

[LWolf]

1. This ought to be interesting.

:popcorn:

[rateyes]

3. Getting the butter....

want some? :popcorn:

[WI_DEM]

2. His "just one--NY" response could be taken two ways...

Sen. Schumer is the head of the Senatorial campaign and he has been at odds with Dean's strategy as well.

[Cha]

7. Yeah, schumy has

been a real pain in the butt.

[Demit]

4. "Insurgents who represent the establishment" has an absurd sound to it.

I haven't read beyond your excerpt, maybe the writer expounds on what he means by his apparent oxymoron. My first impression, it sounds like he's twisting himself into a pretzel to defend Hillary Clinton's position, and marginalize Dean's.

[flpoljunkie]

6. No. Very interesting about us coalescing around 1 netroots candidate in

order to beat Hillary with all her establishment money--otherwise we split our vote and she wins! Am in total agreement with this assessment.

[davidwparker]

5. I want Gore to return to keep the Clintons out the White House.

Hillary's caution equals Bill's triangulation. And people think we're weak and have no positions.

[Southsideirish]

11. Amen to that!!

[madfloridian]

8. DLC giving away a free year subscription to TNR to their membership.

This is interesting. Someone in the thread thinks it may be why that article was written, to get attention to the website. I don't know the level of competition, but I am sure there is some. I do think Hillary is sort of forming her own power structure. I mean 57 million is a lot of money.

This is funny, though.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/7/27/131240/480

"You ever notice how, when eating cheerios (or fruit loops) and there are only a few left, they cling together for safety? It's a last gasp effort for survival in the face of impending doom

I was reminded of that when reading this email:

From: "DLC Admin"
Date: July 26, 2006 1:56:38 PM PDT
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: The New Republic Digital Compliments of the DLC

Dear Friend of the DLC,

We want you to know about an exciting new partnership we've formed with The New Republic. As a result, we're able to offer you a free one-year subscription to The New Republic Digital.

In our years of providing our friends with political analysis and policy prescriptions, we've never offered outside products or promotions, but this deal seemed like a reasonable way to share the intellectual landscape with one of our favorite magazines.

[Cha]

10. tnr just sent me a

convenient subscription form that I was to fill out if I wanted their rag..I threw it in the nearest trash can.

tnr=dlc=D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R!

[Cha]

9. Speaking of "Loose Cannons"..

How did lying about that blue dress work out for ya Bill?

[mnhtnbb]

12. Hillary is never going to be President--she's too polarizing.

And she has enough ego to try to ram herself down the throat of the country at the cost of a Democratic win. She's all ego, just like Bill. If Bill had resigned when he was caught lying to everybody, Al Gore would have been running as an incumbent in 2000.

I will NEVER forgive Bill for not doing the right thing by the party and the country. Hillary is the same way.