Roland Martin, video and column. He gives kudos to Dean for his strategy of party rebuilding. .

madfloridian

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Sun Nov-02-08 01:13 AM
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Roland Martin, video and column. He gives kudos to Dean for his strategy of party rebuilding. .

Edited on Sun Nov-02-08 01:47 AM by madfloridian

He goes into very thorough detail in the video, even more so than in the column. He gets exactly what Howard Dean had in mind, more than most Democratic leaders did. He does a good job of explaining it.

He gets that Dean is rebuilding a decayed party infrastructure. He knows that he is creating a permanent campaign so that as congressional seats come open, as local offices come open....there is a base there for them. It is a year round base for Democratic efforts.

Here is the direct link to the video at CNN. Martin is trying to explain the 50 State plan to a co-hort who really did not get it at first.

Here is the column he wrote about it. I know it was posted here earlier, but the video adds to it.

Commentary: Dean's 50-state strategy is a plus for Obama

(CNN) -- If Sen. Barack Obama is able to prevail over Sen. John McCain on Tuesday, all of those Democrats who ripped Howard Dean's 50-state strategy over the last four years should call the head of the Democratic National Committee and offer a heartfelt apology.

First in line should be New York Sen. Charles Schumer, Chicago, Illinois, Rep. Rahm Emanuel and my CNN colleague, political strategist James Carville. When Democrats were in the final stages of winning back Congress in 2006, those three were at odds with Dean, saying he should forget about his pie-in-the-sky plan to have the Democratic Party competitive in all 50 states.

They reasoned that money spent on get-out-the vote efforts in non-congressional elections was futile, and all the effort should be on reclaiming Congress. But Dean resisted their suggestions, weathering repeated calls for him to resign after that election.

Dean's insistence on having a Democratic Party that existed in the heartland, and not just California, New York and Massachusetts, was brilliant in that it made clear that the party recognized the rest of America.

Roland Martin is right. Dean had to provide financing and hire lawyers to get 12 state parties out of bankruptcy.

He had to pay unpaid party debt to get padlocks off the doors. Twelve state parties almost in inoperable condition?

I had discovered how pathetic many of our state parties actually were. Many were literally bankrupt, the office supplies and machines (typewriters) had been taken for unpaid debt, and padlocks were on the door. The State Committees that had the franchise were held in one or another lawyer's file cabinet, (In Georgia it had been Bert Lance's for about 20 years), and the reason for this condition was frankly racism. The Southern States would not allow the release of the franchise to a newly elected Central Committee or Board, because it would be Black. They could do this because the parties were in bankruptcy, and whatever lawyer had the letterhead in his files was also the court appointed trustee.

....."When Dean took over the DNC -- this was the condition of about twelve of our State Parties. He actually had to find lawyers to go into court and get the parties out of this kind of "Trusteeship" before he could even begin to reorganize. In fact, one of the reasons some of the Field Organizers Dean appointed are on the staff of the DNC rather than state parties is because it avoids dealing with old trustees and old court judgments."

Martin further emphasized the need to rebuild nationwide to have future party leaders.

Building a "farm team" for Democrats, training new people for the future.

These are some excerpts from "Return of the Angry Man.

One of his stops was at Vanderbilt University, where he faced a standing-room-only class. For the next 45 minutes, Dean lectured, bantered and spoke like a candidate. ("I do not believe that you can run enormous deficits year after year after year and not have consequences. I do not believe you can run a foreign policy based on petulance.") But Dean was almost as critical of Democrats. The class evolved into his first lengthy public explication of his view of the party, and his "idears" for fixing it, as he pronounces the word. "It is socially unacceptable in some parts of the country to be a Democrat," he observed. "The first thing we have to do is show up in 50 states and compete in 50 states. Second thing we're going to do is talk in a way that is not condescending."

"The number one thing you can do is run for office."

"I'm absolutely serious. I am not kidding."

The class grew quiet. Here was Dean as a Johnny Appleseed, sowing civics in the young. While Democrats have conceded parts of the country considered hostile, Republicans have left no office untested, he pointed out. The result is that Dems have no farm system, no ability to find young political talent in red states and groom it.

Run, he urged the students. Run for county road commissioner. Run for city council. "If you don't have people running for offices like county commissioner, who do you think is going to run for Congress a generation from now?"

That was in 2006, a lot has gone on in between and since 2005. Roland Martin is one of the few people in the media who has actually expressed the goals of the 50 state strategy clearly....and one of the very very few who have given credit to the one who was frequently called on to step down because this was not the usual way of doing things.