with the RNC chairman at the National Press Club. I think it is a re-air from earlier today. Early word sounds like it was an interesting encounter between them.
This part jumped out at me.
Dean disagreed with Duncan’s assertion that the country is right leaning and said that Obama’s victory meant that there was a mandate.
“I don’t think this is a center-right country…we did a lot of polling when I first became Chairman. It turns out that most people in Nebraska, not exactly known for being a very liberal state, actually agreed with democratic positions more than they agreed with Republican positions if you put them in the words of each party.” Party heads weigh in on electionHere is more from another source which gives more the feel of being there at the National Press Club.
Analysis of the 2008 Election; Input from Chairmen of DNC and RNCIn a live program on C-Span to the National Press Club on Wednesday, November 5, Howard Dean, the Democratic National Committee Chairman, and Mike Duncan, the Chairman of the Republican Committee, appeared together and spoke to what happened and what is going to happen now that the election is over.
"President Obama is going to set this nation on a course that we need and that he promised," said Dean. Duncan, the loser last night, seemed less willing to put aside partisan politics and didn't seem to necessarily agree with that assessment.
It's a long post, and I am only including a small part.
11) Q: "Is there a way to change the tenor of campaign ads?" Dean said that he believes that Libby Dole's negative ads in her race worked against her in her loss at the hands of Kay Hagan. (Near the end of that campaign, Dole suggested that Kay Hagan didn't believe in God, even though she had been a Sunday School teacher.) (Dean): "Obviously, I have a point of view here. I think there was a difference in the way the two campaigns did their compare-and-contrast ads. The Democratic ads usually ended up with a positive comparison. For better or worse, some degree of negativity does work, but too much negativity works against you." Duncan said, "I would agree with part of what Chairman Dean had to say there." He then referenced Finland, where it is illegal to run a negative ad, but he defended the negative ads run during the Republican campaign because of our First Amendment rights to free speech. Duncan tried to nit-pick by saying that the negative ads began on the Democratic side. Duncan, once again, beat to death the dead horse of the Town Hall meetings, which McCain wanted more of and Obama declined to participate in. (Dean humorously declined to comment.)Q: "Do you think the campaign would have been enhanced by the Town Hall meetings?" A: (from Dean), "We are about getting things done and I'm not going to get into a squabble about who did or did not participate in town hall meetings. We're looking forward, not backwards."
12) "We have transformed the Democratic Party. All of those 50 primaries that we had to go through...that was not part of the 50 state voting strategy (laughter)...but we had a terrific data base." Dean gave kudos to the RNC for this, saying that the RNC had that kind of data base. "When I got there, they had a 15-year technical advantage over us. They'd been doing, for years, something we had not been able to do. They've been able to do it for a long time. We can argue about how well they know how to run the country, but they certainly know how to run elections."
Dean said that, using just credit card information, there is the ability to predict with 85% accuracy how someone will vote. (Duncan): "While we outraised the DNC, per se, they had unions and other organizations that helped them," adding, "We spend money on R&D at the DNC. We append the consumer data and voter contact date. We continue doing that on a regular basis. We've got some new wrinkles for the next cycle that I'm not going to talk about." Dean added, "You can talk about it all you want, because we have a team of 25-year-olds that have already surpassed you." (Laughter) Duncan fired back, "I think we passed you on FaceBook this last month." (Laughter)
Dean also spoke about the internet community.
We have a very, very strong view at the DNC about making sure that the internet does not fall under the control of the media. What the internet is is a community. These folks are citizens. They are entitled to say pretty much anything and they do, and some of them are responsible and some of them aren't, but the incredible thing about them is that I think the internet is a tool that can raise money and organize, but the internet is a community. It is a group of people who connect with each other, and there is no substitute for that. It is very, very different from the mainstream media, although the functions overlap. I love the internet....We all learn in social studies that we're not teaching you what to think we're teaching you how to think. This is an extraordinary invention and people need to become better critical thinkers as the internet continues to grow." This seemed to garner support from the crowd.
The video is already up at www.c-span.org
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