ON DEADLINE: Dr. Dean's prescription for Democrats

[leftchick]

God, he is so freakin humble. Perhaps that is why they are treating him like crap.....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_campaignplus/20081119/ap_ca/dean_s_comeback/print





WASHINGTON – Dr. Howard Dean, it turns out, wrote the right prescription for the Democratic Party.

From the depths of that full-throated scream that reverberated in the presidential race four years ago, Dean survived to assume the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee nearly a year later. The supernova of the 2004 race — the little-known former Vermont governor and physician whose summer rise was stopped cold in Iowa — suddenly held the party's fate.

Prospects looked bleak. Early in 2005, when Dean became the party's chairman, President George W. Bush had just taken the oath for a second term and Republicans were riding high in Congress.

How to rebuild?

"If we want to win nationally, we have to win locally," Dean told Democrats that February.

He embarked on a 50-state strategy — sending party organizers to each state, even the Republican ones — and sought to capitalize on the technology that had helped him raise millions of dollars for his unsuccessful White House bid by establishing an extensive national voter database.

<snip>


"I don't mind taking credit for the efficacy of the 50-state strategy," Dean said in a recent telephone interview. "I never thought it would result four years later in a complete sweep. How did I know I would get an assist from a president of the United States and administration that would screw up everything it got involved in? How did I know that we would have a candidate that believed in a 50-state strategy of his own?"

<snip>

Critics of Dean — mostly within the Washington establishment — have argued that the DNC's focus should be on competitive races rather than spending its money on strengthening state parties. In 2006, Dean clashed with Schumer and Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, tapped to be Obama's White House chief of staff, over how to spend Democratic dollars. James Carville, a former aide to Bill Clinton, famously called Dean's leadership "almost Rumsfeldian in its incompetence."

[Warpy]

1. Dr. Dean was right and the DLC was dead wrong

but most of us have known the latter for many years.

I just hope his successor has the brains to continue what he started so well.

[EFerrari]

2. Yep. Has anyone from the Obama team thanked Dean publicly yet?

I want to know if I can be resentful yet. lol

Howard is one of the few people I'd love to work for. I hope he gets a job he likes out of this somehow.

[leftchick]

3. I agree

but with Mr. DLC as Obama's right hand man I have my doubts. :(

[Warpy]

8. Remember the day Obama sewed up the nomination?

His first announcement was that Dr. Dean would continue as party chair.

The only reason I can think of that he'd be leaving the post is to take a cabinet position, possibly Surgeon General or as head of the FDA.

[EFerrari]

9. I forgot it or never knew that. It doesn't make sense that Dean would leave

before the election but I always expected that after that, he would leave.

[Fleshdancer]

4. Hmmm...was the last quote in the article a clue?

The DNC chairman wasn't eager to talk about his next step, including who might replace him, but he was certain about one element of his life.

"I'm not going back to practicing medicine," Dean said


Does this mean he didn't want the HHS Secretary position? I hope this doesn't mean he wants to retire. x(

[EFerrari]

6. He can't retire! He's only 13 or something.

Dean should start a think tank.

[jobycom]

5. Dean's an enigma, is some ways.

As he accurately put it, he got a huge assist from Bush through Katrina, Iraq, a failing economy, and sky-rocketing gas prices that managed to decline just in time for the elections. It's hard to say he was responsible for everything that led to a Democratic victory. And it's easy to understand why candidates in close races felt that they should get more money and attention than a candidate trailing by 20 points in a red district in deepest Texas.

On the other hand, the neglect of local and state Democratic parties in red zones over the last couple of decades led to entrenched Republican strongholds in regions that might have been more contestable if we had not surrendered the argument twenty years ago. Texas, which was once Democrat, even if conservatively so in some regions, became solidly Republican while the state Democratic Party tried to recruit conservative millionaires who could fund their own campaigns to run for governor. If someone had been running commercials and flooding the airwaves with arguments for our side, maybe some of these red zones wouldn't have been so hopeless in the last two elections. Maybe our message wouldn't be so easy to degrade.

I know where Carville is coming from--I've seen borderline races lost that we might have won--but long term I'm more upset with how far our "brand" has been allowed to sink into ignominy while the brand with the less desirable message has flourished unchallenged.

Ironically, when Dean first proposed his fifty-state strategy, while still a candidate, he was shredded here on DU. He said something to the effect that Democrats should be the party of everyone, including red necks with Confederate Flags on their pickups. DU went ape-shit, and a lot of Dean supporters renounced him. If there is a weakness to the 50 state strategy, that's it. To win in all fifty states, we may have to accept candidates to the right of what we prefer, in order to get a foothold in the confederate pickup truck regions. I wonder if in ten years we will be complaining about the results of Dean's strategy, when we have more Sam Nunn and Zell Miller types in out party.

Overall, though, I'd rather be complaining about our people from a position of power than from below.

Yeah, I'm rambling. Back to your previous discussions, if you've gone this far. :)

[fla nocount]

7. I don't think that he's humble, I think that he's on a vendetta.

I want to believe that in 2012 the good Doctor will still be involved in the party as will the progressive movement along with the growing populist sentiments that turned this election. The DLC however, won't be. The base has been betrayed and there is a growing anger from being screwed once again, this time being screwed out of their money, efforts and dreams by those that they worked to see elected. Governor Dean could easily play on this and I think, and hope, that he will. What was he screaming about anyway?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dib2-HBsF08

"Son of a bitch, we've struck the mother-lode."

[fla nocount]

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