The Dean Legacy (The Nation)

[skipos]

Ari Berman

On November 7, 2006, all the top Democrats graced the stage of the Hyatt Regency ballroom in Washington for a big election-night victory party. All of them, that is, except Howard Dean, chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The party leadership had accused Dean of spending too much money on rebuilding moribund parties in red states and not enough on key Congressional races where Democratic pickups could strengthen their narrow majority. The results that night, as Democrats recaptured Congress, seemed to settle the argument in Dean's favor. But key Democrats, including Representative Rahm Emanuel, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, weren't satisfied, and Dean opted to stay away from the celebration, doing TV interviews instead. A week later, Democratic strategist James Carville, another prominent Clintonite, labeled the DNC leadership "Rumsfeldian in its competence," and called on Dean to resign. He floated the name of Harold Ford Jr., now chair of the right-leaning Democratic Leadership Council, as a replacement. There was rampant speculation inside the Beltway that Carville wasn't offering an unsolicited opinion but rather carrying water for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton.

A few months earlier, The New Republic had reported that Clinton's camp was "laying the groundwork to circumvent the DNC in the event that Clinton wins the nomination." This shadow DNC had a number of integral parts: adviser Harold Ickes would develop state-of-the-art technology to help Clinton reach prospective voters; EMILY's List and Clinton's allies in organized labor would launch an unprecedented effort to turn out supporters, especially women voters; former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe would raise untold sums from wealthy donors and the business community; and communications honcho Howard Wolfson would direct an unrelenting war room. Ever since 1992 the Clintons had used the DNC as an outpost for raising money from big donors, and funding candidates had taken precedence over nurturing progressive organizers. That model would continue into '08. Dean could remain at the DNC as a figurehead but only if he stayed in line.

And then the effort to marginalize Dean collapsed. Partly it's because the party's Congressional takeover--and a subsequent study by Harvard's Elaine Kamarck documenting Dean's contributions toward that end--eventually silenced the Carville-ites. Partly it's because Barack Obama forced the Clintons to devote all their resources to fending off his insurgent candidacy. But another reason the DNC-in-exile never got off the ground was Dean himself. Dean is no longer a marginalized figure, the butt of "Dean scream" jokes, but a man with a powerful constituency in regions where his fifty-state strategy has energized aging, ailing or previously nonexistent state parties. His support to these parties has not only strengthened them but has created an independent power base for Dean himself.

more...
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080317/berman

[Drunken Irishman]

1. God bless you, Howard Dean!

[Califooyah Operative]

13. Amen. nt

[caligirl]

2. Dean has saved the D party from destroying itself. The end of the DLC.

[otohara]

3. "insult 40 states" strategy

no shit!

[ulysses]

4. I was thinking yesterday

that Obama's ground game mirrored Dean's 50-state strategy. Methinks this is the way in which we need to continue.

[skipos]

6. I agree. Lo and behold, both Dean and Obama have been

pretty successful with it. I don't know how someone could think otherwise.

[ulysses]

7. one would have to suspect

that those who think otherwise have a different definition of "success".

[DLnyc]

15. Hmmmm. If we raise several 100 million and get to decide where to spend it

we can make lots of friends, not to mention some of that cash will get stuck to our hands on the way through . . . who cares who gets elected, we're making a bundle! Plus now we have lots of rich friends! Long live the system!

Not saying they think this way. Consciously. But some seem to act this way.

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

5. Howard Dean is the best DNC Chairman in years.

"Dean is no longer a marginalized figure, the butt of "Dean scream" jokes, but a man with a powerful constituency in regions where his fifty-state strategy has energized aging, ailing or previously nonexistent state parties. His support to these parties has not only strengthened them but has created an independent power base for Dean himself."


Rahm Emanuel and James Carville can go and f*ck themselves. Howard Dean is a REAL DEMOCRAT.

[JNelson6563]

8. All hail Dean!

I love that guy. :toast: :patriot:

Julie

Edited to add a most eloquent blurb on Dean by the Rude Pundit, this one still cracks me up:

6/09/2005
Howard Dean Will Fuck Your Shit Up (Redux):
The Rude Pundit's said it before and he'll say it again: Howard Dean will fuck your shit up. Stand that motherfucker up at the gates of hell. Let that son of a bitch loose in the dainty Democratic china shop and let's break some fuckin' dishes. Howard Dean knows the score, man; he knows that the faithful, those who actually believe that the fight is not the path to surrender, want a spokesperson who's willing to pick up the unpinned grenade that just landed near him and shove it up the ass of the enemy who tossed it. Goddamn, it would have been magnificent to have seen him debate the President. On stage, Bush would have been begging for the privilege to lick the sweat off Dean's balls.

Listen to the crowd at the Take Back America conference last week, who are almost orgasmically gasping in joy at the viciousness with which Dean attacked the Republicans, calling them the party of people "who never made an honest living in their lives," with a "dark, difficult, dishonest vision" of America. Then, in an effort to clarify his remarks this past Monday in a talk with minority journalists, Dean said the Republicans are "not very friendly to different kinds of people. They're a pretty monolithic party. They pretty much--they all behave the same and they all look the same, and they all--you know, it's pretty much a white, Christian party. And the Democrats here adopt everybody you can think of in our party."

Challenged on the Today show yesterday by Matt "Behold My Stubbly Mane That Indicates I Am a Grown-Up" Lauer, Dean picked up Lauer, slammed him on the faux coffee table and whispered, calmly, in Lauer's ear that Democrats are tired of being the bottoms of the political fuck machine. He said, "They have the agenda of the conservative Christians...the Republicans don't include people. Look, they are outside the mainstream." And Dean wasn't afraid to invoke truly inclusive Democratic ideas: "They have used words like quota to try to separate black from white Americans. They did scapegoat gay Americans by putting an anti-gay amendment on it--in 11 states where gay marriage is already against the law. And they are attacking immigrants. Two--two Republican congressmen, Jim Sensenbrenner and Tom Tancredo, have incredible anti-immigrant legislation. This is not the way America needs to be." Calling out motherfuckers for fucking their mothers is as brutally truthful as politics gets.

<snip>

Besides, ain't it fun to watch Hannity and Coulter and Gingrich and Hume and all the other hate-filled sociopaths flail about and try to take Dean down? You've seen Dean's arms? Big, thick sons of bitches. He can bear it. And he can throw it back at them. As long as those behind him don't put him in handcuffs.

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2005/06/howard-dean-will-fuck-your-shit-up.html

[Pastiche423]

9. I am so proud of Dr. Dean!

I :loveya: Howard!

[mod mom]

10. I first became politically active thanks to Howard Dean. I am glad he stand ups to the corporates

who wish to take our party down the same road as the GOP!

[BlooInBloo]

11. Was an excellent article - dunno if I would recommend it to DUers tho.

[malaise]

12. This is great

Howie was fabulous on Blitzer today

[DLnyc]

14. Really, really good article. DUers should read the whole thing.

Maybe some of the crazy fighting would settle down if people had a little better idea of the context behind this primary.

(snip)
Dean has remained fastidiously neutral and low-key in this presidential cycle. Yet a number of his top supporters believe the Clinton-Obama contest has become a referendum on the kind of grassroots party building and citizen empowerment Dean pioneered as a presidential candidate and continued as DNC chair. On that issue most Deaniacs, not surprisingly, side with Obama. "Ever since the TV era began in 1960, every single presidential campaign in America has been top-down," says Joe Trippi, Dean's '04 campaign guru and an adviser to John Edwards before he dropped out of the race. "Only two have been bottom-up. One was Dean. The other is Obama."
(snip)

Could it be that Obama has been doing well in red states because the DLC, and the Clintons, have basically written off those states?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_delegate_count.html

Anyway, something's working; according to Rasmussen, there's been more than a 10% increase in the number of people who identify themselves as Dem's. Could mean a big move in Congress, regardless of what happens in the primaries and the general! (Ras has it now as " Democrats jumped to 41.5%, the highest total on record. Just 31.8% consider themselves to be Republicans." And Ras tends to overpoll conservatives, IMO, by 5 to 8%, judging from their * approval numbers.)
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/party_affiliation/partisan_trends

Grassroots and 50-state is the way to go. Unless you are a million-dollar-a-year consultant/fundraiser/fundspender. Then it sucks.