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November 19, 2004
Dean vs Vilsack?
Why do I feel like people are turning to Vilsack as the ABD candidate - Anybody But Dean - just like they fled to Kerry in the primaries? This is not a reasonable way to run a political party.
“Governor Dean does care deeply about this country, and he’s deciding what’s best for him and for the future of the party,” Gross said in a telephone interview from Vermont, amid a birthday serenade for Dean, who turned 57 yesterday.Noting that Dean has been acting as a mini-chairman for progressive causes and candidates for the past several months, through his PAC, Democracy for America, Gross said, “It is a model for what the Democratic Party needs to do in order to return the Democratic Party to national prominence.”
But several House lawmakers, including some of his former backers, suggested that Dean should not pursue the party’s chairmanship.
“There’s a little sheen off the apple,” said a onetime Dean supporter, who suggested that his image as an antiwar, anti-establishment candidate would hinder his ability to be an effective chairman.
“We just don’t have time to rehabilitate the image of our chairman when we’re trying to rehabilitate the image of the party,” the lawmaker said.
That prospect was gleefully welcomed by Republicans. “The only thing better than having Howard Dean as DNC chair is Nancy Pelosi as minority leader. They have their bases covered from San Francisco to Burlington. YEAAAHHH,” said Stuart Roy, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).
Several other would-be party chairmen are also seeking the support of House Democrats, including Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, former Clinton Cabinet member Alexis Herman and former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, according to aides and lawmakers.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has spoken to Vilsack but not to Dean. Her Senate counterpart, incoming Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), publicly voiced his support for Vilsack this week. The two leaders are expected to be actively involved in selecting the new chairman, according to leadership aides.
“I know one thing, and that is that whoever we select we have the unified support of the party,” Pelosi told The Hill.
Rep. Robert Matsui (D-Hawaii), a Gephardt supporter and current chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Dean represented too much of a gamble for the party. “We need someone who is part of the Democratic establishment. Someone who is more of a known quantity. It’s extremely important that we don’t go through a debate about ideology.”
He added, “I frankly think we should look to someone like Tom Vilsack or Alexis Herman.”
Is Dean still the ONLY leader who even acknowledges the grassroots?
Zephyr Teachout seems to think so. Can't say that I disagree.
The great missed opportunity of 2004 was the failure of every major leader and leadership group to embrace and nurture the capacity of local groups of volunteer activists to form ongoing face-to-face organizing cells using the Internet. The Bush campaign did this using churches, but no group embraced the unique power of the net to do the same thing....What else didn't happen? In September, Kerry started listing volunteers publicly for other volunteers to find, with a link http://volunteer.johnkerry.com similar to the one that makes social networking sites like Match.com and Friendster and Classmates explode. But then they didn't provide a way for people to instant message or email each other through this site. It was as if they walked up to the edge of allowing local connections, but then got cold feet. With Dean, we started to allow people to feature their volunteer interests and contact each other through instant message or email (optional) and immediately saw a 30% increase in local events being planned through our event planning tool. Local volunteers unwilling to flyer on their own found one other person willing to help, and started creating communities. This is not difficult—it’s just echoing the bet made by companies like Match.com with our own bet that people want to connect not just romantically, but politically.
What if every campaign made public those volunteers who chose to publicize themselves? What if we finally moved into the eBay age of end-users creating 99% of all content, where citizens were at the center of politics? These things will happen, I'm sure, because they have started to, with effects we can't even imagine now. This election, the numbers were too small and the campaigns didn't push the power to the edges -- or pushed it all over the edge.
I attended the DNC Internet Team's presentation on E-Organizing in Boston. Let me put it to you this way. Their idea of organizing is a well-organized email, or a well-organized web page - it's hopeless.
Posted by Mike at November 19, 2004 05:49 PM
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Comments
Not 100% hopeless. Just do it anyway. I've decided that relying on the natl party to "get" anything is a losing proposition. I started Brand Democrat and hope to keep it rolling along. If the party wants to get into it, fine, if not? We're the party, and they're nothing without us.
Posted by: Oliver at November 19, 2004 08:21 PM
Dean is Anti-War. America is Pro-War. Putting Dean in that position would be the death of the DNC as a viable political party. The Was is only just beginning and people know that. So the DNC needs to be percieved as a strong war time party. Other wise 2008 is going GOP
Posted by: gixxxerking at November 19, 2004 09:40 PM
MEMO
TO: DNC MEMBERS
FROM: A REFORM DEMOCRAT
RE: MODERNIZING THE DNC
Over the next two months, you will be bombarded with suggestions on how you should vote when it comes time to decide the direction of the Democratic Party. As you consider who should lead our Party, please keep in mind the following observations:
Evaluating 2004
The Democratic Party did not "come close" to winning in 2004. This is a zero-sum game and we need to measure our position against that of the GOP. Democrats would have needed a 10 point across the board increase in support to have done as well as Republicans. True, Kerry came close to scraping together an electoral vote win, but Democrats did poorly and Kerry lost. We lost. We are in worse position than we were before the election. As Mayor Gavin Newsom is fond of saying, "Do what you've done and you'll get what you've got."
Choosing a new DNC Chair
When choosing a new leader for our Party, please make your choice based on your own decision of who will take the steps necessary to modernize the Party. We must have a full-time leader with the vision necessary to restructure our organization. We can't let our Party serve as a golden parachute for those who lost in 2004 -- we need the DNC staffed by the best and the brightest not the oldest and best connected. Our next Chair needs 100% dedication to the effort and must put the Party before any other concern. Recently there has been talk of a candidate running to protect his home state's antiquated primary tradition -- we can't afford to elect somebody with a conflict of interest and ulterior motives. We need reform.
Accountability
Only by deciding our goals and quantifying our methods can we determine what is working and what isn't. We need to hold programs and people accountable. We lost and we can't be afraid to fire losers. The campaigns of tomorrow are far different from the campaigns of a decade ago -- we need to evaluate individuals by their value in a modern campaign. The railroads didn't hire the fastest Pony Express riders; they hired people who made good railroad engineers. Campaigns have gone through a similar sea change and our Party's future depends upon intelligent reaction to the new rules of politics.
Reform
We are reforming our local central committees but we need your vote to reform the Democratic National Committee. We are waiting for systematic reform, but the Party needs the grassroots more than we need the Party. We want to win and we will support the best vehicles for victory. We would like to continue our support for the DNC, but we're also members of Democracy for America and Moveon and the New Democrat Network. If the Party won't stand up for us, we know they will. We know they were built as modern organizations and a far more efficient than the Democrat Party. DNC members need to elect a new Chair who can compete with DfA, Moveon, and NDN or the party will be relegated to only hosting the convention. We are Democrats and we don't want the most moderate or least controversial Chair, we want a leader. So lead us or we will follow the visionaries at the reform organizations.
For more information, read I am a Reform Democrat on Daily Kos, the NDN Blog, Blog for America, Change for America or Democrat Blog Swarm.
If you have additional ideas on modernizing and reform the Democratic National Committee, please email me at bob.brigham [at] gmail.com. I am a Reform Democrat.
Posted by: Bob Brigham at November 21, 2004 05:28 PM
I am a Reform Democrat. Find out Why I am a Reform Democrat and join the discussion on modernizing the DNC:
Kos - www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/29/123721/08
MyDD - www.mydd.com/story/2004/11/29/123811/70
CfA - www.changeforamerica.com/community/node/view/2056
For more information, see "I am a Reform Democrat":
NDN Blog - www.ndnblog.org/archives/000708.html
BfA - www.blogforamerica.com/archives/005569.html
Kos - www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/18/14187/373
MyDD - www.blogswarm.mydd.com/story/2004/11/18/141756/14
CfA - www.changeforamerica.com/community/node/view/1961
I am a Reform Democrat.
Posted by: Bob Brigham at November 29, 2004 05:44 PM
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