The race for DNC Chairman is between Dean and Frost....

[kentuck]

Listening to AAR this AM while on some Xmas errands, that was the way I interpreted the reports. Frost and Dean are both very good at raising money. Frost was formerly in charge of the DNCC so he has the experience needed for the job. Dean has proven himself a great money raiser over the Internet. The Democrats understand the importance of this type of "experience".

However, if Dean takes the DNC job, he would not run for President in 2008. So some might want him to take it for that reason. Get him out of the main event. But Frost has a lot of connections within the Party and he has just been defeated in the newly drawn Texas Congressional district. So, flip a coin.

[crispini]

1. I thought the blogs were saying that the state chairs

were very impressed with Ron Kirk?

I'd be happy with any one of the three, IMO, but Dean most especially.

[kentuck]

4. Kirk is also in the running...

But, his money-raising skills may be questionable? And money is the mother's milk of politics.

[sendero]

5. Ron Kirk..

... was mayor of Dallas for a time (I live there).

He's useless and he'd be a big mistake. He's nothing more than another big-business DLC-style shill.

[PunkPop]

6. Ron Kirk! No, no, no!

He was my mayor for two years. Ron Kirk is a whore to big-money. He is the ultimate DLCer. He would sell his mother to the highest bidder. IMO, Ron Kirk and Howard Dean sit at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Martin Frost tried to beat Pete Sessions by running an ad implying he was a bigger supporter of * than Sessions. I know, I know, win at all costs right? Well, he lost anyway. It was disgusting.

[jobycom]

9. His mother lives here in Austin, and believe me, no one would sell her

And she'd kick your ass for slamming Ron that way. He's a liberal in a conservative city, so he did what it took to win.

I hope Kirk doesn't get the job, because I'm hoping he runs for senator or governor here in Texas. Other than that, he'd be better than Frost by a long shot.

[PunkPop]

11. Win what?

He was already mayor. He was the main enabler for two of the biggest boondoggles in modern Dallas history - The Trinity River "Revitilization" and American Airlines Arena. Both just giant giveaways to big money interests.

You might know Ron Kirk's mother, and I certainly mean no disrespect to her, but you don't know squat about the man. Liberal? Please.

[jobycom]

13. You don't know squat if all you saw

was the results of the back-room wrangling that resulted in those projects. He's liberal.

And win what? Any office you hold is a constant contest to get what you want. You give others what they want to get what you want. That's politics. The Ross Perot types who think you get elected leader just because your title says leader have no idea what actually goes on. If you are in a conservative city, or one as dramatically split as Dallas is (or was when I lived there, anyway, though that's been a decade), you have to make a lot of conservatives happy to even get the trash picked up.

[PunkPop]

14. Yeah, his liberal credentials are impressive

He was a liberal corporate lobbyist in Austin, then a liberal attorney for Gardere and Wynne, then a liberal mayor of Dallas who brought us those shining examples liberalism, the Trinity River revitilization and American Airlines Arena. What a liberal legacy!

Politics is a process of negotiation and compromise, agreed. So can you provide some examples of the good Kirk accomplished in return for all the pandering, I mean "wrangling" he did? If I'm being too harsh I am happy to be corrected.

True conservatives despised Kirk, just like I believe many of them despise Bush. Kirk didn't play to conservatives, he played to Republicans who held the purse strings. Kirk came up as part of the system and that's where his allegiances lie.

[jobycom]

16. I left Dallas because it was self-destructing

City councilmembers where pulling guns on cops, and vice-versa. Cops were shooting some unarmed person every other week. Cops were getting killed with alarming regularity because there was so much tension in the city. Traffic was immobile. White and black communities were at war.

When I go back now the city is cleaner, traffic is better, you can get around on public transportation-- something I wish they'd had more of when I lived there. There are more parks, Fair Park is actually interesting to visit, and the zoo isn't a place to avoid. So he did like most other big cities and gave boondoggles to big business. It's how a city or state is run-- you have to deal with all factions, you don't get to just make the people you agree with happy.

That's progress, progress is liberal. True, Kirk may not have implemented a single payer health plan, a living wage, or the abolition of all corporate entities, but that just wasn't going to happen in Dallas, anyway. What he did was more liberal than what a Republican would have done. And his own views are more liberal than what he actually was able to do.

[davidinalameda]

2. I like Frost

he was a good congressman and was screwed royally by DeLay in the redistricting

may give Frost the clout to go back to TX and run for Senate

and he was also an early Clark supporter--that would bode well for the General

[ixion]

3. Dean should have had the nomination this year

and he would have, if it weren't for a character assassination by the MSM.

I would like to see Dean run again in 08...just my two cents. ;-)

[jobycom]

10. Sheeze.

Dean was not assassinated by the media. He was a ligthweight, and the majority of voters saw it even when the media was hyping Dean as the sure thing, the shoe in, and the best chance liberals had. They turned on him only after he plummtted in the polls and came in third in Iowa.

The majority of Dems I know here in Austin who voted against Dean did so because they believed he was the media's pick, not the other way around. And Austin is as liberal as a town can get. Our Dems make the Greens look moderate half the time.

[ixion]

18. sorry, but I disagree

They played that 'scream' video byte over and over and over all the while questioning his sanity.

Sorry, but Kerry was the MSM/DLC/GOP candidate pick, IMO.

And, by the by, I lived in Austin for 3 years, and I found it much more conservative than its sister cities, like San Francisco and Key West. ;-)

(Although Key West is much smaller, it's considered a artist colony, similar to Austin).

[xultar]

7. Dean as DNC chair and a Clark/Edwards ticket. I like that. n/t

[kentuck]

8. Now that sounds like a winner !

:)

[xultar]

17. WOW, I hope you aren't being sarcastic....if you aren't I'm glad you

can appreciate such a thing.

Dean says what needs to be said to fire up the base.
Clark a military foreign policy Rhodes scholar heading the ticket in these awful BFEE created times. Reaching southerners, veterans, women, and those who want a strong foreign policy military minded person with the finger on the switch.

Edwards brining up the rear, reaching the ladies, the young southerners, charming, and using his charm to deliver devastating hits to the enemy. Edwards as the Teflon Don.

[jobycom]

12. Wrong Texan

I wish Ann Richards would do it.

Between Frost and Dean, I'd go with Dean, even though I think he's highly overrated. Frost is a good enough guy, but he's old school, and that's what's been killing us. Dean is at least fresh, and has new ideas. I hope if he gets the job he gets over the reliance on "grassroots" efforts. Grassroots campaigns are good for the ego, and they will get you a solid base, but they won't get you the majority very often. That takes speaking to the vast middle, and they are unfortunately not attuned enough to politics to understand anything other than MSM spin. We need someone to counter that. Dean's probably given a lot of thought to that issue, so maybe he could handle it now.

[dmkinsey]

15. Donnie Fowler

Head of Kerry's Michigan campaign (which we won)

Much experience, good ideas

www.changetheparty.com