DNC contender: Donnie Fowler.

[MsUSA]

Last year, Fowler served as Michigan state director for John Kerry (news - web sites)'s presidential campaign and has largely built his career on the low-profile but essential work of identifying voters and getting them to the polls.

Despite his years in the crucible of Silicon Valley technology and love of "blue state" California, he is pursuing the DNC chairmanship with a decidedly "red state" mission: wooing back rural and religious voters in states the party has recently written off.

"We've conceded the South, we've conceded the Rocky Mountain states, we've conceded religious voters, and we've conceded rural voters," Fowler said. "Republicans do the George Patton theory, which is always attack, never stop pushing the line forward. We need to be able to do that, too."

To win those voters back, Fowler argues, the party must learn to frame its message in language that connects on a more emotional level. It also must redirect power to frustrated local party officials, who Fowler believes are better equipped than Washington insiders to know what works in their states.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=703&e=7&u=/ap/20050113/ap_on_re_us/dnc_chairman_silicon_valley

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. I like everything he says except the last part.

Local party officials... well...

Let's be perfectly honest here. Half the time, when you get down to local politics, it's just the most popular person there. 3/4ths of the time, few, if any, of the people involved have any real political training. My dealings with local government have been anything but smooth. So I don't trust them with power.

I do agree we need to fight, although I do give up on the South. I don't think we can ever get them, no matter what message we send, simply because I think a large percentage of the population still feels like it's fighting the Civil War and will be against us on ANYTHING we do.