50 State Strategy Becomes Conventional Wisdom

[Rose Siding]

Governor Dean knew it was a good idea. The grassroots and non-traditional media infrastructure of the party bought in immediately. State Party Chairs were singing its praises and discussing the impact of the program during the one year anniversary celebration of Governor Dean's chairmanship. And despite the always-anonymous detractors, the importance of the fifty state strategy is quickly becoming conventional wisdom in the traditional media. Three successive articles over the course of the past seven days highlight the usefulness of the undertaking.

First was captain conventional wisdom himself, Charlie Cook:

The primary responsibility of the DNC is not to win House, Senate, gubernatorial, or state legislative races, but to build and sustain a national party and to oversee the presidential conventions and nomination process. The same is true of the Republican National Committee. No other entities within the two major parties are charged with those missions.

In January, while giving a speech at Mississippi State University, I happened to meet a DNC staffer, a former executive director of the Oklahoma Democratic Party, who was assigned full-time to party-building in Mississippi. In the 33 years that I have been involved in politics, I have never heard of the national Democratic Party assigning a full-time staff member to organizational efforts in Mississippi.


Then the Boston Globe:

'When we first met Howard Dean, we thought he'd be a nut," said Nick Casey, West Virginia's party chairman. ''But that's not the guy who's been delivering the goods, and he has been delivering to us."
Casey's state party has doubled its number of precinct chairmen and is halfway to its goal of having one in each of West Virginia's more than 1,900 voting precincts. The three new staff members sent by the DNC have given the state party more than twice its previous manpower.

Party chairmen across the nation tell similar stories. In Ohio, the five people being paid by the DNC have helped set up ''Victory Squads" -- teams of about 10 Democrats who are eager to knock on doors or set up lawn signs -- in 65 rural counties where Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry fared poorly in 2004.

Mississippi's Democratic Party has established an infrastructure in 10 counties where the organization had atrophied. The DNC has sent resources to hire five full-time workers -- up from just a single part-timer previously -- helping Democrats secure victories in five special legislative elections over the past year, party chairman Wayne Dowdy said.......


Locally, the Albuquerque Journal provides the third wheel of the trifecta (subs. only):

It doesn't take a political expert to figure out why the DNC's 2004 New Mexico campaign fell short: Although Democrats have long outnumbered Republicans, President Bush bested Kerry by about 6,000 votes.
The DNC early last year elected former presidential hopeful Howard Dean as the national party chairman, and Farrauto said the chairs of state Democratic Parties nationwide asked him to place more focus— and spend more national party dollars— on stat e parties in the years between presidential elections.

"It's a really critical investment," said state Democratic Party chairman John Wertheim. "There was a consensus among the state chairs that the national party needed to get involved in mid-term elections, in municipal elections, in elections at all levels— because that would lay the groundwork for winning the presidential race the next time around," Wertheim said.

There are now nine staffers in the state party's Albuquerque headquarters, including the four field directors, Farrauto said. The party has a Web site— something it didn't have at this time in 2004. And Farrauto said the office phones are ringing far more than they once did.


Of course, the flip-side to the fifty state strategy is the Democracy Bonds Community. On that end, it's you getting the job done. In order to put organizers on the ground in every state and build a permanent party infrastructure where there hasn't been one for decades, it takes sound financial planning and a sustained commitment of resources. We can't afford to have a boom-and-bust operation that pops up every two or four years in a few key states. We have to build a permanent presence everywhere, and Democracy Bonds make that possible.

What's more, by funding this unprecedented organizing strategy with small monthly donations from ordinary Americans, the Democracy Bonds community provides a sharp contrast to the insidious Republican culture of corruption that has recently begun to unravel.....

......MORE......

http://www.democrats.org/a/2006/03/importance_of_f.php

Whether one or six or 44 Democratic wimps de jour betray my trust, I believe that change is coming.
Because of this, change is coming.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. If Rahm or Hillary bother to read, we should forward this to them.

maybe redo it in crayon and in big, block letters. Write it down REAL slow so they can read it properly.

[redqueen]

2. "we thought he'd be a nut," ????

:wtf:

[Rose Siding]

3. Yeah, I don't know what's up with the clowns who still look for distance

Even when they come around, they still feel compelled to dis Dean.

[redqueen]

4. I'd really like to ask that guy why he would say that.

I have to wonder if it's all about that one fricking scream.

Yes, of couse that one sound bite and what all the corporate media whores said about it... yes that was WAY more important than the man's record as governor, or his policy positions, or anything else that makes a lick of sense.

:banghead: