Good Dean article in Salon 12/7 re: DNC timidity

[NYCGirl]

Good article in Salon today. It was posted in the Editorials section here, but in case you missed it there:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/07/dean/index.html

Excerpt:

Dean will address the first of those questions Wednesday. He'll argue that the Democratic Party should be rebuilt from the grass roots up, that it should be driven by millions of Americans who make small contributions rather than by a handful of moneyed interests, and that the party should focus not just on presidential politics in swing states like Ohio and Florida but also on down-ballot races even in the reddest of states. On matters of substance, Dean may not resurrect his borrowed line about representing the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," but you can count on him to make it clear he isn't joining the "go along to get along" wing of the party, either.

"If you want to win, you have to fight, and you have to stand for something," Dean wrote in a Web column a few days after the election. While centrist Democrats like Reid were scrambling to find common ground with the president and the red state voters who elected him, Dean used his first sustained election postmortem to proclaim his disagreement with Bush "on almost every direction he takes us in."

Dean's unequivocal anti-Bushness is red meat for progressive Democrats hungry for something beyond the empty calories of "Fuck the South." The liberal blogosphere -- which played both father and son to Dean's presidential run -- has all but demanded that Dean be chosen to lead the Democratic Party when the DNC meets in February. In Oregon, the race for a spot in the state's DNC delegation turned into a blog battle over which candidate would offer the strongest support for Dean's as-yet-undeclared candidacy. In Washington, DNC member Donna Brazile said Monday that she has received so many e-mails from Dean supporters that her Blackberry has died from the abuse.

There's no question that Dean can inspire the Democratic base. And as a former governor -- albeit of a tiny state -- and a presidential candidate who helped revolutionize political campaigns, Dean has a track record that suggests he has the organizational skills necessary to make the Democratic Party work. But a good résumé and the impassioned pleas of a thousand dailykossacks does not a DNC majority make. Brazile -- who may or may not have been in the race but is out now -- says Dean has only "lukewarm" support from party insiders. If Dean decides to run, she says, "You'll see the same forces that tried to derail his campaign reconstitute themselves as an anti-Dean bandwagon."

[Cheswick2.0]

1. who died and made Donna Brazille Democratic Goddess?

Yeesh. I am sure Dean will do whatever he thinks is best for him and the party.

[janx]

2. This is a big week, Ches.

The speech is going to be important.

[JNelson6563]

3. Dean continues to speak for me

and I am grateful that someone does! I wish Brazille would be struck mute. At least she admits to the cabal's effort to stop Dean tho', more than I can say for many of the Bots.

I am really looking forward to the speech tomorrow!

Julie

[Rose Siding]

4. They sure punch the differences with Reid

Dec. 7, 2004 | Harry Reid says Democrats have to "swallow their pride" and move toward the middle. Harry Reid says he admires Antonin Scalia's "brilliance" and could imagine voting to confirm him as chief justice of the United States. Harry Reid says he'd rather "dance" with George W. Bush than "fight" him.

Harry Reid says: "I'm the face of the Democratic Party today."

Harry Reid may be right. For a party that came within 119,000 Ohio votes of ousting a sitting president in a time of war, the Democrats are sounding awfully defeated these days. There's talk of making the most of long-term minority status, of compromising on judicial appointments and "moral issues" like the rights of gay couples and women -- Reid, the Democrats' new Senate leader, is anti-choice -- and of trying to figure out some way to outflank the Republicans from the red-state right.

And then there's Howard Dean.
.............

And here again is a whisper about Dean holding out for a possible future run...

Laura Gross, a spokeswoman for Dean's Democracy for America, said Dean's presidential aspirations are just one factor that will go into his decision whether to run for the chairmanship. She said he hasn't decided whether he'll run in 2008 -- let alone whether the desire to make such a run is incompatible with the chairmanship.

If Dean runs for the DNC job -- and gets it -- he may ultimately be able to have it both ways. If the Democrats surge in the 2006 election cycle -- if history and Dean's leadership conspire to win governorships and significant numbers of seats in the House and Senate -- then the party may be so enthusiastic about Dean's skills that he'll win widespread support for a presidential run. But there are a lot of "ifs" built into that equation, and it's not a contingency Dean can embrace -- at least publicly -- if he hopes to win the support of a lot of DNC members wary of picking a chairman who uses the DNC as his own personal exploratory committee.