This is an amazing story about the Alaska Democratic party. They must feel that although the odds are great...there is hope from the players that Dean installed and that Obama is continuing.
Claiming the last frontierVic Fischer's history as a Democrat in Alaska reaches back to before Alaskans could vote for president, when he was a delegate to the state's Constitutional Convention in 1955 and 1956. It's been a hard slog since then. In 1964, Alaska went for Lyndon Johnson, who won all but six states. That's it in 49 years of statehood.
But on July 8th, Fischer attended the opening of Barack Obama's office in Anchorage, the first such Democratic presidential campaign office anyone can remember, where he found himself surrounded by some 400 people, more than could fit in the building. An Alaska Public Radio Network reporter asked Fischer for his reaction, and for a moment he stammered, uncharacteristically inarticulate, until he simply said, "It's a miracle."
I am remembering back to 2006 when Matt Bai wrote the in-depth article on Howard Dean. Bai traveled with Dean to Alaska. He sort of poohed-poohed the way Dean was building the party there, though over all the article was not bad.
The Inside Agitator
David Turnley/Getty Images, for The New York Times from the NYT link aboveThen Dean wanted to know how many organizers the state party now had on the ground, and Teeters told him there was just one: Teeters himself. The D.N.C. created his job — along with a position for a communications director — last year as part of Dean’s signature program, known as the 50-state strategy. Under this program, the national party is paying for hundreds of new organizers and press aides for the state parties, many of which have been operating on the edge of insolvency. The idea is to hire mostly young, ambitious activists who will go out and build county and precinct organizations to rival Republican machines in every state in the country. “We’re going to be in places where the Democratic Party hasn’t been in 25 years,” Dean likes to say. “If you don’t show up in 60 percent of the country, you don’t win, and that’s not going to happen anymore.”
In paying for two new staffers, Dean had, virtually overnight, doubled the size of Alaska’s beleaguered state party, which used to consist of only an executive director and a part-time fund-raiser. But now, as Dean considered the vastness of the state’s landscape, he decided that one organizer wasn’t enough. “In most states, we have three or four,” Dean said, thinking out loud. “Seems like you should really have more. We should be able to find that money in the budget.”
.....In just a few hours, Dean had nicely demonstrated why so many leading Democrats in Washington wish he would spend even more time in Alaska — preferably hiking the tundra for a few months, without a cellphone. It’s not that Democrats in Congress don’t like the idea of building better organizations in the party’s forgotten rural outposts. Everyone in Democratic politics agrees, in principle, that party organizations in states like Alaska could use help from Washington to become competitive again, as opposed to the rusted-out machines they have become. But doing so, at this particular moment and in this particular way, would seem to suck away critical resources at a time when every close House and Senate race has the potential to decide who will control the nation’s post-election agenda, and when the party should, theoretically, be focused on mobilizing its base voters — the kind of people who live in big cities and listen religiously to Air America.
Guess what? Look at a couple of polls from there.
Obama coattails in Alaska?A Democratic-funded poll out of Alaska suggests that Barack Obama's pledge to expand the traditional Electoral College playing field this fall may well find fertile soil in places that haven't seen a competitive presidential race in decades.
John McCain leads Obama 44 percent to 42 percent in Alaska, with Libertarian nominee Bob Barr taking 3 percent, according to the Global Strategy Group survey, which was conducted for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and obtained by The Fix.
(For Senate junkies out there, the poll also showed Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, the likely Democratic nominee, ahead of GOP Sen. Ted Stevens.)
I don't think Dean will stay as chairman after November. I may be wrong, and I hope I am. Here are two interviews by WCAX in Vermont. Videos included. You may have to check them later, as the site seems very slow.
Dean says DNC becomes "political operation" of the WH if Dem wins...won't do that.Asked to explain his job as DNC chair, Dean says, "Well, we've sort of redefined the job since I took it. This used to be mostly a fundraising operation, now we've put in a political operation."
..."Now, as he wraps up a four-year term, Dean says, "There (have) been a lot of surprises, but one is that I'm learning to deal with Washington. It's very interesting-- much different then Vermont... Well the first thing is you can't say the first thing that comes into you mind and that of course is one of my trademarks as Governor."
Dean says "there was no particular reason to move. It's cheaper to live in Vermont-- and it's disruptive-- I'm a Vermonter anyway".
Dean says "there was no particular reason to move. It's cheaper to live in Vermont-- and it's disruptive-- I'm a Vermonter anyway".
When asked if he would stay on in DC...Dean responded:
This is a very different job when you are working for a Democratic president, you basically become the political operation of the White House and I don't want to do that."
Carlson: "But you might stay on?"
Dean: "I don't know what I'll do, but it's important that we win-- that's what I'm focused on."
When the site is moving faster try to watch both videos, as they are quite in depth. They were done as an interview and tour of the DNC.
I hate to think of Dean stepping down. He was ahead of his time in almost every way.
There is a nice tribute to him at
the Hartford Advocate for Thursday.And when, in December 2003, he said, "The United States is no safer today, after capturing Saddam Hussein, than we were before he was captured," I nearly fainted. Though he was correct, the mere fact that a national leader would have the guts to go right into the Bush-Cheney wheelhouse and toss that flaming bag of feces in their face showed moral courage. But, of course, it was political suicide. Americans can't stand too much honesty too soon.
At the Netroots Nation conference in Austin last week, Paul Krugman made that point with stunning clarity. He told the group of progressive bloggers that the media's failure was not due to politics but for lack of what Dean had in spades: guts. Krugman said their credo was, "It's better to be conventionally wrong than unconventionally right. ... There's something wrong with you if you actually figure this out too early."
Dean figured it all out in 2003. It was too early for his own political aspirations. Fortunately, he was not too late to save the rest of us.
I hope the best for Alaska, and to their credit both Dean and Obama have pushed the thought that we can win there.