People who blame others are losers.Former DNC Chair Howard Dean told Rachel Maddow on MSNBC moments ago that Democrats aren't necessarily to blame for what seems like a likely loss in today's special senate election in Massachusetts.
"I certainly don't think it's a referendum on President Obama," Dean said.
Maddow seemed to be surprised that Dean wasn't blaming Democrats for the Massachusetts race. "You're the only Democrat in politics right now who's saying anything like that," she said. "Democrats formed a circular firing squad over this election."
Maddow also called it "an incredible breakdown in party discipline."
Dean agreed, and suggested a new direction: "This is not the time for pointing the blame."
People who blame others are losers. If you want to win elections, you stop blaming and get to work."
Looking back at about a year ago when Dean stepped down as chairman of the party.
For his part,
Dean relinquished the party reins he held for four years with a few cautionary words to the several hundred Democrats attending the party's winter meeting.
"We have together built our party into a national powerhouse but we have a lot of work to do because we have to keep it going," Dean said. "We can't appear complacent."Indeed, complacency is an inherent risk for any party that has such a depth of power. Democrats now have control of the White House, expanded majorities in Congress and advantages in governor's mansions and state legislatures across the country.
Obama puts stamp on DNCMore...back from 2004
From page 100 of "You Have the Power"
"It has of course been in the interest of Republicans to stress self-reliance and individualism. That's the Frank Luntz way of packaging their economic plans to starve support for the needy.
But leaving people on their own to flounder and drown doesn't really reflect the values of most America. The policies based on this philosophy of social Darwinism haven't made American strong: they've made middle-class America weaker by draining resources away from families. By taking our own money away from civic life and community activism. By encouraging selfishness. By making people feel alone."
And why you are not hearing that much on the above topic from our Democrats....they are not willing to pay the price for the candor that will be needed to speak the truth.
We have a chance now to change this country. Guess what, we won. We won, folks. We do control both Houses. We have got to act like it.
Dean is out of national party leadership apparently now, and the very ones who encourage the catering to the right are the ones who have Obama's ear. That worries me.
From page 124 of "You Have the Power"
"For Democrats to offer voters a significant change over the long term, we need to say what we mean and not be afraid of the consequences. But there is a price to be paid for candor, and I and others inclined to speak our minds have discovered the hard way. There is no reward now in politics for saying what you think. On the contrary, in the get-along-go-along world of Washington, politicians are penalized for saying what they believe, and insincerity is the currency of our culture. (After I finished my campaign, I fully understood what Harry Truman had meant when he said, "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.")
America's politicians attack one another by day and slap one another on the back by evening. They can play this game because they know that their fighting words have no real meaning. And the media play right along, reporting on the game as though it were a story of substance. Indeed, the game becomes the story, and discussions of substance are relegated to a newspaper's inside pages if they are covered at all."
"What passes for news are stories of little lasting importance. My candor--like John McCain's in a previous election--was covered as a personality trait. We both endured "temperament" stories--and the issues we were candid about took a backseat. Candor ended up being a vulnerability for us as much as it was a virtue."
In the preface to the 2006 edition of his book he told about a speech he gave at GWU just before his decision to run for party chairman.
"On December 8, I went to George Washington University to give a speech about the future of the Democratic Party. I wanted to answer what had become the two prevailing schools of thought on our electoral losses: that we would need to move to the center, and that we would need to retake the issue of values. I told the assembled crowd, "There's only one thing Republican power brokers want more than for us to lurch to the left, and that's for us to lurch to the right. What they fear most is that we may really begin fighting for what we believe -- the fiscally responsible, socially progressive values for which Democrats have always stood and fought."
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