Bob Moser, writing for the Nation, has an article entitled Purple America. The article takes a look at some of the effects of Howard Dean’s “50 State Strategy” as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. In the past, as I recall, this has put him at odds with other members of the Democratic Party, notably Democratic Leadership Council members.
In just two years, the belated catch-up effort has paid off in at least two tangible ways: It has exponentially multiplied grassroots party involvement and–in a short-term benefit not even envisioned by its architects–has helped win an impressive number of state, local and Congressional elections in majority-Republican regions. That’s not to mention the intangible benefits of fanning out 180 Democratic organizers, fundraisers and communications specialists across the map, many of them working in places like western North Carolina, where, as one local activist puts it, “a lot of Democrats think of the national party as the devil itself.” As the chair of the most overwhelmingly Republican of states, Utah’s Wayne Holland, wrote last year, “Democrats have become outsiders who do things to us, not insiders who do things for us. The fifty-state strategy is one way to turn it around.”
. . .
Dean’s analysis ran contrary to the entrenched interests of those who had long run the DNC, Matt Bai wrote last year in The New York Times Magazine, as “essentially a service organization for a few hundred wealthy donors, who treated it like their private political club.” Also being served at this “club” were Congressional leaders who had risen with help from the old DNC. And then there were the big-ticket consultants, the James Carvilles and Paul Begalas, who had shot to fortune and fame with their image-driven, big-media Bill Clinton campaigns, their pricey polling data and “strategic targeting.”
. . .
“If you make your living buying and making TV ads, then you’re not really very wild about a change in technology that says, Let’s hire organizers,” says Kamarck. “The whole political-consultant industry has been built on ads. But with cable TV and the diffusion of media, what the hell good is an ad? The fifty-state strategy takes a generation of consultants and kind of says, Let’s put you out to pasture.”
. . .
Clearly, this state of affairs cried out for some well-placed media smears and strong-arm tactics. In March 2006 House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader-to-be Harry Reid met with the miscreant from Vermont and, according to the Washington Post, “complained about Dean’s priorities.” To little avail. In May DCCC chair Rahm Emanuel and DSCC honcho Chuck Schumer had a similar contretemps with Dean, ending with Emanuel reportedly storming out with “a trail of expletives.” And on CNN, Clinton consultant and longtime Democratic strategist Paul Begala tartly mouthed the insiders’ consensus. “He says it’s a long-term strategy. But what he has spent it on, apparently, is just hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose.”
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