Howard Dean is stepping down as DNC chair. He has certainly left the Democratic Party much stronger than he found it. His main influence on the Democratic Party has been a commitment to a 50 state strategy and to being unapologetic about his party.
Under Terry McAuliffe, Tom Daschle, and the party machinery that preceded Dean, the Democrats were focused on a limited geographic area, on raising money from a limited number of big donors, and on trying to get people to ignore the fact that they weren’t Republicans. Dean had a more aggressive and populist approach which worked — with an assist, it must be said, by the shortcomings of Republican approaches coming to fruition.
Now, I see that McAuliffe has filed the papers necessary to set up a run for Governor of Virginia. Virginia is outside of my bailiwick, but I’m not a big fan of McAuliffe and suspect that Virginia can do better.
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