DNC hires Mary Beth Cahill as interim CEO

[brooklynite]

Source: Politico

The Democratic National Committee has hired Mary Beth Cahill as its interim CEO, replacing — at least temporarily — Jess O’Connell, who stepped down in a surprise on Monday.

Cahill is best known as one of the presidential campaign managers for John Kerry in 2004. She was also an executive director of EMILY’s List and worked for a number of other top Democratic politicians, including the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

“Democrats nationwide will benefit from her talents as we build on the energy and momentum from 2017 and work to elect Democrats in 2018 and beyond,” DNC Chairman Tom Perez wrote Thursday evening in an email that went to committee members.

In a DNC statement announcing her appointment, Cahill said: “As we search for someone to step into Jess’s shoes more permanently, I’m honored for the opportunity to work alongside Chairman Perez to make sure the DNC continues to win from the school board to the Oval Office.”

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/01/dnc-mary-beth-cahill-ceo-384342

[riversedge]

1. I wish her well.

[RandySF]

2. Oh no.

[murielm99]

4. Why "Oh no?"

[RandySF]

5. The Kerry campaign was a disaster.

[Corey_Baker08]

8. Disaster? We Lost By 70000 votes in one state or JK would be President

[lagomorph777]

14. Exactly. Junior stole it twice: once in FL, once in OH.

[karynnj]

16. His primary win,which Cahill led on, was very smooth and decisive

He won all but 4 states. He did far better than the fundamentals of that election predicted. The campaign was far better run than 2016.

[Ken Burch]

3. No...no...NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last edited Fri Feb 2, 2018, 11:43 AM - Edit history (1)

She helped cost us the White House in 1988 and 2004. In both cases, we lost essentially unloseable races (Dukakis was seventeen freaking points AHEAD after the convention) because we did what she told us to do and left every right-wing smear unchallenged, while refusing to defend the idea of being "liberal" when both Bushes attacked it

Bringing her back means running the 2020 race the SAME way.

It means giving up on winning.

What possible justification could there be for EVER running another campaign the way the Dukakis and Kerry campaigns were run?

[jl_theprofessor]

6. The DNC

has been pretty useless. I'd rather trust grassroots organizations to drive victory instead of an out of touch DNC.

[Ken Burch]

11. Good point.

I suppose I can live with this if she makes the most reactionary, defeatist sector of the party even less relevant.

[stuffmatters]

9. Thanks for the info. Does NOT auger well for us in 2018. And the stakes are so, so high.

[brooklynite]

10. You know that the DNC doesn't run campaigns, right?

It raises money and builds State Party organizations.

[Ken Burch]

12. Yes...but the mindset at the DNC informs the way campaigns are run.

How likely is it that a "fight like hell for the people!" campaign will be run if the DNC is saying "We can't fight back against smears, we have to defer to the GOP, and for the love of god we can't ever try to win the argument on the issues"-which was the attitude that dominated both the Dukakis and Kerry campaigns.

Neither of those campaigns featured anybody doing anything that should ever be repeated in any future Democratic campaign.

And I don't know of Ms. Cahill actually having any particular skills.

To my knowledge, neither the Dukakis nor Kerry efforts encouraged the idea of building State Party organizations OR demonstrated any particular competence at fundraising. Their main fundraising idea was the Tony Coelho notion that we should be just as much a party of corporate donors as the GOP and that we should privilege the policies big donors supported over what rank-and-file Dems wanted. What was EVER to like in that?

[karynnj]

18. No presidential campaign builds the state parties that is something the DNC needs to do

In the primaries, the candidates have to win the nomination. Then the nominee has to expand the campaign to run a 50 state race. The candidate NEEDS to have the local parties functioning well. One huge problem Kerry had was many state parties were very weak. This meant a lot of the GOTVwas done by organizations that could not directly advocate for Kerry. If Ohio had a strong, organized party, they would have noticed that cities were getting fewer voting machines than they got in the primaries. Fixing it that would have led to a President Kerry.

Howard Dean in 2005 took on the task of fixing the state party as DNC HEAD. Had he won the nomination in 2004, he would have been stuck with the same weak state parties Kerry had.

[LanternWaste]

15. Your post was a creative, though thoroughly unsupported, series of allegations.

Your post was a creative, though thoroughly unsupported, series of allegations.

If you're agenda was to create bumper-stickers, the first one was a little lengthy to fit on one. If your agenda was anything else, some objective evidence to support your claims (and post hoc ergo prompter hoc isn't evidence, it's merely a logical fallacy) would go a long way in establishing validity.

[karynnj]

17. Bush was highly favored to win 2004

In December 2003 he was at 60 percent approval which was higher than Obama 2011. Models that predict which party would win showed it a tough year for a Democrat.

[YOHABLO]

7. I'm trying to understand the hierarchy of the DNC. Difference between chairman and CEO?