No place all red on Dean's map

[RamboLiberal]

http://origin.denverpost.com/ci_5618688

Democratic chairman Howard Dean was nearing the end of his visit to a Christian college here when, finally, he provoked a response from his evangelical audience.

It wasn't by offering, though he did, to find common ground with religious conservatives on matters such as abortion, AIDS and welfare. What warmed the crowd at Eastern University was the party chairman's blunt warning to the new Democratic majority in Washington.

"You don't get a free pass," Dean said.

"Our object was not to get you into power because we are Democrats - our object was to get you into power so you actually do something," he said. "And if you don't, we are not going to stand up and keep you.

Love that message, love that Dean strategy.

[DFW]

1. The reason Howard went down in flames in 2004

...was because he chose not to mince words, but to come out
with statements like that one.

We have wised up considerably since then, and now realize what a
breath of fresh air it is to have such an articulate spokesman as
party chairman, ready and willing to speak clearly and openly about
things as they are, and not fearing how CNN or Fox will dissect his
words on the evening news.

His speech at the 2008 convention will be a memorable one, and no one,
including Howard, has, as of yet, the slightest idea what he will say.
It will be a memorable one, all the same. You heard it here first.

[FogerRox]

3. Yeah, and now we get Deans Revenge LOL.

The 50 state plan.

[Kurovski]

2. K&R. (nt)

[democrank]

4. Dean should get one of those Backbone Awards.

His candor is so refreshing.

[madfloridian]

9. He did get one.

:hi:

[mahina]

5. Love the strategy, love the message, love the man.

God bless and keep you Howard Dean!

[Eurobabe]

6. Love ya Dr. Dean!!

:loveya: :toast: :bounce:

[PaDem]

7. Love the strategy..........

and I'm so glad that Dean hasn't backed down.

[madfloridian]

8. Some of the quotes by Elaine Kamarck in Dean's interview impress me.

She endorsed Dean in 03, and stuck around posting at DFA for a long time. She is part of the DLC leadership, or was. Not sure. She wrote a paper at Harvard about the 50 state plan and how it is working. She used to get blasted at the DFA blog for her centrism, but she overall has the kind of centrism that is mostly really moderate.

Here are her quotes about Dean from the article about his interview at Eastern:

"This guy is not some crazy guy," said Harvard University professor Elaine Kamarck, an experienced Democratic theorist who studied the Emanuel-Dean dispute and the 2006 results - and came down on the side of the chairman. "He is doing something quite real, quite necessary and quite valuable."

Kamarck attributes Dean's run-in with the "Clintonistas" to the "insider antipathy" of a nervous establishment, which looks with trepidation at the Internet's impact on politics.

"The persistence of the debate is no accident," Kamarck writes, in a paper summarizing her conclusions. "After nearly half a century of paying obeisance to the god of television in political campaigns, the Internet has opened up a new front ... one that threatens the status quo and the people who make their living from television.

"The Internet allows for the return of old fashioned political organizing. The shift in political campaigns from the 'air war' to the 'ground war' shifts power from Washington and the centralized party committees and from professional consultants to the states and localities."
http://origin.denverpost.com/ci_5618688

She gets it about Dean's effort to get the campaigns less dependent on expensive TV ads. She has always gotten it about the power shift involved.

Here is a brief summary about her Harvard study on the 50 State Strategy.

50 State Plan analysis from Harvard's Elaine Kamarck.

[crispini]

10. Wonderful article. K&R

[madfloridian]

11. Moving the piggy bank..

From the article...more about the goals he has for the DNC.

Moving the piggy bank....a DNC power shift to outside DC.

Moving the piggy bank

For much of the past 40 years, the DNC has served as a piggy bank, to be plundered by political consultants, who receive a percentage of the television advertising costs and had few incentives to invest in the provinces. In the South and West, many local parties withered. During the Clinton years, the Democrats made a crucial breakthrough by adding California and the other Pacific states to their traditional Northeastern and Midwestern base, but important plums such as Texas and Georgia have virtually been ceded to the GOP.

"We had existing parties in every state, but most ... were dysfunctional because they had no resources," Dean said. "Therefore they couldn't produce; therefore nobody would invest in them; therefore they couldn't produce."

[NormanYorkstein]

12. Dean was right about the 50 state strategy

He was 100% right and Carville and Emmanuel were 100% wrong.

[MasonJar]

13. As dems we are very lucky that Dean did not get the nomination and

instead became the party chairman. His ideas are forward thinking and he has no fear. I love him as our guy in charge.

[madfloridian]

14. This paragraph is sort of touching.

"The Democratic chairman is an outsider. In much of official Washington, he is scorned as a loner, or viewed at best with wary regard. He commutes from Vermont and lives in a hotel; his office at party headquarters has few homey touches."

I guess that is the best way to be if you are trying to bring change in a system that does not want change.