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Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
this one is so wild I'm going to post the entire first page of the Washington Post story ... Actually, I can't believe that the Post reporter specifically mentioned each of the various groups as 'valued (Democratic) constituencies !
"The Special-Interest Group Hug
Howard Dean Meets Democratic Caucuses
By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 12, 2005; Page C01
Incoming Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean spent yesterday in a series of meetings with valued Democratic constituencies at the Hilton Washington. He did the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus at 12:15 p.m., the Seniors Coordination Council at 12:45 p.m., the Women's Caucus at 3:40 p.m., the Native Americans at 4:35 p.m., the African Americans at 5 p.m., the Asian Pacific Islanders at 5:20 p.m. and the Hispanics at 5:40 p.m.
Cynics might call this regimen emblematic of the Democratic Party's over-attention to special-interest groups. Not so, says Laura Gross, spokeswoman for the former Vermont governor who is expected to be elected party chairman today at a DNC meeting. "Governor Dean is going to need everybody's help," Gross says, "and that's why he's talking to all these caucus groups."
Howard Dean, expected to become chairman of the DNC today, tells an African American caucus, "We're gonna need lots of help from y'all." (Robert A. Reeder -- The Washington Post)
Wherever he goes, Dean is trailed by a bulldozing throng of cameramen, some of whom have a knack for smashing bystanders in the head with their equipment. This can be somewhat disruptive, especially at the meetings Dean joins in progress, but Dean is always quick to get down to business.
"You are among the most persecuted people in the history of mankind," Dean tells his first audience, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus. This leads off a rapid-fire series of applause lines from Dean, who during his presidential campaign once declared, "If Bill Clinton can be the first 'black president,' I can be our first 'gay president.' " He doesn't go this far yesterday, but assures everyone that when he's elected, "it will not be my chairmanship, it will be our chairmanship."
He darts out to a standing ovation and heads a few rooms over to address the National Seniors Coordinating Council. "Democrats have a lot of work to do among seniors," he tells them, adding that he himself is a proud member of AARP. He talks about Social Security, Medicare and prescription drugs, and takes a question from a woman who says she wears a Howard Dean shirt to bed every night, which makes him blush.
After a break, Dean walks in to a standing ovation from the Women's Caucus. Women are not an interest group, he says, "they are a majority." By the way, Dean says, Democrats need to start talking about Social Security not as a seniors issue but as a women's issue. On his way out, a woman puts a lei of pink flowers around his neck.
A few doors over, Dean stands before a meeting of Native Americans, some of whom say Democrats have neglected their community -- a recurring message among many of the constituencies Dean meets with.
"I'm sick of the DNC treating Indians like an ATM machine that has to be courted every couple of years," says Kaylin Free of Oklahoma. She is starting a group called "Indian's List," which will encourage Native Americans to run for office, and which Dean calls "a really great idea, really exciting."
A woman from Arizona complains that while the GOP hired staff from within the Native American community during the last election, the DNC "imported kids from Harvard and it didn't work." Yes, this has to stop, Dean agrees. Then he bolts next door to see the African American caucus.
"We're gonna need lots of help from y'all," Dean says by way of hello. He quotes from the Bible, affirms the party's commitment to equality and diversity, and rails against what he calls inadequate voting machines in minority communities.
"We Democrats don't pay enough attention to our core groups," Dean says, and half the room nods in agreement. He takes a comment from a woman who says blacks didn't receive enough resources from the DNC last year. "Show me the money," she tells Dean.
"I'm gonna show you the money," he assures her. "And I'm gonna show you the responsibility, too." Applause.
He surveys the crowd of 150 crammed into the room. "You think the RNC could get this many people of color into a single room?" he marvels. "Maybe if they got the hotel staff in there."
The Asian Pacific Islander American Caucus is more subdued and considerably smaller -- about 15 people. But that doesn't mean Dean is any less appreciative."
"The API community was one of the best-performing communities for John Kerry," Dean says. But one man complains that DNC members from Guam and American Samoa are granted only one-fourth of a vote in committee elections. Why shouldn't they get a full vote?
"That sounds like the fair thing to do," Dean says, adding that he'll look into this matter but promises nothing.
Howard Dean, expected to become chairman of the DNC today, tells an African American caucus, "We're gonna need lots of help from y'all." (Robert A. Reeder -- The Washington Post)
It's after 6 p.m. when Dean bounds into his last meeting, with the Hispanic Caucus. "This is my seventh meeting of the day," he declares to the crowd. "I think they only have one caucus in the Republican Party," which he calls "homogenous."
He deems the day's constituency hopscotch to be "kinda fun." Then he prostrates the party for suffering a loss of support from Hispanic voters.
He takes a question from a frustrated Latina who says the DNC needs to starts to hiring more Latino consultants and staffers, a point which elicits a roaring ovation.
Before Dean finishes, a poignant moment comes out of nowhere.
Gloria Nieto, vice chair of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus, tearfully tells how she married her female partner in Massachusetts last year, and says she hopes that her community will always be respected within the Democratic Party.
To which Dean walks out from behind the podium and envelops the woman in a big hug. He is crying himself. "That's why I'm a Democrat," he says.
Well, so much for the 'Dean will mainstream the democratic party' theory !
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
and this one is even better ... NOTE the author is a Seattle democrat who has been active in democratic party politics at the national level for the past 40 years !
"Howard Dean's Party
Democrats, run for your lives!
BY TED VAN DYK
Saturday, February 12, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
If you've seen "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," you'll know how I feel about the state of the current Democratic Party. The film, as you'll recall, depicted the bodies of decent, normal citizens being taken over while they slept by alien entities marching in conformist and destructive lockstep.
In its original 1950s version, the film was meant to portray the McCarthyism of the time. But it strikes all too close to home for Democrats who once fought everything McCarthyism represented but who now are stuck in a reactionary groupthink of their own.
The culminating act of this sad transformation will come today when Howard Dean is elected national party chairman. This is the same Dean whose presidential campaign spent millions of dollars, failed to win a primary, and flamed out in episodes of reckless Bush rage. Mr. Dean pledges that he is interested only in serving his party and has no plan for a 2008 candidacy. Whether he does or does not, he will become the party's principal spokesman for the next three years. Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the party's congressional leaders, will be eclipsed by the more colorful, uninhibited Mr. Dean. Television news channel and network talk show producers will provide the former governor every minute of exposure he craves.
A national party's chairman is particularly important when his party is out of power. Until 30 years ago, the Democrats' official spokesman and titular leader, after a losing presidential campaign, was their defeated candidate in the prior election. Hence Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey took center stage for the party and personally selected the party's chairman (Stevenson chose Paul Butler, Humphrey chose Fred Harris and Larry O'Brien). That tradition ended, however, after the 1972 campaign, when George McGovern was pushed aside after his landslide loss. Subsequent losing candidates, including Al Gore and John Kerry, have similarly been sidetracked to make way for the new.
Mr. Dean's ascendancy to the chairmanship could have parallels with Mr. Harris's. After his 1968 defeat, Humphrey pondered a choice between Mr. Harris and former North Carolina governor Terry Sanford as party chairman. Mr. Harris, along with Sen. Walter Mondale, had co-chaired Humphrey's nominating campaign. Sanford had chaired his general-election campaign. Mr. Harris badly wanted the chairmanship after having been passed over for Sen. Ed Muskie as Humphrey's running mate. A soft-hearted Humphrey gave him the job. Mr. Harris, who had his own presidential ambitions, then cast his lot as chairman with the party's most activist constituencies. In so doing he ruined his own presidential chances, lost his Oklahoma Senate seat, and narrowed the party's base. Sanford would have broadened it.
Republican control of the White House, both houses of Congress, and state houses gives the GOP its strongest national position since at least the Eisenhower period of the 1950s. As Democrats ponder their role in opposition, they might consider how their predecessors conducted themselves during that time.
Democratic congressional leaders Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson pursued a strategy in opposition which, down the road, paid long-term dividends for their party. They supported the Eisenhower administration on national security issues during a dangerous time--intervening with the White House when necessary to stop mistakes such as Vice President Richard Nixon's proposal to use nuclear weapons to bail out French forces at Dienbienphu. They observed the general rule that a president deserved to have the nominees he wanted for key administration and judicial appointments and questioned them only selectively.
Congressional Democrats of that period did, however, use their investigative authority to highlight episodes of public and private corruption. Most importantly, they began preparing the ground for landmark domestic legislation--which ultimately became the Great Society--even though they lacked majorities at the time to pass it. In 1965, after President Johnson's huge victory over Barry Goldwater, Democrats promptly passed the agenda they had nurtured during the Eisenhower years.
The party's visible leaders and voices are pursuing an entirely different strategy today. It generally amounts to angry opposition on all issues all the time. President Bush's Iraq intervention was problematic. But had Mr. Kerry been elected president, he would be following essentially the same path today in Iraq as Mr. Bush--that is, to build an elected Iraqi government's capacity to maintain sufficient security that American forces could leave. Yet most Democrats' reaction to the first essential step in that strategy, the successful completion of elections, has been to dismiss the elections' importance, to charge Mr. Bush with "having no exit strategy," or to demand he set a hard timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal.
For many years Democrats, more than Republicans, pointed to the need to reform Social Security for the long term. Social Security, after all, was a Democratic invention and a cornerstone of the party's commitment to economic security. Yet, in the face of the Bush reform initiative, many senior Democrats have chosen simply to deny the need for change. That is not a viable policy or political position. Democrats are quite right to challenge the notion of partial privatization of the system. But they have an equal obligation to offer an alternative reform plan, the components of which are self-evident and which would require little public sacrifice. Why not seize the opportunity the Bush initiative presents and move public opinion toward a Democratic alternative on Social Security?
The Democrats' present disorientation has been in the making for decades. When President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, he acknowledged that its political downside was the end of the Solid (Democratic) South. In 1968, Humphrey lost to Nixon because traditional blue-collar Democratic voters in New Jersey, Ohio and Illinois cast ballots for George Wallace's third-party candidacy. Postelection surveys indicated they did so because they felt alienated from what they saw as Democrats' values and orientations. The disaffections became wholesale in 1972 when Mr. McGovern's peace candidacy was overwhelmed by the "acid, amnesty and abortion" agenda of some of his supporters. As Mr. McGovern's 1972 platform coordinator, I can attest that most of his national convention delegates had less interest in his candidacy than in their own narrow social-agenda objectives.
Jimmy Carter reclaimed moderate Democratic voters, including some Christian conservatives, in 1976. But the erosion in the party's middle-culture base resumed in 1980 as millions of Democrats, including a high percentage of union members, cast Republican votes. President Clinton, as President Carter before him, reclaimed some of those votes. But when "HillaryCare" imploded in 1994, it not only sank health-care reform indefinitely, but also helped Republicans regain a House majority for the first time in 40 years. They have not relinquished it. Something else happened during the Clinton years. President Clinton's eight-year emphasis on short-term tactical politics--focused on his own political survival--left the party without any coherent intellectual foundation.
With the advent of the Dean chairmanship, the Body Snatchers' takeover will be complete and the party of ideas will have been fully transformed to one of reflexive and strident opposition.
Mr. Dean's passion and partisanship no doubt will deepen Democratic support in enclaves they already dominate. My home city of Seattle will remain a blue stronghold. But it will be only one of a few. If you examine the 2004 electoral map closely, you will see that several states, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and New Jersey, voted for Mr. Kerry but could trend longer-term toward the GOP. President Bush made gains over 2000 nationally among female, black, Latino and Catholic voters. If they cannot break free of Deanism--i.e., strident opposition to all things Bush--Democrats could find themselves by 2008 the party of Hollywood, Manhattan, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Al Sharpton, Michael Moore, George Soros and high-culture media--but not of most Americans.
Second-term blunders by President Bush, or international or economic setbacks, could make voters want change and give Democrats a political reprieve. But what if events go Mr. Bush's way? Unremitting, undifferentiated rage is not an appropriate platform for an opposition party. Voters will reject continuing negativism and obstruction.
Memo to Democrats: It is time to return to the old-fashioned way. Ask the questions: What are the needs of our country? What are our constructive proposals to meet them? How can we best push those proposals forward? If Democratic leaders and candidates ask those questions, and try seriously to answer them, voters may once again be prepared to let them govern."
Mr. Van Dyk, an editorial-page columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, was active for 40 years in national Democratic policy and politics."
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
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Incoming Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean spent yesterday in a series of meetings with valued Democratic constituencies at the Hilton Washington. He did the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus at 12:15 p.m., the Seniors Coordination Council at 12:45 p.m., the Women's Caucus at 3:40 p.m., the Native Americans at 4:35 p.m., the African Americans at 5 p.m., the Asian Pacific Islanders at 5:20 p.m. and the Hispanics at 5:40 p.m.
Cynics might call this regimen emblematic of the Democratic Party's over-attention to special-interest groups. Not so, says Laura Gross, spokeswoman for the former Vermont governor who is expected to be elected party chairman today at a DNC meeting. "Governor Dean is going to need everybody's help," Gross says, "and that's why he's talking to all these caucus groups."
Meet the new boss...same as the old boss.
So much for pragmatism and rejection of identity politicking.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
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You jest implies that you feel these groups don't qualify as "valued" or "valuable" because ---why ??????????????????
Actually my jest was intended to echo the comments in the news stories, i.e. that under Howard Dean the Democratic party continues to 'value' all sorts of special interest and "fringe" groups - implying that the Democratic party continues to place little value in the concerns of 'ordinary' Americans.
One of the touted claims about Howard Dean was that he could somehow "mainstream' the appeal of the democratic party, thus somehow reconnect with 'ordinary' Americans in a few places, and thus garner enough total political support to actually win some elections for the Democrats. However, on Howard's very first opportunity to go in front of the cameras as DNC chairman, he chooses to line up with gays, lesbians, transsexuals, blacks, American Indians, and finally hispanics, highlighting that image of the Democratic party. However, for some reason, Dean chose not to meet with the American Trial Lawyers association, nor with Limousine Liberals !
I'm not sure whether or not one should draw any conclusions based on the order in which Dean chose to meet with the various groups ...
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
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Thinking back to Kerry’s defeat last November, he told the DNC Women’s Caucus, "Family values? How could we possibly lose? We are the party of family values!"
The lesson: "It is not what we believe that has caused us to lose. It is the way we talked about what we believe."
Yes indeed, I'm sure that a gay couple's 'right' to get married and adopt a minority child appeals straight to the hearts of those 'family value' southern voters ! Before you jump my case please realize that I'm being facetious for a reason. The 'family values' in the minds of conventional southern voters bear little resemblance to the 'family' values of gay couples, at least in terms of election results on anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives during the last election. By continuing to give high visibility and apparent priority to gays and other minority groups, Dean will continue to send a message to mainstream voters that their needs and concerns will be playing second fiddle (or 3rd or 4th).
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
I saw a quote from Dean's acceptance speach in which he said, that he "hates" all republicans. Isn't there something in the bible about loving your enemies? Guess he hasn't gotten to that part yet.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
Tigerlily, you know I am your biggest fan, but I think Melonie does have a point when she states that the typical southern voter has a different notion of family values than the typical gay couple--not that this is correct or morally superior, just that this is the way they feel.
That being said, I can't condemn Dean for giving his time freely to these so-called 'fringe' groups, even if he hurts his image with the 'mainstream' voters, in the process.
It's no worse than kow-towing to the likes of people who want prayer in schools, Creationism taught as science, or all stripclubs and other sexually-oriented industries everywhere to be closed down since they are 'anti-family'. This is what the leadership of the republican party has been doing for years now.
The fact that they have won elections by doing so makes it no more reassuring to me, or the future of the country.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
^ Amen. A scant comparison of the WJC and GWB administrations point out this glaring difference.
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You jest implies that you feel these groups don't qualify as "valued" or "valuable" because ---why ??????????????????
I'll pretend this is a valid question.
The problem with the DNC in the last 20 years is that they continue to pander to the edges rather than the middle. When the first statements to the public coming out of the DNC are aimed at splinter groups and fringe elements, you're already on the wrong track and ignoring both demographic trends and electoral history. This has cost them both houses of Congress, and if it weren't for Ross Perot, all the presidential elections since Reagan. They need to change their message and start recognizing that the Democratic Party can be more than just a clearinghouse for minority interests based on identity politics.
Or they can keep losing ground...the choice seems clear to me.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
Why would any Democrat listen to the advice from you, a conservative and Republican supporter, on matters pertaining to winning elections ?
Sorry , but I just don't think any conservative or Republican supporter has any real interest in helping Democrats win elections.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
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Originally Posted by Deogol
I just think it is funny how Dems go on about "how many colors they have stuffed in the hotel room."
Democratic administrations are white white white white... fucking Ku Klux Klan white in the manner of Bird and friends.
Meanwhile, the Republicans have blacks, mexicans, women and men... I bet they even have an asian or two someplace.
Everyone is seeing Democrats for what they are... plantation owners.
Wow , I didn't know that Democrats were racist and all Klan members. I bet that is news to all the black southern democrats .
And wow , every single Democrat is a plantation owner, hmm is that supposed to imply slave owners, yes I do believe it is now isn't it.
I'd say the whole post is offensive actually so I think I will report it as such and ask Lena to make a judgement call on the matter.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
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Originally Posted by Mark W.
Wow , I didn't know that Democrats were racist and all Klan members. I bet that is news to all the black southern democrats .
And wow , every single Democrat is a plantation owner, hmm is that supposed to imply slave owners, yes I do believe it is now isn't it.
I'd say the whole post is offensive actually so I think I will report it as such and ask Lena to make a judgement call on the matter.
What is offensive is taking a truth and than wrapping such "hyperactive arm flailing in the air" thought around it into making it a lie. I said there are some prominent members of the dems who are/were Ku Klux Klan members .
People can see through such rhetorical tools as taking a person's words from "There is" to "For all." You are going to have to be more sophisticated bud.
Sorry, but there are a lot of blacks who voted for Bush. He would not have gotten there without their help.
If you had an inter-married family like mine, you would understand what "The Plantation" means in the community. Perhaps I should have gave some definition to the word because it is not in common usage.
It refers to the system where a black person is kept in thier place. The plantation is lousy education, loss of economic oppurtunities, children are jailed for drugs instead of healed, and just plain foolish decisions. The plantation is parts of the US government, with it's "aid" that ends up keeping black people down.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
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Originally Posted by Mark W.
Wow , I didn't know that Democrats were racist and all Klan members. I bet that is news to all the black southern democrats .
And wow , every single Democrat is a plantation owner, hmm is that supposed to imply slave owners, yes I do believe it is now isn't it.
Well, no, he didn't say that. He was talking about Democractic administrations.
However, I wish we could stay away from these broad-brush generalizations. It's no more valid to paint a hypothetical Democractic administration as racist or sanctimonious than it is a Republican one, which has been done here plenty.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
I think Dean as DNC Chair is a shrewd move by the Dems to put one of their bigger faces (and someone who mobilized the grass roots and the internet well in his presidential campaign) somewhere that party loyalists can get a big dose of him, while sidelining him as a possible 2008 candidate.
Not sure how much that will help the Dems though--in my lifetime the only presidential elections they have won are post-Watergate and when Ross Perot was running. The Republicans are using religion and fear of terrorism to win the very voters that should be the core of the Democratic party for economic reasons.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
Well, the religious/moral arguments aren't exactly BRAINWASHING (depending on how you feel about religion, I guess)--there are just a lot of people in the country to whom denying gay people the right to wed is more important than getting health care coverage that will last past their job termination. Some of that is probably a (justified) skepticism about whether federal (or even state/local) initiatives are really going to benefit them very much, but some of it really seems to be that people would rather be poorer but more godly (in their own eyes).
Which is hard for us secular types to accept...
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
TL,
I'm sorry **I** wasn't more clear (too lazy to use the smilie so please excuse its absence).
I agree with you completely on the Republicans exploiting the fear of terrorism to suit their own political agenda. I just wanted to point out that there are pre-existing belief systems (which I don't and you may not agree with) which underpin people's opposition to things like abortion or gay marriage, whereas Bush being seen as tough on terror is simply a product of chance and political spin.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
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Why would any Democrat listen to the advice from you, a conservative and Republican supporter, on matters pertaining to winning elections ?
Sorry , but I just don't think any conservative or Republican supporter has any real interest in helping Democrats win elections.
A. I'm not a conservative, and furthermore, your bias that all Dems are secular, elitist liberals is part of the reason why the DNC continues to give up ground--particularly in the South and West.
B. The Democrats need to look at how the GOP runs its campaigns and public messages if it wants to stop backsliding into political irrelevance; the alternative is to continue ignoring demographic and socioeconomic trends, keep to their divisive message of identity politics and Balkanization and continue losing seats and Presidential elections. The DNC needs some advice from people that want to win more than they want to get press time for marginal issues that the broader public doesn't care much about. Either that, or they can keep losing seats, which they've shown they're very good at, actually.
C. Having a viable opposition party is important to anyone that actually cares about accountability and effectiveness of representative government--it keeps the other side quasi-honest and quasi-motivated, if only out of fear.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
Well, one thing that the RNC typically does is to allow the RNC chairman to stay in the political background and solicit/collect campaign donations. Then when campaign time comes around, the RNC invariably has more money to spend to get their candidate's message out. By choosing Howard Dean as DNC chairman, the Democratic party has put forth yet another face and mouthpiece to compete with the actual Democratic candidates when the next election rolls around.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
Melonie,
Dean is out there...The Dems can't hide his light under a bushel. I think putting him in a fundraising role appealing to the base where he's unlikely to throw his hat in the ring again is a good one. He's not going to compete with the actual candidates as much this way as he would if he were, say...a candidate!
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
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Originally Posted by Tigerlilly
Since you had to try and go there ::)
The second Ku Klux Klan was re-established during, a feat which arguably would not have been possible without skillful , based on the play The Clansmen and the book The Leopard's Spots, both by Thomas Dixon. Many poor whites were drawn to the idea that their economic woes were caused by Blacks, or by Jewish bankers, or by other such groups. This Klan was operated as a profit-making venture by its leaders, and participated in the boom for fraternal organizations at the time.
It differed from the first Klan; the first Klan was and Southern; this Klan was and Midwestern, and had major political influence on the Republicans in several Midwestern states. It collapsed largely as a result of a scandal involving , the Grand Dragon of , who was convicted of and in a sensational trial.
President Warren Harding - Klansman
As the Republican victor in the 1920's presidential campaign, Harding may have benefited from Klan demonstrations on election eve warning blacks in various parts of the South not to vote. Shortly after his inauguration, Harding was initiated as a Klansman in the Green room of the White House, with William Simmons leading the 5 man imperial induction team. The nervous Klansmen forgot their bible, required for the final oath and Harding sent for the White House Bible to complete the ceremony. Afterward, Simmons and company received special War Department license tags, thereby securing immunity for them against traffic citations. On August 2, 1923, while returning from a tour of Alaska, Harding fell ill and died in San Francisco, not long before scandals rocked his corrupt administration. Rumors of his Klan membership leked out as early as 1924, and Imperial Klokard Alton young, a member of the induction team, described the ceremony for journalist Stetson Kennedy on his deathbed in the late 1940's. Imperial Wizard James Venable (now deceased) claims to have possessed photographs of a Klan funeral ceremony conducted for Harding in Marion, OH August 1923.
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is one of several organizations in the , which are dedicated to opposing c for , , and other ethnic, racial, social or religious groups. They also oppose , and '' groups such as the , and the .
Hmm-- Gee-- who does that last part sound like?
anti civil rights for ethnic people ( middle eastern persons
for example) and opposing "left" people and ofcourse the gay rights movement-- why whay do you know- that sound an awful lot like alot of current Repubs , including some site members here on SW
:tapedshut
I will let Bird know he is actually a republican. Thanks for the history lesson.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
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Originally Posted by Casual Observer
A. I'm not a conservative, and furthermore, your bias that all Dems are secular, elitist liberals is part of the reason why the DNC continues to give up ground--particularly in the South and West.
B. The Democrats need to look at how the GOP runs its campaigns and public messages if it wants to stop backsliding into political irrelevance; the alternative is to continue ignoring demographic and socioeconomic trends, keep to their divisive message of identity politics and Balkanization and continue losing seats and Presidential elections. The DNC needs some advice from people that want to win more than they want to get press time for marginal issues that the broader public doesn't care much about. Either that, or they can keep losing seats, which they've shown they're very good at, actually.
C. Having a viable opposition party is important to anyone that actually cares about accountability and effectiveness of representative government--it keeps the other side quasi-honest and quasi-motivated, if only out of fear.
Let them go the way of the Whigs.
We need a new party to emerge from the center of both these loonies.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
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Originally Posted by Tigerlilly
Oh brother- lord have mercy !
There are Dems leaders from all over the country Deogol-- some are black , some are women, some are latin etc.
Ever watch CSPAN ? Try it sometime and see for yourself not all Dem leaders are non ethnic nor are they all men.
Yep - and "theyz allz knowz der place" when it comes to Dems choosing administration people.
The dems hate those uppity folk Republicans like Colin and Rice and others - with all their education and what not - who just don't know where they should be; down there in the trenches whoopin it up for the white man and his white council, as most, if not all, Dem administrations have been.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
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He's not going to compete with the actual candidates as much this way as he would if he were, say...a candidate!
No chance of that. Hilary already has been 'anointed' for that role in 2008. But by thrusting Howard Dean in a conspicuous, vocal role as chief fundraiser and carrier of the Democratic torch, Howard's supporters (and their contributions or lack thereof) are going to force Hilary to reverse her present course towards the right and away from the Democratic 'kook fringe' in an effort to actually stand a chance of being elected.
On the other hand, Hilary always has George Soros' billions to fall back on - better to owe political favors to a small handful of European billionaire tycoons than to millions of American blacks, gays, 'tree huggers', and trial lawyers (chosen only because these groups typically provide 90%+ monolithic support to Democrats) ?
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
Well,
1. Dean is just red meat for the Democratic faithful--he's not going to be defining the party's message to the left. He was a perfectly good hatchet man for the Dems during the campaign--he comes across well on camera, he's smart, and he stays on message. Hillary as candidate in '08 seems crazy to me but I agree they're headed that way. Her course to the right isn't going to be changed by this--Dean just covers the left flank against the Naderites, etc.
2. George Soros is a naturalized American (for what it's worth) who has spent billions of his own money on building democratic institutions around the world. Suggesting that he's somehow more odious than the usual backers of the Republican party (or the Dems, for that matter) would be silly/unsupportable.
I wouldn't be so sure Hillary is going to be the candidate in 2008...I haven't checked poll numbers, but I have to believe she has a large and unshakeable negative rating in the polls. Even if the old DLC guard and the Clintonistas are pushing her, the party isn't going to commit suicide if it has a more attractive candidate. The Dems need a rock star (perhaps literally) to win an election, and I don't see Hillary doing it. I think Republicans are a lot more certain that she will run than Democrats are.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
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I think Repubs are afraid of Dean because he has alot of support and because he seems unwilling to be pushed around by the Right.
Support from whom? The fringes?
They have to reexamine their strategy to grab a greater share of moderate voters that they're not getting now in both Congressional and Presidential races.
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Re: Howard Dean on the 'stump' as DNC chairman
If Dean was as popular as many democrats seem to think, he'd be living on Pennsylvania Avenue now. I remember back during the primaries reading an article that said that the candidate Bush's advisors most wanted to run against was Howard Dean.
I'm sure Dean will be good at raising money among democrat's traditional backers such as Michael Moore and other holllywood types. However, I wonder if democrats have considered how great Dean will be for republican fund-raising? I can already see the mailers they'll be sending to people in red states featuring loads of Dean's bitterly partisan rhetoric. Dean will be a human face the republicans can use to demonize, and keep the conservative base stirred up.