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Chairman Dean
It looks like Howard Dean's the man. I like Howard Dean, and I think the things that Dean's supporters have been saying he'll do are things that need to be done, so I'll wish him well. Color me skeptical, however, about the wisdom of this venture. There are basically two kind of things a DNC Chair might do. One would be to act as a popular and effective spokesman for the Democratic Party. Dean, whether or not he should be popular is not, in fact, popular. The other is to work as an organizational maestro behind the scenes, and if Garance is right he's not going to be very good at this. Perhaps -- and this is certainly my hope -- Garance will be proven wrong. There's also certainly no need for Dean to serve as the party's chief national spokesman, but my strong suspicion is that this is precisely the role Dean wants to play. We'll have to wait and see, but I have more confidence in Reid, Pelosi, and some of the other Senate Democrats as party leaders and spokespeople and don't really want to see them overshadowed.
February 2, 2005 | Permalink
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Comments
Has anyone observed yet that Chairman Dean effectivly obviates President Dean, or even Candidate Dean? Hard to claim you want to represent everyone after taking a singularly partisan job.
Posted by: Grumpy | Feb 2, 2005 11:05:46 AM
What, exactly, gives you faith in the current Democratic leadership other than the fact that they have proven inept at winning national elections over the past 10 years? I, for one, am ready for something new - as, I think Kevin Drum said, at the least, a Dean chairmanship will be exciting.
Granted Dean's record can be attacked on his Iowa collapse, but the man won reelection five times in Vermont; and was surprisingly successful with his DFA supported races this past November. More importantly, he knows the answer is to contest every race in every state.
Posted by: Edge | Feb 2, 2005 11:08:31 AM
Dean's not popular? Not popular with who? The inside the beltway hacks who have lost 5 of the last 7 presidential elections.
Posted by: Klyde | Feb 2, 2005 11:11:40 AM
Shoulda been Simon.
Posted by: praktike | Feb 2, 2005 11:15:10 AM
Dean has always struck me as a sensible person. In many ways, much of his support was driven by the fact that he was the only Dem who wasn't stuck in a contorted "I'm for it but I'm against it" position on Iraq (this is an example of his sense). If he's chair, he's out as a presidential candidate. His legacy will be his ability to mend rifts in the party, and organize at a state level. Given that he's a centrist (more so than most) with surprising leftie support, I can't think of anyone better to (a) mend the rift, and (b) make sure that, in the mending, we don't take any new craptastic "I was for it but I was against it" positions as a party.
We're not as down as people think, and that's all we really need.
Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Feb 2, 2005 11:20:37 AM
G-d Bless us.
Posted by: Daniel | Feb 2, 2005 11:27:36 AM
Dean will be the attack-spokesperson. Like Ed Gillespie did over the last couple of years, he will say the things that the politicians can't say.
He'll be very good at it, too.
Posted by: bobo brooks | Feb 2, 2005 11:28:56 AM
Matt, I sympathize with your point of view in this post. However, grouping Pelosi in with Reid as an effective spokesperson--we must part ways here. Did you see her during the election? Maybe the single worst TV surrogate in a party filled with terrible surrogates. She was painful. And, actually, I think the No. 1 job of the DNC head shouldn't be organizing or rehab of the state party, but briefing surrogates and recruiting better ones. Sommerby was all over this during the election. Our surrogates couldn't even figure out the lies of the swiftvets.
Posted by: Goldberg | Feb 2, 2005 11:33:24 AM
This seems horribly risky to me. With Dean as head of DNC, the Dems could lose control of the WH, House, Senate, and Judiciary!
Posted by: AlGore | Feb 2, 2005 11:36:12 AM
Garance Franke-Rota's take on Dean's alleged lack of management skills. to which you link, was unconvincing -- and bad journalism to boot. She relies for sources on unidentified campaign staffers (who always think they're smarter than the candidate they're working for). In fact, of course, Dean did manage, quite effectively, the equivalent of a large corporation: the Vermont state government. Why didn't Garance talk with anybody who worked with or under Dean as governor? He's probably far better qualified, both as a political leader and as manager, that any of the other candidates for party chair.
Posted by: Larry | Feb 2, 2005 11:36:16 AM
Goldberg--in all fairness, Brazile is worse. She would lose a debate against James Stockdale.
Posted by: Scott Lemieux | Feb 2, 2005 11:42:53 AM
I second what Larry said. Who is more qualified than Dean, if we take 'qualified' to refer to sheer successful experience? It's a qualification that's gone out of fashion among Washington Dems of late, to be replaced by media glitziness and centrist appeal.
And though Harry Reid seems not to have his head in his ass, I can't imagine where you come by this confidence in the congressional leadership. HELLO? Bush's first term?
Dean does indeed see himself as the national spokesman for the party, and it's about time we had a chairman who did. He will actually expend energy on recruiting candidates and contesting races. I don't see this dichotomy between behind-the-scenes-organization-man and high-visibility-front-man. Dean will do both, and his efforts will feed on themselves.
Posted by: Marshall | Feb 2, 2005 11:49:34 AM
I don't think there's any evidence on whether Dean is popular
or not. Clearly the judgment of Dem primary voters in Iowa
and NH was that Kerry vs Bush was more promising than Dean vs Bush,
in a race for the position of Commander-in-Chief. Obviously
Dean would have been very vulnerable to attacks on his
Vietnam-era bad-back/ski-bum history. Beyond that, all we have
is a big media pile-on, which god knows they'll do to *any*
prominent Democrat these days.
As a national promoter of common-sense mainstream Democratic
values, I think there's much to be said for Dean. He was right
about Iraq, and had the cojones to say what he thought; and his
record in Vermont is one of moderate policies and sensible,
even boring, management.
Posted by: Richard Cownie | Feb 2, 2005 11:57:09 AM
What's moderate in a state that sends Comrade Bernie to DC as its rep?
Posted by: Deuce | Feb 2, 2005 12:00:21 PM
I think presidential campaigns are a very different animal than running a stable organization. Even Garance gets at this with this quote:
“Dean’s campaign was a disaster, but his governorship was really, really well run,”
I agree that he is not popular but the "scream" stuff will wear thin. Especially if the repubs keeps repeating it as a stupid pun in all their quotes. But to say Dean doesn't have good management skills is just ignoring the facts.
Posted by: MattDinBrooklyn | Feb 2, 2005 12:04:32 PM
He'll have to learn to act like a robot first.
Posted by: abb1 | Feb 2, 2005 12:19:58 PM
Matt,
Blogs have one side effect of making every topic appear to be of "life-or-death" importance. That's not meant as a judgment, just an observation, that their very nature/mechanism exaggerates the significance of the "word".
That is why I'm glad this topic appears to be resolving for the time being. I'm guessing I'm not the only one weary of the breathless debates over who was going to head the DNC. You get to choose the topics, yes, and we get to choose to read, yes. However, it appears to me that what doesn't appear to you is how universally trivial that topic truly is.
That's going to sound like a huge putdown, which was not my intent. I truly feel that to the extent a blog is a conversation with yourself, hey, goferit. But to the extent that you intend any give and take, please, don't give much more of this.
Disclaimer: I am a political junkie, although from the above you'd probably not agree.
Posted by: Nash | Feb 2, 2005 1:27:22 PM
There are basically two kind of things a DNC Chair might do. One would be to act as a popular and effective spokesman for the Democratic Party. Dean, whether or not he should be popular is not, in fact, popular.
I can't think of any recent chair of either party who was popular, whether or not they were an effective spokesman when they spoke out. I think "popular" is, quite frankly, almost completely irrelevant for a party chair, and possibly counterproductive. The party chair wants to make the party's issues and candidates popular, not be the focus of adulation himself.
Posted by: cmdicely | Feb 2, 2005 2:20:16 PM
"Dean's not popular? Not popular with who?"
Not popular with either the American electorate, or even with Democrats.
Dean's approval rating among the larger electorate is in the 10's. His approval rating among Democrats is in the 20's (!!!)
About the only people Dean is popular with are a chunk of Democratic activists who aren't the best or the brightest.
Posted by: Petey | Feb 2, 2005 2:20:31 PM
"I can't think of any recent chair of either party who was popular..."
While this is true, it's missing the point.
The problem is not that Dean isn't popular. The problem is that Dean is actively unpopular. No recent chair of either party has been actively unpopular, for obvious reasons.
Posted by: Petey | Feb 2, 2005 2:26:32 PM
Maybe Dean will be smart enough to do what he does well and delegate what he doesn't do well.
Of course, that would make him a genius by Washington standards.
Posted by: Anderson | Feb 2, 2005 2:40:17 PM
Garance's article was really weird. I don't want to claim "badly researched, cherry-picked anonymice bitching" but it's a little hard to take it at face value when it doesn't mention DFA at all.
DFA's work was identical in all respects to the DNC's. It raised money, selected candidates, and did all the things the DNC organization side is supposed to do. Since the article was about Dean's organizational skills, I can't imagine why Garance didn't spend so much as a paragraph on the most recent thing Dean did, when it was exactly the same as the DNC job in question.
I mean, anonymous bitching is real sexy and shit, but I was kinda expecting something of substance.
Posted by: Morat | Feb 2, 2005 3:00:09 PM
Dean would be a disaster. If for nothing else, he is still using his Republican-lite charge for those who are not his followers. In a party that's not more that 50-55% liberal and trying to bring in midwesterner union types, Dean is the worst possible choice.
Besides, he has NO experience with Blacks or Hispanics. Everytime he opens his mouth, Democrats cringe. He wants OBL to be brought over for a fair trial. He's tired of being divided over "God, guns and gays," well, for starters the God issue is not a small check box issue for many, it is THE issue, talk about not knowing how to relate to faith folks.
And again, his positives in the Democratic Party are in the 20s. We can be sure the DNC endorsers are not listening to Democrats.
Dean would be a gift that keeps on giving for the Republicans. In certain races, all they'd have to do is Dean-ize a race and that's it. We'll see how Democrats in Virginia, N Carolina, Montana, Arkansas, Louisiana, etc love the specter of Dean hovering over their races. "Howard Dean says that the people of North Carolina should . . ." And are we still hoping for the Democrat tobacco guy in Mississippi? Boy would he love to have Dean as a spokes person.
The whole thing makes absolutely no sense. But if this is the will of the council, then young Anakin shall be trained in the ways of the Jedi.
Posted by: Ono | Feb 2, 2005 3:19:27 PM
IMO, the heads of the DNC and RNC both have one responsibility greater than either of the ones Matt mentioned; fundraising. The respective heads of the two National Committees need to be able to get the funds flowing to national, state and local candidates and causes. Maybe Howard Dean will do a better job than McAuliffe, but I don't think that is s given by any stretch of the imagination.
As for Grumpy's comment, I'd say that it is more than likely that some in the Democrat party are creating Chairman Dean to avoid another round of Candidate Dean. I'm not entirely sure what Dean hopes to get out of it, though.
Posted by: Publius Rex | Feb 2, 2005 3:21:02 PM
I'd like to see the figures on his popularity but what does it really matter if he's not popular with the majority of the democrats, how many of them cared a whole lot about the last one?
He's not going to be a candidate so popularity doesn't apply a whole lot. He's popular with activists which is really what matters. So what if they (we're) not the best or the brightest, we're the ones that are going to be doing the work on the ground and the ones that will be able to see the situation on the ground and so we matter just as much as any grand over-arching planner.
Getting new blood actively engaged in something on more than a 1 shot deal is an incredible accomplishment and Dean has done that more than any other singular person in recent memory for the Dems.
Posted by: Mimiru | Feb 2, 2005 3:23:32 PM
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