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Governer Dean Becomes Chair of DNC
sg3000 writes "It's official: the Democrats elected Howard Dean as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Dean won the position after a particularly contentious run for chairman, as reported in The New Republic. Governor Dean became a national figure during his impressive run for president in 2003, where he started as an outsider and long-shot candidate but became the front runner, only to see support fail to materialize during the Iowa caucuses."
Dean? A Democrat? Yes, he signed civil unions into law, but publicly declaired his discomfort about it and did the signing in private with no press allowed. He was practically the Republican governor of Vermont for ten years!
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
... As long as I can't realistically vote libertarian in a presidential election, this is the lesser of the major evils. I like Dean, too. Sure would have preferred him, but I digress.
/. I imagine do, you should try and vote libertarian in your local and even congressional elections.
But, if you lean that LP way, and alot on
What Libertarians actually support.
Go LP!
~Rebecca
Struck a cord with the common man? Come on, Howard Dean was a joke, and it shows there is a leadership problem at the top of the Dem party.
I agree with you that Dean wasn't the one striking a chord with the common man, but I don't think that was the reason. As much as I, and many here, hate George W. Bush, the reason he's in office is "striking a chord with the common man."
He comes off as "common man" with his poor speaking abilities. He goes to schools, and reads stories to children. He went out in the crowd of terrified family members after 9/11, shaking hands and pausing to listen to frightened citizens stories. Then shortly after, he stood up and told the country that he was going to make us safer, and make it alright.
"Common men" don't care about secret tribunals, election fraud, attacking the wrong guy, invading soveriegn nations, alienating the world, or any of that stuff that "nerds" (of all types) care about. They want to be told that their leader empathizes with them, and that by golly, he's going to make it right. That's the stuff that makes the "common man" sleep easy at night.
~Rebecca
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
For the GOP. Dean set all sorts of fundraising records, yet only got a pathetic 18% of the vote. He had no problem getting his message out....and no one cared. His acceptance speech boiled down to "I'm going to keep doing what I've ben doing." Why would the DNC choose as their leader a man who's vowed to push the party into the extreme fringes of liberalism and alienate most of their core? Nancy Pelosi. She's carried a pathetic grudge against Martin Frost, a very viable opponent to Dean, for challenging her for Minority leader job two years ago and she's the one clearing the way for Dean.
The chairman's job is to coordinate and get candidates elected. Dean proved that he's very good at doing this. Dean's Internet fundraising and the Democracy for America organization proves just how well suited Dean is for the position.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
I really detest that cynical attitude. That the only ones whose opinions are fit are these theoretical "joe sixpacks" that go to blue collar jobs, don't read books, drink domestic beer, etc. etc. I think that stereotype, and buying into it, is stupid, and I don't think any American "common" or "uncommon" should buy into an idea that their opinion doesn't really matter because they are not somehow the "prototypical American". There is no prototypical American. There is no universal Joe Sixpack. There's an implicit reverse elitism in that. There is no fucking reason a lab-worker or aerospace engineer, or single mother middle-manager, or ex-drug-addict playwright are any LESS American than our theoretical Joe Sixpack. I think that's what makes us Americans.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
What I can't believe is how far to the right this country's shifted so quickly. What was the center in 2000 is now the 'extreme left' today. Dean's a proper left-leaning democrat, not a republican-wannabe apologist.
The right's gotten a strong wind recently, and we need to fight back accordingly, not start letting go of core values. And it's well-needed, even with such a poor candidate as Kerry, we still got 48%* of the electorate. Kerry ignored most of the issues at hand and only attacked Bush's strongpoints. I don't think Dean will let our newer candidates make the same mistakes.
Maybe I'm an old romantic, but I don't think homophobia (gay rights), subordination of women (abortion), warmongering (iraq), and the extortion of the lower classes (taxes, social security) are American values.
--
* debates over the remnants of fair voting aside
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nice summary. of course, it omits both the real reason his campaign failed, namely the endless pushing of the infamous scream by the corporate media and related commentary, and the key bit of truth most of the sheep still don't know, namely that the scream never really happened and was fabricated to discredit dean. click on the link. oh, and be sure to print it out before the brownshirts have it deleted. one of the many reasons anyone who uses the phrase "liberal media" is either a liar or a fool.
My prediction is the Dean will surprise all his critics over the next 4 years as a calm, rational, focused, and successful leader. Why? Because he is a calm, rational, focused, and successful person.
The reason why Dean exploded the way he did is because the media turned against him because he was "unelectable". It was a bunch of bullshit because he was not your typical "say only what you want to hear" politician. I think people in this country would have been smart enough to see that, and it would not have been a landslide win for Bush like the media said it would be. Unfortuntly the media has a lot of effect on the primary elections.
I gave $100 to the Dean campaign, and I do not regret it. That money indirectly helped him become the chair of the DNC, and I am very happy to see it.
BTW, at the Iowa Caucus (I was there) Dean had at least 3x as many people there as Kerry. To be honest, I am still a little amazed how quickly things fell apart.
The thing is, it doesn't really matter if he's crazy. Neither of us know how to spell the outgoing chairman's name. If the Dems had a candidate you liked, why would you vote against that candidate just because the chairman's a loon? His personal angry attidute will forever prevent him from being president, but as a chairman what matters is his organizing and fundraising skills, and perhaps his willingness to think outside establishment terms. The man has good ideas, he's just completely inappropriate for the public eye.
He may be overly antagonistic, but the Republicans managed to succeed despite having twice as much hate and venom as the Democrats--and at least Leftist hate is just anger at another point of view, not Ann Coulter-style racism. It was Kerry and the party establishment's attempt to seem moderate that doomed the campaign. Besides, if you were willing to go with Zell Miller, you've got no right to talk about venom.
It's good that he's a fiscal conservative. We might expect a lot of former Republicans (like myself--I voted for Bush in 2000) to realize their party no longer cares about fiscal conservatism--it's just big government for the sake of big business. The medical overhaul Bush insisted on is a great example of that--he has promised to veto any attempt to limit the windfall to drug companies. As politics switches its focus to domestic issues, Dean could end up looking like a moderate.
The promising thing about Dean is that he knows its not about moving to the center--Americans won't respect someone who capitulates for political convenience. But he also understands that strategic retreats are necessary on certain lost cause issues--like gun control.
The worrying thing about Dean and the Democratic party in general is that they've misunderstood the power of the internet and decentralized organization. They see it in terms of collecting money and volunteers to send to campaign in other states. But that's a foolish plan--people are alienated by out of staters coming to convince them to change their minds, as Dean should have learned in Iowa and Kerry should have learned in Ohio. Instead, internet resources should be aimed at getting people engaged in their own communities--whether its just getting people to volunteer in their own neighborhoods or even encourage people to run for local offices.
It's hard to imagine a better development than this! Excellent! Terry McAuliffe had brought the party to its knees with his Republican-Lite approach to leading the DNC. Screw that. Dean is the man!
Few things are as amusing as watching people get all worked up into a lather denouncing the choice. What, exactly, is wrong with having an intelligent, passionate leader? America has become such a country of clucking chickens that we not only accept the degradations to our liberties performed by the current monkey admin, but now even the dissenters are afraid of having a leader with a voice. Grow some balls, people.
The old idea of being Not-As-Evil-As-Our-Opponents is dead. It's time to pick up the populist trail where we left it years ago.
Oh, and PS weirdo rightist fascists - Dean is not a 'leftie'. He's left-of-center, certainly, but he's barely moderate, let alone "far-left". Readjust that sociopathically-slanted political spectrum you've got before you slide into the abyss of fascism. Just a friendly tip.
Dean is not actually very far left. He is liberal, to be sure, but not in a bleeding heart, knee-jerk kind of way. He was painted with a far left brush based solely on the fact that he opposed the Iraq war from the beginning.
- Do you value the largest budget deficits in our nation's history?
- Do you value shifting the tax burden from the wealthiest individuals to the middle class, while health care and education costs skyrocket?
- Do you value people who state that the cost of their prescription drug plan will cost about $300 million, when in reality it will cost over $1 trillion?
- Do you value stating that Social Security will start paying out more than it brings in 2018, and then putting forward a plan that will change that date to 2012?
- Do you value the criminalization of abortion, or do you value a policy that seeks to make abortions rare, safe, and legal? (hint: the latter policy results in less babies dying)
Abortions go up under Republicans. Business does better under Democrats. Pass it on.Dean is clearly on the left side of the spectrum, but BushCo is much more clearly on the *FAR* right side. The rightwingers have become so dominant that the system is falling out of balance, and there are basically only two outcomes now. One possible outcome is a swing back to the left, and Dean is of course going to be pushing for that. The stronger the swing to the right, the stronger the counterswing will have to be.
The other possible outcome would be bankruptcy and collapse. The United States has already lasted far longer than the average government, and it's showing plenty of symptoms of the kind of senility that often appears before a government collapses.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
As might be imagined, the roar of the crowd at the event must have been deafening. This is a definite problem for those who want to use a microphone to speak- a balance must be struck between sensitivity and volume. However, what is instead used is a noise-cancelling microphone that reinforces the speaker's voice and blocks out background noises. Listen to any newscast in an area with lots of ambient noise, and you'll notice that the background seems "blocked out" whenever the reporter starts speaking.
Apparently, Howard Dean was so overwhelmed with the noise of the crowd that he felt the need to raise his voice in order for them to hear him. What came out was that mangled cry that he is now famous for. That unearthly sound may very well have cost him the Democratic nomination- all becuase of a microphone.
For those unbelievers out there, a few people were standing right near the stage taping the event on camcorders. They claim that Dean was absolutely impossible to hear over the roar of the crowd, and that only later did they realize he had screamed- when they came home to trun on the news. They never would have known otherwise.
example direct quotes:
* Why Libertarians Support
Equal Rights for America's Gun Owners
* End Welfare
* The Libertarian Party: Working to slash your taxes!
* Do you remember when the standard of living in America was the best in the world?
+++++++
I mean, really, this is all just nuts
http://milkshake.dexy.org
"I think he'll lead the party in the wrong direction and will onlly make my party's life easier."
Kind of like 2.5 Trillion (+Iraq +Prescription Drug costs I lied about) Bush is doing?
Since you're implying that "far to the left" is a *bad* thing, would you consider the right-wing paramilitaries in Nicaragua who introduced the term Death-Squad to our vocabulary, a *good* thing.
Letting gays have rights similar to those that married doesn't create thousands of dead bodies. Invading a country for money in every sense, from military contracts, cheap oil, new free trades zone, cheap labor, etc.., kills thousands as we are witness to it in Iraq. Don't forget, we didn't find WMD, or ties to Al Queda. And yes, those who pay attention to the news know it was Karl Rove's way to sell the war, but that implies there was no imminent danger and the war required selling for people to buy into it. Unlike World War 2.
If you need to sell to a war to your people, its either because they lacked so information that they can't make the decision on what they know, which could be case with our poor news media in the U.S., or its not altruistic as they made it seem. Bush has already shifted his democratic vision of Iraq to an Iraq with a democracy but it'll be influence by religion and a majority with no intentions to protect the minority, which is opposite to what we were hearing when there was no WMD. Flippity-Floppity.
Your party has good ideals, like smaller government, like lower taxes. It may have attempted to serve those ideals honesty in the past but it does not today. What future do you see in the Republican party? It's bleak. One of the primary reasons for government expansion in the Bush administration is more administrative positions introduced to the government. These are positions for political supporters of the Bush administration and Republican party. So when you party falls back on one of your primary ideals you would still support your party? Not only that, these positions cost us more tax money, so instead of letting people keep their money or invest it in working people in this country we're giving to away to political supports. How patriotic!
I'm not saying that because I'm a Democrat, but because I'm an American and I think the best potential of success we can try to give to all Americans is more important that Democrat/Republican party lines. You seem to toe your party line because you think its giving you something in return, when its not.
The Republicans have made college tuition more expensive by lowering taxes for rich people, and depriving states of more funding. Ok, I got a tax cut too, $300 bucks. So I can choose between two pairs of sneakers, or I can give up my tax cut, and thousands more Americans go to 4 year universities, that earn degrees, that invent more technology, or participate in the invention of new technology. More jobs are created, more tax revenues go the government and if we're lucky we can do it again for another generation. We could also help businesses of all sizes control health care costs while we try to fix the problem of expensive health care while relieve the burden and not stifle businesses or jeopardize our countrymen's health.
This is what Democrats want. What are the Republicans answer to these problems? They cut taxes, people suffer, business saves, and they're solutions are never solvent since they do make any honest attempt of helping the average American.
Howard Dean isn't a demi-god, and he may not have any good ideas (I think he does and I think he will be an excellent DNC char), but what he does do is appeal to young people, who will find their own direction in politics. Young people who find there way through the Democratic party don't get on TV and suggest we should nuke Canada except Vancouver (since they have nice shopping malls) as Ann Coulter has suggested. She was a Young Republican.
I'm eager to see the Democrat party grow in the next few years. For all the nay-sayers about the Democrats, listen to the Republicans delve into nostalgic musings about how they were small and insignificant.
Do you value the largest budget deficits in our nation's history?
As a percentage of GDP, not even close.
Do you value shifting the tax burden from the wealthiest individuals to the middle class, while health care and education costs skyrocket?
The welthiest are now paying a higher percentage of the total than they were before the cuts.
Do you value people who state that the cost of their prescription drug plan will cost about $300 million, when in reality it will cost over $1 trillion?
I'm not sure what your point is here, this is an issue that Bush sided more closely with the Democrats on
Do you value stating that Social Security will start paying out more than it brings in 2018, and then putting forward a plan that will change that date to 2012?
Benifits are also going to be cut anyway, there is no other option, this private investment accounts are a small fraction of the total payments, and they will only effect younger americans, anyone close to retirement won't be effected at all, while those of us in younger generations will actualy get something from the system when benifits are massively cut decades from now.
Do you value the criminalization of abortion, or do you value a policy that seeks to make abortions rare, safe, and legal? (hint: the latter policy results in less babies dying)
Yes, and so do most americans.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now. - Ed Howd
Same people? Maybe.
But if you think Gore did NOT play a major role in creating the Internet, then you've bought into a big lie circulated by right-wing politicians starting with Dick Armey, who originally misquoted Gore.
Gore was discussing his legislative record. Anyone who looks into that record can easily see that Gore was a leader in the 1980s of a faction called the "Atari Democrats," who believed the industrial base of the United States had to shift from heavy industry to technology.
When DARPA pulled back from funding non-military uses of the fledgling TCP/IP network, Gore was instrumental in getting the National Science Foundation both the funding and the jurisdiction to create NSFNet, which became the core of the public Internet.
It is conservative economic dogma that private enterprise will make everything just peachy if we just keep the government from intervening.
But private enterprise had no incentive to create a public Internet; on the contrary, private enterprise had an incentive to create instead a series of private networks (generally running proprietary protocols).
By declaring that the nation needed an "information superhighway" for the new era and throwing government support and funding behind an open network standard, Gore was instrumental in breaking that logjam and -- yes -- creating the Internet.
It is hard these days for simple things like facts and public records to compete with the drumbeat of spin, misinformation and outright lies that has come to characterize "political discourse." Both the mischaracterization of Gore's statement about the Internet and the miscasting of the pragmatic moderate Vermont Governor Howard Dean as a screaming "ultra-liberal on social issues who is out of the mainstream and wrong for America" are examples.
Cutting taxes deprives state funding for the various programs they have, like education. (The Fed does give public universities lots of money you know.) I was directly addressing college education. So tuition is increased to make up for the lack of federal funds. Pretty simple.
Taking your money from you at gun point? Nice hyperbole. I never said it was moral, I said it was the intelligent thing to do. Educating people is the only way you're going to strengthen your country and its economy.
Every time college tuitions rise 1000 dollars, 4% of all would-be students in highschool don't go to college. 4% compounds pretty quickly, especially when college tuition is rising faster than inflation.
Its not a matter of morality. If you want a stupid country than Bush is your man. If you don't want a stupid country just look to any other Republican (maybe...) or a Democrat.
Do you think India would be taking so many jobs from the U.S. if English was spoken widely, but they were as dumb as a rock? No they wouldn't.
You can consider this Bush bashing, but Bush isn't an intellectual and doesn't appreciate the consequence of educating people. He thinks people spending that $300 bucks at Wallmart is good for America. When we have to invent the next world-changing WMD for America, who's going do it? Are we going to outsource it or let another country get it first?
You're a Republican, strong defense is one of your primary platforms. Please explain how we're going keep our defenses up when the country isn't doing anything to keep young people interested in science, and not doing anything to continue to encourage people, through lower tuitions, scholarships, grants, to become educated in these areas?
Dean just plain hasn't got the right mix to make a viable party in the two party system.
He's hanging with the GOP on unpopular issues like immigration(where he basically endorses Bush's Open Borders policy) and failing to properly handle the social issues like Gun Control, Gay Rights,Drugs, Abortion(which constitutionally should all be state issues.
By definition, there are more common men than uncommon men. People win elections (well, in theory) by getting more votes than the other guys. Therefore, appealing to the common man is more important than appealing to the uncommon man. Don't shoot the messenger, kiddo.
Rob
It's funny, because there are as many people on the right who show hatred for the Democrats (either Clinton, for example) as there are people on the left who show hatred for the Bush administration. It goes along with what I was saying earlier--the reason why the Republicans win elections is because they appear to have a much smaller group of haters than the Democrats do.
Americans are smarter than you think.
Oh, if only they were.
Rob
You seem to be implying that Bush won the election because of rhetoric and image. Certainly that's partially true, as with any politician. However, as long as the Democrats keep thinking that, they will never win an election.
The reason Bush won is because people knew what Bush was about, knew what he stood for, and agreed with some of his ideas.
The Democratic party needs to put forth someone with a message that the people like, and positions the people agree with. It's that simple. The Democrats are having somewhat of an identity problem, and that was reflected last election.
The fiscal liberals (i.e. people who want to involve the federal government more in economic transactions) are a strong component of the Democratic party. However, for better or worse, those ideas just don't get votes. Neither do politicians who support gay marriage.
There are really two options:
(1) Try to be honest about core values, like fiscal liberalism, abortion as a civil right, gay marriage, and more involvement with the U.N. This will initially cost the Democrats many positions, but will provide an opportunity to convince people of their ways.
(2) Continue their policy of Republican-Lite. The Democrats will hold more offices, but never will they gain the dominant position in the nation. They will never be able to convince anyone that liberalism is the way to go, because they can't even stand up and say it (or they'll lose votes).
Now, I'm not a member of the Democratic party, so maybe you shouldn't take my advice. I just want a healthy political landscape because that is better for me too. If the Democrats are constantly pandering and compromising and never really come up with a main issue that really creates a following, that means we have a bunch of Democrats, none of whom actually agree with the Democratic party.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Well, as a Democrat, I remember a time when the Democrats were in control of both the White House and Congress, and I was feeling very optimistic and warm'n'fuzzy about my party, and a lot of Republicans were talking about the devastation of their party and how they had to compromise and accomodate themselves to the new political realities ... and all of a sudden the most visible Republican politician in the country was this screaming firebrand, who was stereotyped as a far right-winger (he wasn't, really, but both his supporters and his opponents seemed to like to paint him that way) who had A Master Plan to lead his party back to power.
And as a Democrat, I was rubbing my hands with glee. This guy is a nutcase, I thought. He'll take the Republicans down into permanent ruin. They're finished. I can't believe they let this guy get this much power. Heh heh heh.
That politician's name was Newt Gingrich.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Never, have I ever seen anyone on the right compare either Clinton with Hitler.
e r
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Clinton+Hitl
Note especially that WND article about halfway down the first page.
As for your crack about Americans, what makes you think they are stupid?
I don't think that they are stupid. I just don't think that they're particularly smart, either.
Did they just stumble into being the greatest nation in the world?
No, they got there on the shoulders of their forefathers. Americans used to be a lot less complacent and reliant on the government for everything. We've grown fat and sluggish much like the Roman Empire did before its fall. Not to say that most of today's nations are any better, but it's only a matter of time until somebody else becomes the main superpower on Earth, most likely China.
Rob
I'm skeptical about how much Dean will be able to do, but he can't possibly be worse for the Democrats than Terry McAuliffe.
...
...
The Boston Globe had some bits to say regarding Dean:
"I'll pretty much be living in red states in the South and West for quite a while," Dean told reporters after he was elected to the post on a voice vote. "The way to get people not to be skeptical about you is to show up and say what you think."
"If we want to win nationally, we have to start by winning locally," said Dean, who repeated his pledge to rebuild party organizations in each state. "We can't run an 18-state strategy and expect to win. This party's strength does not come from consultants down, it comes from the grass roots up."
In a news conference after his speech, Dean said he planned to reach out to evangelicals, a bloc of voters that forms the core of Republican support. "We are definitely going to do religious outreach," said Dean, whose recent speeches routinely cite an example of a conservative evangelical who now supports him because of his support for expanded healthcare.
If I understand correctly the attention to local politics is a significant shift in DNC policy, which has in the past decade had a tendency to almost completely ignore local and state campaigns, focusing almost entirely on failed bids for the presidency. I have my fingers crossed that the Democrats will take up the nigh-forgotten banner of "States' Rights," which the Republicans seem to have dropped like a lead brick (particularly when it comes to things like gay marriage, euthanasia, abortion, and medical marijuana).
Also, I'm curious to see if Dean's grassroots approach can actually manage to reach beyond those who are already True Believers. Before, it just seemed to basically be Dean supporters (including myself) telling each other how much they hated Bush, which would get them riled up, which would have the end result of them telling each other how much they hated Bush.
People vote for Presidents, representatives, school board members.
Who cares if it's Howard Dean or Martha Stewart? The people who were actually elected to office control the "direction" of the party. The principle job of the DNC chairman therefore is to run the conventions.
Come to think of it, this seems like it would be a job at which Martha Stewart would excel!
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