# Dean for DNC chair again? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 12, 2016, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588 "2016-11-12T04:35:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/21 "2016-11-14T05:34:18Z")
So, you are not one with Landrieu? ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/22 "2016-11-14T06:08:06Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Yeah, but even on the progressive scale, Ellison is well to the left of Dean. I think ideology is largely going to be irrelevant to the job in the near future, since there is going to be intense pressure on and scrutiny of the next DNC chair to ensure that he or she is neutral as between contenders. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/23 "2016-11-14T07:35:26Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Party chairs usually aren’t all that bright or competent, they are usually just tools of the party leadership. But Dean got a chance because the party was leaderless and now it’s leaderless again. Factual question: help out a benighted foreigner. If a party’s national committee and its chair aren’t the leadership, and neither is the last Presidential candidate - who is? ---
**Author:** ![DerekMichaels00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@DerekMichaels00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekMichaels00)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/24 "2016-11-14T08:59:11Z")
if the Democrats wanna make their party win again, then Dean. But it looks like they’re just plain tone deaf, running to the far left and putting a Muslim, America’s presently most unpopular group, as their leader. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/25 "2016-11-14T09:22:50Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > Factual question: help out a benighted foreigner. If a party’s national committee and its chair aren’t the leadership, and neither is the last Presidential candidate - who is? Generally, the President is the party’s leader, although that’s not official and can often be contested. The last few President have indisputably been their party’s leaders, but Jimmy Carter after his first couple of years may have been weaker than Tip O’Neill. Trump may face a similar dynamic, as his party did not support him much in the election and Paul Ryan has an impressive following in the party and is a young up and comer who could make a name by dominating Trump. He’s already trying to do it, telling us what Trump will and won’t do when Trump has said the opposite. For the party that doesn’t control the White House, things get a little murkier. The party head is generally not the head of the party so much as a servant of the party whose primary purpose is to recruit and elect more members of his party. That’s why the party fight won’t be just about ideology. Dean is a past Presidential candidate, longtime governor, and a real leader. Last time he was DNC head he was essentially the head of the party and would be again. Anyone else would not be, the other candidates are inexperienced and would likely just be tools of whoever was promoting them, such as Keith Ellison with Bernie Sanders. If Ellison wins the DNC chair election, that’s a sign that Sanders might actually be in control of the party. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/26 "2016-11-14T11:07:37Z")
I understand there’s a difference between the policy/political leadership and the organisational leadership, that’s hardly unusual. But it seems strange not to have someone at all times formally identified as responsible for setting the political tone, even if, after a massive defeat, it can’t be much more than holding the fort and trying to establish some themes towards the next election. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/27 "2016-11-14T11:37:59Z")
> [@DerekMichaels00](#): > > if the Democrats wanna make their party win again, then Dean. > > But it looks like they’re just plain tone deaf, running to the far left and putting a Muslim, America’s presently most unpopular group, as their leader. For what it’s worth, while a fairly small number of Americans say they’d be willing to vote for a Muslim president, an even _smaller_ number say they could maybe go with an atheist. (And neither scores _nearly_ as well as “gay”, which scores lower than “Jewish”.) ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/28 "2016-11-14T13:07:53Z")
I would prefer Ellison, but I think there’s something to be said for a full-time DNC chair. Even with the little amount of work Congress actually does these days. So Dean makes more sense from that perspective. In any case, it’d be hard to do a worse job than DWS. ---
**Author:** ![ataraxy22](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ataraxy22/32/307_2.png) [@ataraxy22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ataraxy22)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2016, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/29 "2016-11-14T14:38:01Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > For what it’s worth, while a fairly small number of Americans say they’d be willing to vote for a Muslim president, an even _smaller_ number say they could maybe go with an atheist. (And neither scores _nearly_ as well as “gay”, which scores lower than “Jewish”.) Except this country just elected an atheist president! Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/30 "2016-11-15T00:55:06Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Well, Dean actually thought the 2006 strategy was sustainable. I guess he never figured on Reid, Obama, and Pelosi making 70 Democrats he worked hard to recruit take one for the team. I guess it depends on what the point of having a majority is. Do you get a majority just to have a majority, or do you try to actually _accomplish_ shit with it? The thing nobody counted on - that nobody \*could \*have counted on, because the politics had never gotten to that point before - was that the GOP and Fox and talk radio would keep on demonizing Obamacare long after it became law, even - as we know now - long after it has majorly reduced the uninsured rate. We’re used to it now, but it was a new thing in 2010. Would have also been good if the 50-state strategy hadn’t been dead for 2 years by the time of the 2010 midterms. This really eroded the organization back in the states, left them much less in the way of resources for a non-top-down response to what was happening. ---
**Author:** ![DerekMichaels00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@DerekMichaels00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekMichaels00)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/31 "2016-11-15T02:19:20Z")
Ellison is a [9/11 Truther](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Ellison#Reichstag_fire_and_9.2F11). I think any Democrat who’d be against Dean in light of that needs to have their head checked. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/32 "2016-11-15T03:44:32Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > I understand there’s a difference between the policy/political leadership and the organisational leadership, that’s hardly unusual. But it seems strange not to have someone at all times formally identified as responsible for setting the political tone, even if, after a massive defeat, it can’t be much more than holding the fort and trying to establish some themes towards the next election. The Democrats have a long history of not being tonally nor ideologically unified. They’re sort of the party of “not the Republicans” now. I guess Bill & Hillary Clinton tried to be sort of the Latin American strongman, but as a couple, running on cult of personality. But that fell apart for various reasons. It became clear that on economics, Clinton was basically Reagan. It’s hard to be convincingly “not a Republican” when you embrace supply-side economics. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/33 "2016-11-15T03:51:24Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > I guess it depends on what the point of having a majority is. Do you get a majority just to have a majority, or do you try to actually _accomplish_ shit with it? > . You do what your majority was elected to do. If you don’t have a majority for health care reform you don’t do health care reform. The Democrats’ election in 2006 was to end the “culture of corruption” in DC. That’s what they had a majority to do. They showed a distinct lack of interest in it, however. As for Republican obstruction, hey great idea responding to it by giving them the majority, forcing your red state Dems to take impossible votes. Brilliant strategy. You can do a 50 state strategy one of two ways: You can run conservative Democrats in conservative states, and let them vote as conservatives, or you can work on persuading voters that Democratic policies are good and then they’ll send genuine progressives to Congress. Or not, and Republicans keep their majority. Democrats tried to have it both ways with candidates who talked a conservative game but voted with the liberals. And so here we are. ---
**Author:** ![montag01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/51bf81/32.png) [@montag01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/montag01)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/34 "2016-11-15T03:53:20Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > So, you are not one with Landrieu? Ok, even as someone who at times finds your sense of humor a tad grating, I have to say this IS brilliant. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/35 "2016-11-15T03:57:38Z")
Well, I think **adaher** has made good points in Dr Dean’s favor, but if **DerekMichaels00** hates Ellison so much, I have to say Ellison. Also, Ellison, “son of Eli”? Good Jewish name. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/36 "2016-11-15T04:02:24Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > You do what your majority was elected to do. If you don’t have a majority for health care reform you don’t do health care reform. The Democrats’ election in 2006 was to end the “culture of corruption” in DC. That’s what they had a majority to do. They showed a distinct lack of interest in it, however. Actually, as someone who joined the Democrats around that time, I think it was to impeach Bush, both for lying to Congress and general illegal behavior. But yes, the Democrats once in office showed a great lack of interest in ending the Global War on Terror and returning to the rule of law. If the anti-war voters brought you to power, and you prove pro-war, you aren’t a viable party. And thus they are a party destroyed, possibly for two generations if not forever. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/37 "2016-11-15T04:07:06Z")
Like most parties, including the Republicans in 2016, you run on one thing and then you just do what you normally do. Althoguh I’m not sure how you go an anti-war message out of the Democrats’ 2006 campaign. Anti-Iraq, sure, but they tried to appeal to hawkish voters by claiming they wanted to fight harder in Afghanistan. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/38 "2016-11-15T04:14:48Z")
> [@DerekMichaels00](#): > > Ellison is a [9/11 Truther](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Ellison#Reichstag_fire_and_9.2F11). I think any Democrat who’d be against Dean in light of that needs to have their head checked. Bit of a stretch, but hey, it’s you. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/39 "2016-11-16T23:36:24Z")
A 9/11 Truther? From the quoted link: Ellison said: > [@](#): > > The fact is that I’m not saying September 11 was a U.S. plan or anything like that After which Fox News did what they do: > [@](#): > > Fox News picked up the story[118] and their commentator John Gibson categorized Ellison’s comments as accusing “Bush of planning and executing the 9/11 attacks”.[119] In Congress, Representatives Eric Cantor and Zach Wamp wrote House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demanding she “swiftly and immediately” reprimand Ellison for his remarks.[120] And then: > [@](#): > > When later questioned about his comments, Ellison told a reporter that Osama bin Laden, and not the Bush administration, was responsible for the attacks.[ Bit of a stretch is putting it kindly. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588/40 "2016-11-17T00:03:25Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > You do what your majority was elected to do. If you don’t have a majority for health care reform you don’t do health care reform. The Democrats’ election in 2006 was to end the “culture of corruption” in DC. That’s what they had a majority to do. They showed a distinct lack of interest in it, however. What does 2006 have to do with it? In 2007-2008, when they were competing for the Dem nomination, Obama, Clinton, and Edwards were \*all \*running on universal health care and responding to the threat of global warming. Obama won, and he passed the ACA and gave cap-and-trade a good try as well. He did what he was elected to do, just as you said he ought to have. (And though it’s getting off topic, damned if I know how the Dems in 2007 showed a lack of interest in dealing with the Bush-era culture of corruption. Wasn’t like they could _do_ much, given that the GOP filibustered everything.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dean-for-dnc-chair-again/771588.md?page=3)