It seems to me that Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy, which was pooh-poohed by people like Rahm Emmanuel and Charles Schumer, should get a pretty good chunk of the credit for Democratic victories this year. Yes, Obama’s campaign was a masterful deployment of ground troops, but I haveta think that Dean was laying the blueprint for it. What say ye?
I would not give him any credit for Obama’s victory (or very minor at best). Obama was forming his team and strategy and forging ahead long before he even got on Dean’s radar. However it may well have helped for Congressional and local elections. Although in this environment Reps were pretty screwed all over even if Dean did absolutely nothing.
Credit goes to the guy who turns things around (say take the Detroit Lions to the Superbowl this year). Not the guy who is lucky enough to ride the wave in (e.g. I could have coached the Chicago Bears in the '85 Superbowl and won…I would not deserve any credit for it).
This cute aphorism doesn’t really tell us anything, does it? You could just as easily say that Obama was the lucky guy who rode the wave that Dean started moving with the 2006 elections. Where are the facts that might tell us who was doing the riding, Obama or Dean? Is there any deeper analysis available regarding what effect Dean’s 50-state strategy might have had on the 2008 elections?
From being inside of it, Dean had a part in things. The 50-State Strategy is one of the things that contributed to the genesis of the campaign that just ended. I think you need to see Axelrod’s influence in the Massachusetts elections for Deval Patrick.
Pertinent article.
I think the 50-state stratagy has alot to do with the gains Dems made this election. It has also laid the foundation for future grass roots campaigning that has the power to turn more red states blue in 2010, 2012 and beyond. Look at how close the Dems came to flipping GA, AZ, MT and ND in this election. Even without gaining those EVs it still forced McCain to spend money he didn’t have to spare to defend states that should have been locks for him. That alone is a victory for Dems of a sort and hat kind of ground work opens alot of possibilities for gaining victories in local and stae elections in those and other states.
Is ‘50 state strategy’ really more than a catchphrase? Did the Democrats invest significantly in, say, Utah and Idaho?
Call it cute all you like but I think the Republicans laid more of the groundwork for their defeat than the Democrats were especially clever in formulating a winning strategy. A bogus war, Katrina and the economy just to name the most obvious. While Obama won an Electoral landslide he only got 53% of the vote so not a popular vote landslide. Tactically of course the EC count is the important one but I would not say Dean’s strategy can be shown to have been overly compelling in all 50 states. Indeed I would be scared as a Democrat to see that with the aid of the “Perfect Political Storm”, a hugely charismatic and eloquent candidate, a near flawless campaign with unheard of fund raising and organization and, if you want to, Dean’s 50-State strategy they only managed 53%. Of that list I think Dean’s strategy is minor to all the rest.
Further I would say Obama called the shots at least as regards his own campaign. Undoubtedly he worked with the DNC but it was Obama’s show as first evidenced when he won the nomination he told the DNC to move operations to Chicago.
Note that by this standard, no non-incumbent has won a landslide since Eisenhower in '52. (Which is a reasonable position to hold.)
My point was that it didn’t actually say anything substantive, other than that you believed that Dean did not deserve much credit.
I take it that your point is that the credit, really, should go to the Republicans for governing so badly and that, in fact, neither Obama nor Dean should be given much credit, because under these circumstances, they should have done much better. Is that right?
Dean, BTW, is rumored to be under consideration for a post in Obama’s Cabinet, probably Health and Human Services (Dean being a physician).
He ought to be more qualified than Bush’s first pick, the former governor of my state, Tommy Thompson (Thompson being an idiot).
I lol’d.
Any evaluation of Dean’s contribution has to be considered in light of the DLC faction’s stranglehold over the Democratic Party’s strategy and messaging.
What Dean did was to provide oxygen for a different view within the party, which resonated with the grassroots, and challenged the conventional wisdom of the DLC. He was a trailblazer in terms of rejecting the DLC’s tendency to cede ground to the Republicans on things like national security, and their strategy to try to eke out a narrow electoral college by focusing on swing-states. It might have worked for Clinton when you had Perrot running as a spoiler and a conservative who did not inspire his base, but it was never a helpful way for Democrats to run.
The swing state strategy made sense in terms of putting your resources where it most counts, but it never allowed the party to break out of its cradle and reach out to new disaffected voters, by laying the groundwork for real competition across a broader front. The point wasn’t just to win, so it’s pointless to measure it in those terms. The point was make a serious effort at flipping more red states, and making making the front so broad your opponent is forced to defend areas that would otherwise taken for granted with minimal spends.
Now, the Obama campaign undoubtedly deserves the most credit for converting this into an actual win. They came along and actually established the new electoral offices. They moved the DNC to Chicago and essentially took control. So obviously it’s not all Dean personally, it’s just that he was a helpful precursor. He showed the way with internet fund-raising, less apologetic messaging, and then as DNC Chair, the 50 state approach.
One thing that I think we can credit the 50 state strategy for is the huge number of donations that Obama received. No sober person would think Obama had a chance in some of the deep red states, but showing that the party was willing to fight and organize in those states probably helped Obama’s donations.
One thing not being mentioned here is Dean’s idea of an Internet campaign. He pioneered the concept of online fund-raising from small donors, social networking among his supporters and lots of other stuff that got forgotten about after his own campaign ended.
Obama was watching and expanded all those concepts in his own campaign.
Putting it another way, Dean invented the hardware, Obama came up with the applications.