Silly me, I always thought that was the job of the people who have the authority to do it - the President, the Congress, those guys. Dean isn’t supposed to do much more than raise money, cheerlead, and yell “those guys r the sux0r”.
My vote is for that plan, if you double the points.
Ravenman, comparing Dean to previous party chairmen is not relevant. Previous party chairmen weren’t household names in the way that Dean is. They weren’t the face of the Democratic party. Right now, Dean’s one of the best known Democrats out there. He appears on talk shows; he sends out regular email to supporters; he appears on magazine covers.
So he needs to have a plan.
Not a shadow government. I can’t tell whether you’re trying to satirize me or whether you don’t understand what I mean when I suggest that he needs to offer an alternative. What he needs to be doing is saying, “Look, here’s the awesome bill that Democrats are trying to introduce in Congress, but they’re being blocked by the Republicans. Go to www.democrats.org to read the bill’s full text, or I’ll tell you right now what this bill does. As soon as we get those obstructionist Republicans out of office, we can start getting this progressive, optimistic agenda underway.”
That’s how people get elected. As long as Democrats lack a plan, they’re not going to retake Congress.
If it were just Dean who lacked a plan, I wouldn’t be so pissed. But nobody in the Democratic party is, near as I can tell, pushing a positive, specific agenda. And THAT pisses me off.
So that’s my objection to Dean: he’s not part of the problem, but he could be, and isn’t, part of the solution.
Daniel
You put too much faith in the voters in this country.
In my opinion the right-wing spin machine is far too powerful and well-funded. Any concrete plan that the Democrats put out there will be spun and mischaracterized into oblivion.
Right now the righties are forced to go for vague attacks on vague Democrat positions. When they have something specific, then you get classy stuff like this.
If Feingold’s attempts to prevent the PATRIOT Act get some legs I imagine we’ll have our Veep and his puppets talking about how the Democrats want to offer terrorists therapy.
I’m not claiming the Democrats are doing a good thing here. They’re afraid to offer anything because it’ll get turned into something America-Hating and politically damaging. They’re outclassed by the Right’s media machine, and I think they’re pretty much paralyzed with uncertainty.
Damned if they do…so they don’t and hope that the Righties do themselves in.
Just my opinion, of course.
-Joe
There is another thing Lenin and Dean have in common.
Nobody ever took Lenin seriously. People would listen, shook their heads and say, “My, but this guy is way out there!”; then they would forget about the whole thing. Until it was too late.
Is there any other Dem. politician who said publicly that Tom DeLay belongs in jail? Cite, please?
Yeah, I’m sure Dean will be deported, then sneak back across the Caucasus in a train, meet up with his comrades, and foment that revolution any day now. First they’re gonna go to New Hampshire, then they’re going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and New Mexico, and they’re going to California and Texas and New York, and they’re going to South Dakota and Oregon and Michigan and then they’re going to Washington, DC to take back the White House! YAAAAAH!
:rolleyes:
I’ll tell you what: show me one way in which you’re not like Lenin. Until you show me you’re not a little Lenin, I’ll assume you’re just like him and if people don’t take the threat you pose seriously, it’ll soon be too late.
I said nothing about politicians. You can find dozens of people on this board who have said Delay belongs in jail.
To review, you say Howard Dean is like V.I. Lenin because he wants to destroy everything - I think that’s been counter-cited pretty well - and is in dangerous in some vague and undefined way. He’s a threat to Tom Delay’s rights even though he is in no position to influence Delay’s court proceedings and trial, and because he said Republicans are rich and white, he’s trying to start a Communist, classist race war that will destroy the social fabric of America. Got it.
Good. That makes the two of us. There’s still hope that disaster may be averted.
Only if this thread is stopped pronto. But I’m not optimistic about that possibility, little Lenin.
We must get the message out, comrade. Do you have a hundred bucks on you?
I don’t think it’s fair to blame Lenin for stuff that happened after he died. That’s like blaming Jesus for the Crusades.
At this stage in our history, Iskander, for a political leader of national stature to encourage class war would be a good thing.
But I’m not holding my breath.
Dean doesn’t have the power to be dangerous. To be another Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, or whatever, you need to be in power. Dean can’t start a war over a lie, he can’t give no-bid contracts to his vice president’s former firm, he can’t rack up huge budget deficits, he can’t stop Medicare from negotiating prices with drug manufacturers. If he got in power and did those things, you might have a leg to stand on while comparing him to a dictator. Until them, he’s a private citizen exercising his right to speak the truth. Just because he tells us that the emperor has no clothes doesn’t make him the bad guy.
I’ve heard this before, and I just don’t buy it. As long as Democrats lack a plan, Republicans will do classy things like resond to Democratic criticism by calling a press conference, holding up a blank sheet of posterboard, and saying, “Well, here’s the Democrat plan!”
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t indeed. Given that inaction is going to be spun as well, you may as well have some action that at least can get you some good press.
When the Republicans were out of power and presented a strong, specific, visionary plan for the country, giving it a sexy name and unifying behind it, they swept the elections, gaining control of both houses. I may think that their contract was crap, but it was powerful crap. Democrats spun it, condemned it, talked about what a disaster it would be for the country. Remember the slogan “Contract on America”? Dems weren’t subtle in their criticism.
But the voters were swayed. Voters like a plan. That’s not me giving them to much credit: as I said, I think voters liked a shitty plan back in 1994. It’s simply an observation. And as long as Dems don’t have a plan, they’re going to have a really hard time regaining control of government.
Daniel
Revolution would be a plan . . . 
You are just simply wrong. It is exactly relevant. Dean is doing the job of a party chairman. He’s not an elected official. He’s doing exactly the job he was chosen to do.
What’s more, there is a very long history of party chairman not just being semi-former-politicians, but actual politicians and officeholders: Bob Dole, Chris Dodd, Scoop Jackson were party chairmen while they were in the Senate, and Jim Gilmore was recently governor of Virginia while chairman of the RNC. In no case where they expected to be the chief policymakers of their parties.
It’s just simply a terrible idea to have someone who’s not going to run for office be responsible for drawing up policies. It’s dumb. Democrats ought to be listening to their constituents, not their party chairman. There is no way that Dean can draw up really good, smart policies that will help elect Democrats in California AND Arkansas, Massachusetts AND Georgia, or Washington AND Texas.
Coming up with ideas on how to fix problems is the job of the leaders in Congress. Who came up with the Contract for America? The New Deal? The Great Society? Not party chairmen. It’s not their job, and frankly, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single Democratic officeholder anywhere who would want Dean to take that responsibility upon himself. Yes, Democrats need an agenda, but it is and should be up to the party leaders – Reid and Pelosi – not the campaign chief – Dean – to come up with that plan.
I’m not saying it’s his responsibility, it isn’t; but why are you so sure he couldn’t do it?
I might be wrong when I say that he’s different because (let me quote what you quoted)
but your refutation has nothing to do with what I said. Is it your contention that previous party chairmen were household names? were the face of their party? were one of the best known partymembers out there? appear on talk shows and magazine covers? send out regular emails to party-members? If you’re going to tell me I’m wrong, tell me which specific part is wrong.
I’m not saying it’s his job to formulate the specific policies; I’m saying that, given the fact that he’s one of the best known partymembers out there, it’s his job to publicize the specific policies.
Daniel
First, you could get Jesus, Elvis, or Bill Clinton in as party chairman and it wouldn’t change the job. Dean is there to raise money and find candidates to run against Republicans. That’s a full time job, and one’s fame does not change it. In any case, you are right, Dean probably is the most well known chairman in many decades, although Scoop Jackson and Bob Dole had made their entrance on the national stage. But fame alone doesn’t make someone the best person to put forward on issues.
I strongly dispute that Dean is the face of the Democratic party. There is no one face of the Democratic Party at this point, just as there was not one face of the Democratic Party in 2001, 2002, or 2003. Just like there was no one face of the Republican party in 1999. If I had to select one face of the Democratic party at this moment, it’d be John Kerry. As much as rank-and-file Democrats aren’t crazy about him, he was selected to be the the standard bearer for the party last year. Dean, on the other hand, has essentially been demoted from presidential candidate and household name to Chairman of the Democratic Party.
The party chairmanship is indeed a demotion: 99% of politicians don’t want to do it because it is too much work and they have to mindlessly spout talking points to cheer for their party without doing any substantive work on issues. The job is simply about money, candidates, and not shooting your party in its foot.
And as far as being a spokesman for the party, Dean is doing the same job that McAuliffe did before him, and that Melman has been doing, and so on. They all appear on CNN and the Sunday talk shows and give speeches now and then, just rah-rahing their party. Dean has accelerated use of email, but the DNC has been sending out emails for YEARS. I used to get them until I got tired of the glurge.
Look, the thing you are not realizing is that nobody in the Democratic establishment wants Howard Dean putting his stamp on Democratic initiatives. If he does, that crowds out the real party leaders, Reid and Pelosi, who were chosen to do exactly what you’re talking about. If Dean started promoting specific Democratic initiatives, beyond the drab “America can do better, save Social Security, etc.,” it would be poison to the party.
Dean has great ideas on where to take the party – I fully support him as DNC Chairman, and his stuff about reengaging in Red States is absolutely right on. But people in Red States cannot fucking stand Howard Dean. They think he’s a nut. Howard Dean speaking to conservative-leaning voters about the Democratic plan for such and so turns them off. Democrats ought not be sending Ted Kennedy or Howard Dean or John Kerry into purple-ish states like Louisiana or Arkansas or North Dakota. You’ve got to get the people like Edwards or Bayh or Mark Warner or Gene Taylor and those sorts to talk about Democrats to these kinds of voters.
Now, Democrats will probably come up with some kind of generic platform for the 2006 midterm elections. But if Dean, rather than the candidates for office, start leading the charge for that platform, watch out: we won’t do as well as we should. When it boils right down to it, elections are primarily about one thing: not money, not party platforms, not interest groups, and certainly not party chairmen. Elections are about candidates. Ask anyone who has ever worked in a political campaign. The candidate is the key.
Crappy candidates always lose. Good candidates can win elections. Nobody goes to the voting booth to vote for a party chairman. The test of Howard Dean is not how much he goes on TV, but how many good candidates he can find to run in key elections to win the House and Senate. That’s it.
It is Dr. Dean, I do believe.
BTW:I think democrats have a great candidate, and if we are lucky, he will actually run. I hope he wins the grammy.
Right you are.
I think if you’re lucky, he’ll win the Grammy, serve a term or two in the Senate, then go back to Illinois to run for Governor. THEN make a run at the White House.
