Since you were the first, why don’t you provide a cite proving
I believe Dean will do a great job. AFAIK, the job of the chair is to organize and that is something Dean specializes in.
No one else has been able to inspire the younger age group in the way Dean has. I only hope that will translate into rejuvination of the grassroots efforts for the Democratic party. The younger generations DO mostly agree with the “liberal” viewpoints and if he can keep those groups active in the political process (like myself), then the Neocons are in BIG trouble.
As far as his personality, I see nothing wrong with it. So he cheered on his people at a rally, big deal. Anyone who has an issue with that, well I guess they’ve never cheered at a football game or watching their kids play in any sports, concerts, etc. Too bad for them, it must suck to be so unemotional and dispassionate.
The shift in the American public has unfortunately become REGRESSIVE. Hello 1950’s! It won’t last long, my generation and those younger than me will soon be old enough to run for offices (some are old enough for local offices) and the old pokies will go away. The problem right now is, after 9/11, a big spotlight was shown on the capacity of mental illness in this country. Many people are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and are too terrified to vote for anyone else no matter how bad. The pendulum will soon swing back to the center and we can get rid of these fascist, far-right wing nutjobs.
I think Dean is what we need on the left right now. We need something to balance out this paralell universe that is Bushco. I’ve never seen so much hubris and hypocrisy. It’s nauseating! I really was pulling for Dean in the primaries, but the media and the NeoCon Noise Machine smeared him. Sad really. I’m happy to see he’s at least won a battle, not yet the war, but truly he’s getting in on the ground floor where he can make some positive changes, some much-needed changes.
Other things being equal, wouldn’t a senator make a better president than a governor?
In this thread – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=300181 – we established, more or less, that the reason 40% of eligible Americans still didn’t vote in last November’s election, despite unprecedented GOTV drives, is because most of those nonvoters are poor or working-poor and perceive that both parties serve the monied interests, not theirs. If Dean is able to change the Democratic message to the point where it’s obvious that our party puts the interests of the poor above the interests of the corporations, the new voters (as in, never voted before but by God they’re gonna vote now) we would pick up would more than offset any alienation of “cross-over votes.” In other words, shifting the Democratic Party’s center-of-gravity several degrees to the left will do it far more good than harm in purely electoral terms – provided that in this case “left” means economic left-populism (progressive income tax, single-payer health care, etc.) rather than cultural liberalism (gay marriage, etc.). Not that Dean is necessarily the best person to give the party a left-populist direction, but he’s the likeliest available at the moment.
If things were equal, it wouldn’t make any difference. 
I was talking more about winning the election as opposed to who I actually thought would make a better president. Those are two completely different things.
Nitpick: Don’t confuse principles with interests. Have you never encountered a situation where your principles tell you to do one thing and your interests tell you to do another? The lower-than-upper-middle-class voters who turned out for Bush last November voted on their moral, religious and cultural principles as against their economic interests. They also also voted for their interests in safety-and-security terms, because they (mis)perceived the Bush Admin as being better suited to protect them from terrorism.
To the contrary. The American people have not even been given a chance to vote for a “progressive agenda” since 1972 or earlier. We get to choose between two corporate-controlled parties with different abortion policies; no third option, no substitutions. Moving left (in economic-populist terms, see above) is not “political suicide,” it is the only chance the Dems have of picking up the remaining mass of disaffected voters.
I think it’s as simple as this: what the Dems have been doing lately isn’t working. Accepting Dean as Chairman means, for better or worse, that they’re doing something different.
A year ago, when I was attending my local Deaniac meetings, Dean was considered an outsider. This wasn’t because of his views, per se, which are not nearly as far to the left as the Republican machine would like you to think. It was because he was willing to speak up, call bullshit, and above all else, distinguish himself from the Republicans.
It’s hard to see, one tough year later, how that could make one an outsider. But think back to the 2000 election, when it was hard to find an issue that Bush and Gore substantially disagreed on. Then we went through a few years where disagreeing with the Republicans was tantamount to supporting the terrorists, and the early crop of Dem prospects came out of the same wishy-washy batch that had been manhandled ever since 9/11.
Dean made it OK to not be a Republican again. A year in which Michael Moore and moveon.org became household names makes it hard to grasp that, but it’s true. Even though the press eventually did him in, he made it possible for Kerry and the other remaining candidates to criticize more directly and speak up more loudly.
This crap about needing to move to the center is just that, because the Democrats won’t win by convincing Republican voters to vote Democratic. They’ll win by getting that 50% of the country that doesn’t vote off their asses and out to the polls. (It’s almost axiomatic that high turnout almost always favors Democrats, which leads me to believe that Dean’s comment about the majority agreeing with progressive positions is true when you take voters and non-voters into account.) How do they do that? Two ways, IMO: organization, and distinguishing themselves from Republicans. These are exactly the two things that Dean did well in 2004.
I could be wrong, but I hope I’m not.
Interesting observation!
By “disaffected” do you mean the ones who didn’t vote last election? Good luck getting them to the poles…
Oh, we’ll get them to the polls all right, and on the Dem side too – if and only if we
-
de-emphasize the “culture war” issues such as gay marriage, abortion, and immigration policy (because too many non-voters are culturally very conservative, more’s the pity); and
-
offer them an agenda that puts their economic and political interests above the interests of the overclass.
Yes, my friends, it really is time, at long last, for Class War in America! (At the polls, I mean. We needn’t discuss using rifles just yet. But the option must always remain open. 
)
Sounds like a campaign based on tax increases. Good luck!
You’d be surprised, John. In fact, I’m confident you will be surprised, and not pleasantly! 
Update: It’s official, Dean has taken office as Chair of the DNC. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=a3n_kuph3sPE&refer=top_world_news House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid – who tried to persuade McAuliffe to stay on as Chair – say they hope Dean will take his lead from them; and by his statements, he appears willing to at least listen.
IMO, the 2006 Congressional elections will be perceived as the first test of Dean’s effectiveness. If the Dems get creamed again, he might be pressured to step down. But I don’t think they will be.
I was surprised, given our conversation, to hear the outgoing Chairman of the DNC (on the radio) say it was his job to attack President Bush (not an exact quote). Apparently it may now be a function of the job to speak publicly beyond that of fund raising. I always thought this was more of a Terry McAuliffe style but it may carry over with Dean.
It should be interesting to see a comparison of John Dean’s style to that of Ed Gillespie (I had to look up the RNC Chairman).