Dems Better At Cutting Up Each Other Than the Opposition...

What’s Going On With The Democrats?

Many seem confused by what is happening inside the democratic party today.
Why ae we not aggressively supporting the leading candidates?... Why has their been no evidence of common purpose between Congress’ Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and
Howard Dean?

What has happened with Howard Dean’s highly touted “Fifty State” strategy designed
to reawaken the democratic movement across states where it was thought to be nonexistent?

Why do Chuck Shumer and Rahm Emanuel, both leading Democratic lights, take such a dim view of what Dean is trying to accomplish? Is Dean’s strategy right? Or is he destined to destroy what remains of the democratic party and doom us to another four years of republican rule? Is he so anti-main stream that it is hurting the party?

These are some of the questions that flood the minds of most concerned democrats today.
And to his credit, Matt Bai, a journalist for the New York Times, goes far in answering why democrats, today, are having such a hard time making themselves heard and felt at a time when the republicans are exposed on virtually all flanks and why conflict within the party poses such risks while the opportunities to add seats during this midterm couldn’t be better.

To understand the contentious and oftentimes conflicting views that are working to either shape or undo the party as we know it, it is helpful to understand the Dean “Fifty State” strategy of bringing the parties back to life in states where there has been little if any life since the days Johnson promulgated his integration policies.

The prevailing question is whether it’s working?

From the looks of things, it seems that despite the financial investment that Dean has made in achieving his goals, there seems to be little record of tangible progress. Moribund state parties are still moribund. This hasn’t changed. But Dean seems to have the answer. The DNC Chairman says that mistakes will be made along the way in rebuilding the party but that is to be expected. . Credit it to a lack of expertise, an inability to change the status quo, a lack of experience, But such pitfalls does not suggest that the objectives are wrong or not timely. . Ordinarily, the DNC would turn over their accumulated funds to the candidate of choice who would then invest it the media that target the lead 18 states that are decisive in elections. Dean wants to change the conventional formulae so that at least part of that money goes to state organizations.

As a result of the fifty state strategy, the fund that might normally go to deservings candidates has been redirected with little visible effect. Critics Emanuel and Shumer have been adamant about the need to buoy up candidates in competitive races which hasn’t happened. For the most part, deserving candidates have gotten little if any support from the party. Their argument being that the way to change is to get more democratic candidates in office now. Some even wonder whether Dean’s strategy is designed to lay a foundation for his own run in 2008 but Bai refutes that possibility by arguing that Dean seems less interested in the presidency than changing the democratic party at the grass-roots level.

The essential questions boil down to whether it makes more sense to support the near term goals of helping the democratic candidates win election where they stand the best chances of winning or thinking longer term at the expense of the present to rebuild the democratic party in all of the states from the bottom up.

. Matt Bai’s article, which appears in the October 1 New York Times magazine under the heading: “It’s His Party? Howard Dean and the Creatie Destruction of the Democratic Establishment,.” providesa an insightful and objective overview of both sides of the argument and the implications for the election without resorting to the obvious temptation of coloring the debate with secondary arguments or personal views. .
Report by

Les Aaron