Burnt Orange Report

DNC Atlanta Report: 1 of 3

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

In this entry I will present some of the points that were made by the "introduction" speakers at the general session. The following entry will be a DNC candidate by candidate discussion. The third entry will be on the Texas angle and the "Texas Tussle" that is ongoing.

The Southern Regional Meeting of the DNC on January 8 almost ended halfway into it as those in charge claimed that seating to the general session was limited and only those with preapproved credentials would be allowed in, and if there was space after that, others would be accepted. By the time I was reluctantly let in, there still appeared to be dozens of open chairs and I am thankful that the obstacle was "fire codes" rather than disallowing bloggers, as was the case in Florida.

Governor Phil Bredesen of Tennessee gave a good speech in which he said we "need not a regional strategy but a national message that speaks to a culture of America because the people we need to reach out to are beyond the South".

He gave two suggestions to the party.
1) Get out of Washington! "The aspirations of the people are out in the nation, in red states and blue ones."
2) We need some Focus. "It needs to come from the top; we need a coherent world view."

Next up were proposed DNC Rule Changes put forth by Don Fowler, former DNC chair and father of DNC candidate Donnie Fowler. He offered them saying that he had been in charge before and sometimes responsible for the very rules which he is now proposing to alter, which would take power away from the Chair and put it in the Regional Caucuses and States. In summary they are...

1) Reduce the number of At Large DNC Members appointed by the DNC chair from the current 75 to 25 (out of the 440 or so total members) and give 12 or 13 to each Regional Caucus to appoint.

2) Reduced from 11 to 7 the number of executive committee appointments made by the DNC Chair, giving one to each Regional Caucus.

3) Related to making the management of the DNC budget to be more open and accountable.

A presentation was made by Pollster Dave Beattie on targeting. His quotable line? "Like Vietnam, Democrats cannot hold the cities and lose the countryside, and expect to win the war." His suggested target groups...

1) Catholics "We don't need to change who we are for this one."
2) Small Business "We can be the Party of Main Street over Wall Street".