Burnt Orange Report

Now I'm Excited

By Vince Leibowitz

I must admit, I was among the skeptics who didn't really think it would make a difference who ended up as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

And, though Howard Dean still has a lot to prove, as a county chairman, I was very excited to read about Howard Dean's Plan for the DNC.

If you are a Democrat and don't get at least a little excited reading this, you may need to check your pulse:

1. Show up! Democrats should never concede a single state, a single district, or a single voter to the Republicans. We must be active and compete in all 50 states and work with the state parties to build a true national party.

2. The success of the national party depends directly on the success of the state parties — we must better integrate our operations by:

* Having the DNC pay the salary of each state party executive director to help ensure that the state parties have adequate funds.
* Collectively building and sharing supporter lists between the national and state parties.
* Recruiting, training, and encouraging candidates to run for office at every level — building tomorrow's farm team from the ground up.
* Actively grow local Democratic committees and communities by working with neighborhood activists who can reach out in their communities and enable the grassroots to support state and local candidates.
* Maintaining a permanent campaign in every state. We need to establish an ongoing, active presence, which does not have to be recreated every four years for four months.

3. Set core principles that define the Democratic Party and what we stand for and take a bottom-up approach to the development of the Party's message;

4. Use cutting-edge Internet and other technologies to fundraise, organize, and communicate with our supporters;

5. Strengthen our political institutions and leadership institutes to promote our leaders and our ideas — these organizations must work together in a coordinated and integrated fashion to elect Democrats at every level, so that we can take this country back.

I am particularly interested in this one:

Collectively building and sharing supporter lists between the national and state parties.

Does this mean that the Texas Democratic Party can now get the fund-raising list from the DNC they used to raise something like $19 million dollars (may be wrong about that figure) from Texas?

If so, this would represent a major shift in DNC policy going back at least two decades. If I were Charles Soechting, I'd call the DNC Monday morning and ask for a copy of that list.

Also, I wonder if this means that county parties can get the list of DNC contributors in their counties? Just for the fun of it, I think I'll call the DNC Monday morning and ask for this list.

I am slightly confused as to why Dean didn't specifically include any language mentioning county parties, the true backbone of the Party. He mentioned "community activists," and maybe it all means the same thing.

Also, just thinking out loud here, since Dean is now the DNC Chairman, does this mean he would headline a major fund-raiser like, for free? I'll ask when I call Monday. It'd be great if East Texas Democrats could have a huge multi-county fund-raiser in a place like Tyler and split the proceeds.

I may have to whip out the old Rolodex and get with some of my East Texas contacts to see if they'd like to do something like that--Dean or no Dean. In fact, the more I think about it, the cooler the idea sounds.

I'd better stop this post because I'm already thinking about locations and designing logos in my head. Damn you, Howard Dean for getting me even more excited about being a Democrat!