Burnt Orange Report

A very thoughtful post, Byron. I only wish more people shared yoru pragmatism.

I should state up front that I am a Frost man. Though he lost, Frost impressed me with 1) his tenacity against Pete Sessions (and therefore Tom DeLay and Karl Rove, too) and 2) his incredible campaign organization. I have lived in Dallas for 20 years, but never had I seen a Democratic apparatus like the one Frost had running in 2004. He understands grassroots, he understands fundraising, he understands fighting for what you believe.

As for Rosenberg, he is good at what he does. That said, I am afraid that alone is a not enough to suggest he should be DNC Chair. He has spent his ENTIRE professional career in DC--the consumate insider's insider. Further, I am not sure he knows how to weather a tough fight, something our next chairman must be willing to do.

I'm a Dean supporter, but I acknowledge the legitimacy of your concerns. I actually think Dean's track record is pretty good if you don't look at it just in terms of pure win/loss ratios (btw, 33 out of 58 is a 57% record, yet you call this is a losing record. Why?). Winning isn't simply a matter of who gets the most votes. It is also a matter of who influences the political dialog and it is hard to deny that Dean had a HUGE influence on the dialog during the 2004 race. He may not have won, but he defined the parameters of the race in a way no other candidate did.

He also went from being an unknown vanity candidate to shattering all fundraising records and coming within a few weeks of taking it all. That's a pretty impressive record in itself. The fact that he couldn't win in the final stretch is only a partial knock against him in my opinion.

I can't speak to the specifics of whether DFA has been a net positive to the candidates it endorsed so I'll leave your comments on that point alone.

I think the battle for the DNC position is coming down to what people want most: an organizer or someone who inspires. Rosenberg, by most accounts, is a good organizer. Yet I haven't heard all that much from him that inspires me the way Dean does. I'd prefer to have both organization AND inspiration (Dean for chairman, Rosenberg for Executive Director!) but I come down slightly in favor of inspiration.

I'll be happy with either of them.

I agree entirely. And one of the reasons why I get so upset sometimes at DailyKos (although I still view it often) is that any anti-Dean opinion gets attacked.

Here here Byron!

I agree with pretty much everything you said. And just so Chris will know, he didn't win 33 of 58, he went 33 and 58- meaning he had a 36% win percentage (which is really bad). I have a great deal of respect for Gov. Dean, but he's just not right for the job IMHO. He should run for Senate in 2006, or maybe even return to the governor's office. DNC Chair is not a good fit for him.

Frost is my first choice, Rosenberg is probably second, I like Donnie Fowler a lot as well. Any way you slice it, Dean is near the bottom for me (but Roemer is so far at the bottom it is unimaginible).

Great post!

Actually, the DFA record was pretty damn good.

Everyone else only wants to back likely winners, which is why things like Emily's list has become lame.

The won races no one expected to, and made races closer than anyone expected.

Hell, they made TOM DELAY campaign, and came within about 10%.

DFA is about building a bench, and you don't do that only going after safe highprofile candidates.

I'm also backing Frost, but for another reason: I'd rather have Dean continue pushing from the outside instead of getting sucked into the mainstream.

However, I've got a few nitpicks with your analysis. And some comments about the DFA.

Yes, Dean's win/loss record sucks. But he picked hard races in the first place. If you look at Morrison, he came a lot closer than anyone thought. Especially before Dean had the guts to back him. If you take 91 long shots and roughly a third actually win, that's fantastic.

As a non-Deanhead member of the DFA (I joined after Dean had dropped out of the prez race) what they seemed to do best was voter registration and voter turnout. The voters registered by DFA and other organizations decided some of the local and statewide races (particularly Strama). It also fed volunteers like myself into helping the local campaigns.

Can the DFA be improved? Of course. But as a new kid on the block, it's already had an impact here in Austin. Here's hoping to it's continued growth and impact.

I probably should clarify my remarks on DFA's win-loss record. I don't think that the actual win-loss record is that important. I think that the measure of success for a political organization should be the actual impact that they had on race.

When looking at the races in which DFA was involved that I am familiar with - the Texas races, I've concluded that DFA was rather ineffective in three of the four races. Yes, DFA had an impact in the Richard Morrison campaign. I'm glad that the grassroots / netroots started targetting Tom DeLay. Howard Dean helped give creditability to those efforts by engaging DFA into that race.

But as for the other three races in Texas, I don't think that DFA was very effective...

May Walker won her race with 86% of the vote. It was a constable race in Harris County that Democrats were going to win regardless. I don't think that DFA targetting that race was an effective use of resources.

David Van Os was also endorsed by DFA, and it seemed to be little more than payback for Van Os's support of Dean's presidential campaign. I think that DFA would have been more effective in targetting another state house race, instead of targetting a statewide race where we didn't really have much of a chance.

Finally, was the Katy Hubener race which I mentioned in my post. That was a good race to target. Katy Hubener ran a strong campaign, and her race was one of Texas Democrats best pick up opportunities. But DFA didn't really do all that much. They sent out a single email pluging her candidacy along with 11 other candidates. I think that a couple of hundred dollars came in. That was it. Again, that's not a very effective use of resources.

I'm not bashing DFA, and I think that it's great that so many people have been inspired by Howard Dean to get involved in politics. However, when I look at the candidates, and their records of running an organization, I believe that Frost and Rosenberg have much stronger records to run on with their leadership of the DCCC and the NDN respectively.

I'll trust your analysis of the DFA-sponsored races. I'm new at the dymanics of TX politics. [Thank you redistricting for waking me up.]

But what I like the most about the DFA is that they took some swings at races that were thought to be "a poor use of resources", and actually won (Mark Strama, Stephen Yelenosky). Or at least caused the Republicans to have to sit up, take notice, and spend $$ they might have thrown somewhere else (DeLay vs. Morrison, etc.). What pisses me off the most about the local Dem organization was where we threw in the towel and didn't even run candidates in local elections.

Again, I'd be happier with Frost than Dean for DNC chair. But Dean deserves some due for having more folks talk about "50 state races". I know that Frost was following that model at the DCCC. But I think Dean has done a better job spreading the word through DFA. From what I can see, the DCCC touches candidates (and hits supporters up for $), while the DFA touches people.

The thing is ... where are Roseneberg's results ... the NDN put it's money "where everyone else did" and Frost could be said to have won because of Clinton and that we had nowehere to go but up.

Dean was the longest serving Democratic Governor in the US and survived some serious challenges from the left and right. I hate when people continue to questions his ability to win.