DN-C, DN-do
By Jim Dallas
The Hotline briefs us on the progress of the DNC's plan to revitalized grassroots organizing:
"Howard Dean has turned out to be the biggest surprise of the season. He's a good man. And he truly gets it."
Those are the words of Charles Soechting, the TX Dem chair who when Dean announced his bid for DNC chair had Soechting grtting his teeth. At the time, the Texan worried that Dean didn't get the problems parties grappled with and certainly didn't possess the regional sympathy to figure out how to win elections in the South.
But now, closing in on Dean's 1st anniversary as DNC chair, Soechting has seen enough to convince him that Dean "knows what it to makes Texas truly competitive."
Veterans of Dem politics who work on state and local campaigns are eager to praise Dean. In part, that's because Dean has devoted the bulk of the DNC's staff, energy and time to fulfilling his chairman's campaign promise: to revitalize the Dem Party at the precinct level.
Dem strategists in DC often ask their colleagues: "What is Dean good for?" They moan that he's not raising as much as money as they expected or his surrogates promised; that he hasn't been Joe Trippi-like and revolutionized the party's small donor outreach; that he can't shut his liberal mouth. Dean's admirers have ready counter-arguments, but they've lacked something tangible to bat down the critics. But now, they say, the party's investment in states is beginning to pay off.
It goes on with details. Of course I wonder if the 2006 and 2008 coordinated campaign plans will be a little more sophisticated in voter targeting (something that the GOP seems to be running circles around us with).
Posted by Jim Dallas at January 6, 2006 12:00 PM
| TrackBack
Yeah, Dean's a great Democrat Party leader. Guess it takes treason to earn that kind of recognition, huh? "We can't win the war in Iraq." Maybe Dean would've received more accolades from his fellow Democrats had he interviewed on al-Jazzerra and made that treasonous remark.
Yeah, I didn't like it when he said that but the fact of the matter is that the party chair isn't really instrumental in deciding policy or anything. When you see Dean on TV or hear him on the radio he's actually doing the least important thing his job entails. The fact of the matter is that he's raising decent (not astronomical, but decent) money and spending it where it needs to be spent: on the ground in every state to build the long term infrastructure of a strong party. That's why I think he's been a great chairman.
