Monday, November 15, 2004
DNC chair fiasco
From My DD
Alright, this is how I feel about the whole situation. John Kerry lost; he ran a disorganized, overly cautious campaign staffed with far too many DNC talking heads who, when arriving in Washington they found the deepest, darkest hole and never left DC. Many of us voters didn't like Kerry during the primaries, especially for his vote for the war regardless of his nuanced reasons for doing so we didn't support it or him. The fault lies at the feet of the press for the Dean Campaign going down, the media was vicious to Dean and Clark and seemed like they were pushing for Kerry and the scared primarily white voters acted like lemmings and followed Kerry into the booth. We were stuck with Kerry so we made the best of what we had. Kerry wasn't a total disaster in and of himself he was by far a better choice than the current occupant and Nader had a snowballs chance in hell.
So we worked trying to model Kerry a DNC clone into the grassroots candidate and boy did it not work, whether or not Kerry understood the importance of the Dean Revolution is up to debate as we can clearly see that this was another incident where the overly cautious Kerry hurt him in the long run. The feeling when I met DNC leadership wasn't that of passion, where with the Dean and Clark campaigns made you feel like you were part of a giant movement the DNC people acted like they were putting up decorations for a lame office party. There was a great disconnect between the people who volunteered and those in "leadership" Positions and the candidate himself. I saw more of the 'Anybody but Bush' than loyalty to Kerry from E-mails, to face to face talks it was getting sad watching the best hope of defeating Bush self destruct before my eyes.
What Kerry should be reminded of is the only reason a majority of voters who went your way voted for you was because you weren't Bush, the lesser of evils so to speak this election is no more a Kerry mandate than Bush mandate. This loss should be the grave stone of the old DNC and if Kerry doesn't want to be part of the solution, then get out of the way. The old Centrist idea is not what wins the day, did you see what happened when Kerry tried playing the center, then playing the left, then playing right was trademarked by the old guard and it hasn't won a single election.
What is needed is someone with a giant broom and a "can fire attitude", Dean has that down pat so do a few others. An outsider taking control will change the DNC and it will change for the better if we're willing to take risks, redefine the message, and stop being afraid of losing!
That little tidbit about Kerry got me a little pissed
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From My DD
Kerry is not behind Shaheen right now, he's behind Vilsack (not that he wouldn't turn to her if Vilsack dropped out). As I stated earlier, it's mostly a "Stop Dean" movement that Kerry is leading the charge on from behind the scenes. And yes, Kerry does have that $45M leftover from the campaign that he's not ready to handover to the DNC at this time-- why not?
From everyone I've talked to inside the Dean campaign, he's ready to take the chair at the DNC. He's just got to get the votes. It's obvious that the "anyone but Dean" movement has no vision of it's own, other than stopping the grassroots from actually taking control of the party. We need to re-invigorate the local level with power that has a say, and take away power from the vested interests (mostly their own) inside DC.
Alright, this is how I feel about the whole situation. John Kerry lost; he ran a disorganized, overly cautious campaign staffed with far too many DNC talking heads who, when arriving in Washington they found the deepest, darkest hole and never left DC. Many of us voters didn't like Kerry during the primaries, especially for his vote for the war regardless of his nuanced reasons for doing so we didn't support it or him. The fault lies at the feet of the press for the Dean Campaign going down, the media was vicious to Dean and Clark and seemed like they were pushing for Kerry and the scared primarily white voters acted like lemmings and followed Kerry into the booth. We were stuck with Kerry so we made the best of what we had. Kerry wasn't a total disaster in and of himself he was by far a better choice than the current occupant and Nader had a snowballs chance in hell.
So we worked trying to model Kerry a DNC clone into the grassroots candidate and boy did it not work, whether or not Kerry understood the importance of the Dean Revolution is up to debate as we can clearly see that this was another incident where the overly cautious Kerry hurt him in the long run. The feeling when I met DNC leadership wasn't that of passion, where with the Dean and Clark campaigns made you feel like you were part of a giant movement the DNC people acted like they were putting up decorations for a lame office party. There was a great disconnect between the people who volunteered and those in "leadership" Positions and the candidate himself. I saw more of the 'Anybody but Bush' than loyalty to Kerry from E-mails, to face to face talks it was getting sad watching the best hope of defeating Bush self destruct before my eyes.
What Kerry should be reminded of is the only reason a majority of voters who went your way voted for you was because you weren't Bush, the lesser of evils so to speak this election is no more a Kerry mandate than Bush mandate. This loss should be the grave stone of the old DNC and if Kerry doesn't want to be part of the solution, then get out of the way. The old Centrist idea is not what wins the day, did you see what happened when Kerry tried playing the center, then playing the left, then playing right was trademarked by the old guard and it hasn't won a single election.
What is needed is someone with a giant broom and a "can fire attitude", Dean has that down pat so do a few others. An outsider taking control will change the DNC and it will change for the better if we're willing to take risks, redefine the message, and stop being afraid of losing!
That little tidbit about Kerry got me a little pissed
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