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Is it time to jettison the current national Democratic party leadership?
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connect with blueoregon
Nov 4, '04
NO NO NO! Talk about nabobs of negativity. I was pretty pissed at the ticket after 2000, but have none of those feelings now. The best issue the GOP could come up with was the Kerry flip-flopped, and they did that by making up things about his past record. Well, how about if Kerry takes the minority leadership spot, and he runs for President for the next 4 years, showing the county that he will take the same positions on the same issues. Meanwhile, Edwards (who doesn't need to work) starts or joins a group that advocates for sane reforms of medical malpractice lawsuits (ala the proposal he discussed during his debate with Cheney). We have the better candidates, and next time they won't be running against an incumbent. Their opponents also won't have been able to run for President until the year before the election.
Nov 4, '04
And while on the soap box, Portland is not a liberal enclave or a bastion of liberality. It is a BEACON OF LIGHT ... if our "liberal" policies (e.g. we might actually have to fund our schools for them to have enough money) work, we can trumpet it to the world.
3:19 p.m.
Nov 4, '04
Actually, I think the key question is this: Who should be the DNC chair? Who can activate and motivate our partisans - help them keep the faith?
My nominees... John Edwards or Howard Dean.
3:44 p.m.
Nov 4, '04
It gets squishy if Edwards has to balance DNC Chair with running for Vice-President. Besides, I don't see him doing both, either.
So, it should have been Dean. The nanosecond he dropped out of the race, he should have been leading the fight. And it still should be.
I have zero use whatsoever for McAuliffe and most of his current staff. Hell, the DCCC and DSCC could use new leadership, too.
4:18 p.m.
Nov 4, '04
The leadership's not the problem, it's the grassroots. We plant the seeds of change here, and eventually the leaders have the cover to follow.
4:39 p.m.
Nov 4, '04
The leadership's not the problem, it's the grassroots. We plant the seeds of change here, and eventually the leaders have the cover to follow.
Oh, c'mon now. Do you really think the likes of Tom Daschle or Terry McAuliffe would ever consider the grassroots as providers of some sort of cover they can use to actually, well, lead? They consider the grassroots a nuisance.
Dr. Dean gave them lots of grassroots cover, and the DNC, DLC, and the rest of the party leadership shat on him for it.
4:41 p.m.
Nov 4, '04
Which is to say: I too nominate Dr. Dean to be the new head of the DNC. But on one condition: That he follow the model of the bulk of his campaign (it seemed to shift away somewhat near the end there) in terms of grassroots/distributed/networked organizing.
Take the Dean/Trippi primary campaign model and use it to remake the DNC under Dean's chairmanship. Then watch out.
4:46 p.m.
Nov 4, '04
I'm pretty much in the air about this one. Do we need a fundamental shift in the way the party operates and thinks in order to educate and woo more voters? Could we do this without sacrificing our core tenets?
9:39 a.m.
Nov 5, '04
Oh, c'mon now. Do you really think the likes of Tom Daschle or Terry McAuliffe would ever consider the grassroots as providers of some sort of cover they can use to actually, well, lead? They consider the grassroots a nuisance.
You bet I do.
Political movements aren't born when the right leader comes on the scene--they are born after years and sometimes decades of anonymous work by the grassroots, slowly giving their leaders more and more rope with with to work. Eventually a leader comes along who is dynamic and charismatic and can make huge changes. FDR is a good example, but the better one is ... George W. Bush.
Those fundamental Christians started working the grassroots in the 70s. It wasn't until the mid-90s that they flowered into far-right policy.
The really good news here is that 2004 was a fantastic year for grassroots development on the left. Look at what the Bus Project accomplished in the last two years. Thanks to work by them and others, Oregon has bucked the national trend and elected Democrats.
The failure of the right to counter means that they have used their capital to defeat moderates in their own party and left themselves without a message and without candidates who can get elected. What we've seen in 2004 is, unfortunately, not the immediate flowering of our work--not nationally, anyway. But it is definitely good news for the future.