The problem of the Democratic Party oligarchy in Washington is nothing new. For a history of this topic read some of the essays written by Walter Karp in the four-volume retrospective of this great political observer published by Harper's magazine. Suggestion, unless the Republicans come up with someone as bad as or worse than Bush, pledge not to vote for any Democrat that voted for the war. That will include Hillary and the phony from Delaware. It is, however, a hopeful sign that the Oregon Democratic Party might be on the side of the people and not the oligarchs.

I still can't believe the Democrats were foolish enough to put Howard Dean in charge of the party. Here's a guy who ran for president and over the course of a few weeks blew a massive lead, lost every single primary, squandered literally tens of millions of dollars, managed to offend almost every group under the sun (Christians, blacks, southerners, moderates etc.), and then humiliated himself on national television with his infamous "scream" speech.

And now, after being chosen for his party's top job, Dean makes headlines almost every other day with a new gaffe or misstatement that his underlings frantically try to clarify or retract. It's gotten so bad that even rising stars like Barack Obama and Bill Richardson have started to distance themselves from him; moderate Dems like Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano won't even be seen on the same stage with him. Dean and his cultish band of supporters don't seem to understand that while his loopy comments may excite liberals in blue bastions like Portland and Vermont, they annoy and even frighten the average American in Peoria and Kansas City.

If his gaffes weren't bad enough it also turns out that in addition to being a lousy presidential candidate and a lousy party chairman, Dean is also a lousy fundraiser; his GOP counterpart is setting fundraising records even as his party struggles with a troubled economy and an increasingly unpopular war.

Should the Democrats manage to survive 2006 without yet another humiliating defeat -- and that's far from a sure thing given their lackluster performance in 2002 and 2004 -- it will certainly be in spite of Howard Dean and not because of him.

Dean a lousy fundraiser? I thought Dean was a great fundraiser. I thought that was why (all rhetoric aside) he got the job. What memo did I miss?

My guess is that most people (the retail clerk, garbage hauler, nurse, secretary, sales person, call center person, etc. ) don't really have an ideology, they just want to see problems solved.

My guess is that among those of us who have been politically active, for many the debate is less about party orthodoxy and ideology than about top down (machine? consultant driven?) "money is all that matters and only professionals know how the game is played" politics vs. grass roots politics where local volunteers and activists are presumed to know as much about how to win elections as "leaders" who don't live in the same community as those activists.

This question strikes me as written by someone who is not on the grass roots side of that equation: I still can't believe the Democrats were foolish enough to put Howard Dean in charge of the party.

Howard Dean is a positive delight to those of us who have been grass roots volunteers. Money does not always win elections--if it did we could avoid the cost of elections--just give the job to the person who raised the most money!

What matters are results. Dean may not have gotten the presidential nomination, but candidates he backed did very well in the last election (Tom Potter and Peter Buckley in Oregon, candidates from local up to US Senate in other parts of the country). He is doing good things organizationally for the Democratic Party.

And let's be clear--Republicans generally raise more money than Democrats. The interesting number would be the money raised this many months after McAuliffe became DNC chair vs. Dean's numbers. I have heard they are comparable, perhaps even Dean raised more.

Of course, some would rather look at statements made than look at results. If so, do Republicans really believe that every Republican in America (esp. those who live in NY) thought Rove's statements about "liberals" and 9/11 will help elect Republicans either in the special Ohio election coming up shortly (to fill the seat Portman vacated to take a Bush Administration job) or next year?

Here you go, LT. This is a bit dated; figures as of June 9.

Dean Raised More Early Money than Any DNC Chair Governor Dean has raised more money in his first few months - more than $1 million a week - than any other DNC chair during an off-year - nearly $19 million to date. During this time, Dean has held 26 major fundraising events in sixteen different cities across the country.

DNC Has Nearly Doubled Fundraising Compared to 2003 In the first four months of 2005, the DNC has raised nearly twice as much as (18.6M) we raised in the first 4 months of 03 (10.6M).

DNC Raised Half-Million Online in Less Than Two Weeks In the past two weeks, the DNC has raised more than $500,000 online in small contributions to help build state parties.

To date, the DNC has contributed almost $1 million to help Democratic state parties including: Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming, Nevada, Nebraska, Mississippi, and Kansas.

Contributions to DNC Have Increased More than 62% We've collected 180,000 more contributions through the first five months of 2005 than we did through the first five months of 2003 an increase of more than 62%. (294k vs. 471k)

The DNC raised $8 million more in first four months of 2005 than we did in the first four months of 2003. The Republicans increased their output by less than $5 million. ($37.4M vs. $42.0M)

DNC Narrowing RNCs Fundraising Advantage During the first four months of 2005, the rate at which the RNC outraised the DNC dropped by more than a third. In the first four months of 2003, the RNC outraised the DNC by a ratio of 3.5:1. In the first four months of 2005, the RNC outraised the DNC 2.3:1.

The problems with Howard Dean are not so much Dean himself as how the media report him. Among the more recent examples is the supposed conflict between him and John Edwards and reports which only mentioned where Edwards disagreed with Dean. Daily Kos filled us in with a list of more points Edwards said he agreed on with Dean.

The famous "scream" was no big deal for people with an open mind, but when CNN, Fox and the other scuzzy channels stopped the video they made Dean look like a werewolf. If you shot enough action, you could do the same thing with your own mother.

Dean didn't score well in the primaries, but one of the main factors, probably THE factor, for this was that the Democratic oligarchs ganged up on him. Kerry, Lieberman and Gephardt spent most of their time attacking him until it became clear that Kerry was the front runner and the job of hatchetmen was left to Lieberman and Gebhardt. When it became obvious Gebhardt was going nowhere, he spent practically all of his time bad-mouthing Dean. If Dean had gotten the nomination, Karl Rove would only have had to replay what the three Democratic muggers from the oligarchs' stable had already said - and, of course, the stalled "scream."

And, what does it say about Democrats when they chose Kerry who kept checking with his poll-takers to tell him what position to take each day so that he was a more incompetent campaigner than Gore?

Howard is a genuine person with some rough edges. If his non-PC remarks offend some smug, complacent Americans, so much the better! We need to break the spell those smooth liars have cast upon our country.

I ended up just screaming at the idiot box this morning listening to Donald Rumsfeld being interviewed by Tim Russert. One can almost smell the brimstone any time he impinges on your life. Oh, he was a smooth-talking liar, completely obfuscating any issues on which he was queried, denying any inconvenient truths without compunction. He's what you end up with when you demand your leaders be seamlessly smooth-talking glad-handers that only bear good news.

I know Howard won't go there.

Having defended Dean (above) to some extent I believe we must also pay attention to possible negatives. He is not articulating (or the media are not fully reporting) his position on Iraq. The last I read he seemed to be inclined to "staying the course" in Iraq which is probably a dumb idea. On the Middle East Dean has indicated he could be persuaded to support Sharon and the Likud party which would be a disaster for the Palestinians and the more civilized Israelis that want peace and an end to the abuse of human rights. The good news about Dean is that he is not (yet) in the Democratic oligarchs' pocket, but whether he will lead the party to fulfilling its mythological position of being the people's party remains to be seen.

Paul, maybe Dean is working with individual state parties and helping indiv. activists get organized rather than making headlines going after public support of groups like unions, minorities, etc.

The idea that groups turn out the vote has been tried and I doubt it works at a time when people think for themselves and don't let groups think for them.

One example from this blog. Sen. Obama is a black US Senator. Did he do that by "appealing to Blacks" or by appealing to voters who might be supporting Bush but liked him better than his opposition? By his own admission, it was the latter.

Seems to me elections are won by earning more votes than the opposition. That can be done in any number of ways. I don't buy the idea that pleasing groups and raising money are all that matter.

Having been pro-union in principle and practice for many years I wish we could take it for granted that unions are for the working classes, but this has been proven very tragically not so in some cases. Among the more offensive betrayals, the AFL-CIO was supportive of the overthrow of Allende in Chile and reportedly has been trying (in collusion with the Bush Administration) to undercut Chavez in Venezuela. At home their record is much less than perfect. Some of them tend to be supportive of whatever war incumbent administrations concoct because it means jobs for them. During the Vietnam war a family rift occurred between one union leader, who was for jobs for his members, and his daughter who was an anti-war activist. There are a few unions (for example the hotel workers) that are trying to do the right thing, but other union leaders are no more immune to the corruption of power than politicians. Regrettably, we can't blindly take the positions of unions as a guiding example.

I have had some business with the DPO officers and our DNC reps regarding a Resolution put forward and they have been as helpful and encouraging as I could have asked for, and I was asking a lot. Yes I believe the DPO "gets it" and I believe them when they say DNC is starting to. Previously rural OR Dems have been left to the wolves, this is changing.

If this Party wants to win elections then we have to stand for something and that something has to be more than whining at the Republicans. We have to stand on our core principles and shout them out. Fine, SCREAM. We can call out the Republicans and make them react to our Principles. We play their game when all we do is react, we have to do that on their terms and with their language. Why say, "Gay Marriage" when you can say, " All citizens engaged in lawfal activities should have the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities." That is a PRINCIPLE, the other suggests something special for somebody who has done nothing to merit it.

To single out Gore as incompetent sure neglects an awful lot of incompetence at a lot of levels, there's an astonishing amount of blame to go around. There a whole bunch of perfectly valid reasons we got our butts kicked, several times. (here's a hint:quit kicking our natural constituency in the teeth)

I'm at a loss to comprehend how my remark about Gore has apparently been construed as rehashing an old story or picking on him. I merely used his campaign as a comparative reference when talking about Kerry's. If Democrats don't like reminders of their previous failed campaigns, here is some bad news. They will need to study both campaigns to understand why they failed, be brutally honest in their analysis, and admit mistakes when appropriate if they are to have any hope of winning in 2008. Of course there are other factors. This includes the American people. When a large portion prefers faith over reason, bombast over rational discourse, and style over substance it will be a formidable challenge to persuade voters to ignore Rove, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, Falwell and Robertson.

Schweitzer and Richardson have a lot going for them, but I have some concerns that Richardson might be too close to the DLC and the entrenched oligarchy. My favorite of likely candidates is Russ Feingold - only one in the Senate to vote against the Patriot Act when all others were hitting the panic button and one of the minority that voted against the war.

Paul wrote I'm just trying to figure out the components of a winning Democratic coalition. That typically starts by identifying groups of voters who have similar beliefs and values and who can be appealed to via a campaign. Some groups are more homogenous and others more heterogeneous. But I don't know any campaign that doesn't rely in large part on parcelling the electorate up into groups.

Having worked on several winning Democratic campaigns, I would say they share the following--and it is about individuals, not groups.

Very close to the theory in the book TIPPING POINT is the theory of concentric circles--studies of past primary wins have shown that if a small group of activists gets excited about someone, and they each excite their circle of friends it is possible to get a "people power" movement going.

But this is more like the "bottom up" style of the Dean campaign than the "top down " style of a campaign where the consultant's word is Gospel, there is concern about motivating groups or doing things "the way it worked in my last state" or buying into some theory of whether negative campaigns work, whether sending out a particular number of mailers works etc. There was a very interesting story published last year (Wash. Post or some other major newspaper) where 2 campaign managers ( Trippi and the guy from Gephardt's campaign, I think) thought maybe they were getting too old for presidential politics but got talked into doing one more campaign. Although they were old friends they fought each other like cats and dogs---and the nastiness drove people away.

One of the most interesting stories I ever heard about Iowa was how so many newspeople missed the Edwards story---for whatever reasons they couldn't be bothered to cover the Edwards rally in a Grange Hall the weekend before the caucuses. But the few who went saw a packed house. And then at the caucuses, the "didn't have a chance, too young" guy came in second.

As a general rule, this old political warhorse generally believes people (like Edwards) who attract crowds and cause people to smile and say things like "Darned right I am voting for Edwards because..." are more likely to win than the overly managed campaign where the candidates don't have much contact with ordinary voters.

I helped Mike Kopetski beat Denny Smith and I know how much the personal touch mattered there. I have seen Ron Wyden and John Kitzhaber stand in front of a roomful of people who didn't have to pass Bush-level partyline scrutiny, say "Ask anything you want" and spend an hour answering really substantive questions. I have seen people vote for the guy down the street or the guy their friend watched grow up.

And the thing about Mike Kopetski is that he wasn't just about "message" or being a true believer. He had a background (from staffer to state rep. ) but also a way with people. For instance, when asked about gun issues and whether he was a hunter, he'd say "Hey! I grew up in Pendleton and did what all the other boys did". This drove Denny Smith nuts! Running TV ads calling a thin, balding guy pushing 40 "too hip and too liberal" went over like the proverbial lead balloon. And he had a secret weapon: friends who would hear someone mouthing the Denny Smith attacks and say "Let me tell you a strength of character story about Mike, and then you can tell me one about Denny". That was so much fun--I did it several times and never once heard a positive story about Denny.

A Democrat once unexpectedly was elected Gov. of NJ and was asked his secret. He said "Run a positive, people oriented campaign, and don't take STUFF from bullies". Willie Brown was once asked the most effective campaign tool (mailings, phone banks, personal appearances, etc) and said DO IT ALL! And hope you have done enough.

Some of us who have worked in sales think politicians could benefit from sales training. If one candidate makes sense to you and the other one seems sour and not like the person you want to see in the news for the next few years, it doesn't matter what party the candidates belong to. As all sales people know, if people don't want to buy your product, you are unlikely to make the sale.

So I would say candidate quality, making winning the goal (NOT making everyone parrot the same message regardless of local conditions and certainly not proving that some political "professional's" model works)and listening to the local citizens are the most important things to do.

Democrats made the mistake in the 1980s of dividing everyone up into groups. Anyone looking at Bill Richardson knows he is Hispanic, but the last name alone doesn't tell you that. There have been times when "Hispanic outreach" meant to people with Hispanic last names. That is operating by a formula rather than by common sense.

I believe people vote for the individual, not the party or ideology. Democrats came darned close to depriving Minnis of her House majority last year--3 Democrats lost by less than 850 votes. When it is that close, it is less likely to be about "components of a winning Democratic coalition" than about luck or indiv. campaign decisions.

Often, races are won individually, and grand schemes are less effective than some want to believe.