The Chair Revue (updated)
Members of the Association of State Democratic Chairs had an opportunity hear from the candidates today in a forum. The speeches were 5 minutes long, followed by a question and answer period. Byron Dorgan did not show up to speak, so must be here for another reason. I’m not real sure what he looks like, so I’m also not sure he’s here!
The panel looked very, well, male. All guys. Disappointing. Women unhappy with this have asked Molly Beth Malcolm, from Texas to run as well. As I understand it, she’s agreed to.
Keep reading for a summary of the candidates’ main points:
Howard Dean: Qualifications include serving as a county chair and chair of the Democratic Governors Association. DFA backed candidates and won in Alabama and South Carolina and Louisiana, and … We need a 50-state strategy. If you want to win, you have to run–everywhere. Downballot races are important. Dean suggested an immediate infusion of $5 million in cash to state parties to pay salaries and healthcare for executive directors and grassroots organizers. We cannot have the message coming from Washington–it has to come from the ground up. Empowering people and trusting them gets them to buy into the process. We need to remember why we’re Democrats: we stand for fairness, fiscal responsibility, strong national security, a strong economy, and healthcare for every American.
Martin Frost: Qualifications include chairing the DCCC where he focused on fundraising and recruiting candidates that fit their districts. The new chair needs to be a fighter.We need to mobilize Democrats everywhere to assure the future of the party. He pledged to cooperate with state parties and work with them on developing messages.
Harold Ickes: His background includes work on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Clinton campaign, vice-chair of the DNC, and Chief of Staff for Clinton. Founded, organized for, and managed the 527s America COming Together and the Media Fund. State parties will be ascendent in the next 4 years. They need: Media and communications assistance to find the local money, talent and expertise to run communications and develop messages. A working agreement to share fundraising and resolve the tension between the state and national parties over fundraising. Voter mobilization strategies and data to start targeting way before the election. Development of messages from the bottom up.
Simon Rosenberg: (Simon mostly read his speech, which seemed odd, since he speaks very well off the cuff.) Talked about family badground. Mom didn’t finish high school, had 3 kids at 19. We need to move forward, not left, right, west, or south. Need a 50-state strategy. Wants new partnership between state and national parties. The party needs to espouse a bold 21st-century vision of opportunity, security, and values. Cannot cede the debate over values, we need to embrace and define them. Technology has sparked a new wave of activism to revitalize the party. Build a media strategy to talk to segments of voters–mentioned NDN’s $6 million media campaign targeted at Latinos. Make sure votes are counted here at the DNC–no backroom deals. Republican government is weakening America.
Wellington Webb: Former mayor of Denver. A Westerner, started as a precinct committeeman, worked his way up. Need to expand base of African-Americans and Hispanics. Wants partnership with states. Mentioned many specific issues in particular states. We need a small-town strategy. Need a coordinated message that comes from a 50-state strategy. We need to frame the debate: science with humanity, politics with principles (he had a couple other good ones, but I didn’t get them written down). Suggested using ballot initiatives to deal with health care. Offered the chairs a deal: if elected, state chairs will be at the table with every other constituency. Need the right message.
James Blanchard: Former Governor of Michigan, had a single mom. Believes in the fulfillment of the American Dream for everyone and that the US should defend freedom in the world. Have to put “national” back in DNC. Stop sniping at each other. Campaign in all 50 states; governors are especially important and need to be involved. DNC can’t be a holding company for presidential campaigns. When he left the Governors Association, we had Democratic governors in 49 states. The road to the White House is through the states. The chair has to help frame the party message and be bold about it. Mentioned that his 94-year-old Mom had sent a check to Howard Dean even though Blanchard was supporting Kerry–he quoted her as saying “Why are all the Democrats being such pussycats?” We need to be the hard-hitting loyal opposition.
Donnie Fowler: The Republicans are asking us to concede the south, the Rocky Mountain west, the religious, etc. We have to quit conceding anything. We have become afraid to talk about our hearts and souls and must start talking about them. “I’m a Democrat because I’m a Christian, not in spite of it.” The DNC doesn’t stand for Do Not Change. Can’t expect to win on coalitions of the 60s or the New Deal. There’s a new electorate we have to talk to. I am not too young (he’s 37): Lee Atwater was 37 when he became Chair of the RNC; Ken Mehlman is 38. Age is not an excuse for not changing. Mentioned some specifics attached to particular people in the room. Frustrated with lack of change. Spent last 4 years in Silicon Valley–need to develop entrepreneurial approaches. Local people know better; decried the “aristocracy of consultants.” We need to talk to state party officials, members of the new grassroots movements, and winners of offices in red states.
Update: I missed Ron Kirk!
Ron Kirk: Former mayor of Dallas. A Blue Dog Democrat–raised that way. “You know the Yellow Dog? My Mom feeds the dog.” Asked “Why are there no women at this table?” The messenger is as important as the message. Agree with everyone else about the 50-state strategy. Message: there are more things we agree on than disagree on. We aren’t articulating our basic principles. Meed to brand the Democrats. The core message is “We do what’s right for America first.” Need to distill it to a short, simple message. Here’s the notecard version: We keep America safe. We build the strongest American economy. America’s best when everybody gets to play.
Whew! I apologize for the note-like quality–this isn’t great writing. Must run off to Dean reception, which is the last event.
One other thing I wanted to mention–election reform is a hot topic, from dealing with voter suppression, lack of paper trails, and electing county clerks and secretaries of state.
December 11th, 2004 at 4:13 pm
Very good reporting - I needed this. Turning on the news channels has been all bad news lately and to think we have years of this to live through.
Easter Lemming Liberal News Digest
#2 on Google for liberal news
December 11th, 2004 at 4:50 pm
Numbers - DC Gets Killed
Jerome and I did an informal exit poll of DNC members who were at the state chair event: Howard Dean 26 Wellington Webb 26 Ron Kirk 24 Donnie Fowler 14 Martin Frost 9 James Blanchard 7 Simon Rosenberg 4 Harold…
December 11th, 2004 at 5:00 pm
Numbers - DC Gets Killed
Jerome and I did an informal exit poll of DNC members who were at the state chair event: Howard Dean 26 Wellington Webb 26 Ron Kirk 24 Donnie Fowler 14 Martin Frost 9 James Blanchard 7 Simon Rosenberg 4 Harold…
December 11th, 2004 at 6:00 pm
What about Ron Kirk? I heard he gave the best speech.
December 11th, 2004 at 6:00 pm
Got that update in before I even reloaded the page.
December 11th, 2004 at 6:10 pm
Kirk was very good and caught people’s attention. He’s personable, managed to win election as mayor of Dallas as an African-American democrat, and seems at ease. When he was fourth or fifth to answer a question and he basically agreed with everyone else, he’d just say so instead of taking up time.
December 11th, 2004 at 7:00 pm
Jenny, you rock!! Thank you SO much. Am greatly encouraged that all are singing a similar, non-appeasement tune. Did you get the sense they all really meant it? Or just paying lip service to grassroots, states, etc.?
December 11th, 2004 at 8:11 pm
It’s hard to tell, Ruth. Some of them seem more earnest than others. And I could swear one of two of them had read my speech:-). The people who were governors or mayors seem to get it a bit better, probably because they’ve worked with state parties more.
Some state parties are healthier than others. The DNC used to give money to state parties, but stopped several years ago. I don’t know why. As a result, many of them have atrophied, and it will take some work to build them back up again. They’re necessary for downballot races! If a state is targeted like Oregon was, the money and personnel come flowing in. States that weren’t targeted got little or nothing at all. That makes it pretty hard to run a coordinated campaign and a serious GOTV effort.
December 11th, 2004 at 8:55 pm
This is getting more bizarre with Ron Kirk now running and Molly Beth Malcolm in the process of it. Don’t get me wrong, got too love seeing 2 Texans in the the fray of things. This straw poll is very interesting Webb tied with Dean and Kirk in striking distance….very interesting.
December 11th, 2004 at 9:08 pm
Nice reviews. Was Bill Garmer or Kerry Morgan there from KY? I am a clear backer of Simon Rosenberg for Chairman right now.
December 12th, 2004 at 1:39 am
Thanks for all the hard work Jenny!
It is interesting to expose the key points of interest between the candidates. Some seem concerned with the mechanics of State vs. National, where the money is, etc. Some are more philosophical.
From my more rural perspective, I favor the candidates that talk philosophically about strengthening State Parties. It seems to me that the bureaucratic mechanical stuff of running the party should follow from the leadership philosophy, not the other way around.
James Blanchard said, €œThe road to the White House is through the States.€ I believe this is correct. I don€™t have any way to know if Mr. Blanchard is the right person for the job, but this is the correct stance.
December 12th, 2004 at 4:06 pm
Until we face up to the reality of comments like the one I’m adding, I don’t see us having a national party any time soon. Local Democrats often win on entirely different platforms and by distancing themselves from the national party. Even my local Congressman, very liberal DeFazio, has “As Independent As Oregon” as his campaign slogan. He doesn’t run as a liberal at all and has support from a ton of conservatives because they don’t pay that close of attention to what he’s doing. He skirts the gun issue altogether and they think he’s pro-gun when he actually voted for the AWB. Anyway, how do we have a national strategy when local candidates say stuff like this:
From Brad Carson, who came very close to winning Oklahoma:
” I was a strong supporter of Bush in removing Saddam. I think we should have gotten him back in 1991 when we were there the 1st time and it was never too late to do so.”
Source: OK Senate Debate, www.KOTV.com Oct 28, 2004
Q: Do you agree that Iraq is the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place?
A: I disagree. I supported Bush and the resolution when it came through Congress. I believe that our success in Iraq is critical to our future, and I believe that, if anything, we should be more vigorous in destroying the sanctuaries that terrorists have carved out for themselves in the Sunni triangle there.
December 12th, 2004 at 4:15 pm
From what I’ve read and heard, Kirk and Fowler were freshest and most attractive for changing things. Fowler looked good on Friday’s CNN politics tech and seems to understand the new media and grassroots; Kirk was black mayor in white, southern city. Dean must have seemed kind of odd as former prez candidate with all those others — it’s not kerry, edwards, and sharpton.
December 12th, 2004 at 5:09 pm
Greetings from one of the candidates for DNC chair. I want to visit with you, after finishing my fourth presidential election since 1988 and working on grassroots efforts in fourteen states on the ground, about the kind of reform the national Democratic Party needs. You can start with my website — www.ChangeTheParty.com — of course, but let me tell you about some of the reaction I have gotten after this weekend’s state Democratic Party chairs meeting in Orlando. That city’s newspaper said, “The party’s future could rest on whether the committee installs a centrist Southerner, such as Donnie Fowler or a Northeastern darling of the left, such as former presidential candidate Howard Dean of Vermont.” Orlando Sentinental, December 11. And the Sunday NY Times wrote, “Donald Fowler scolded party leaders for having ceded huge swaths of the country to Republicans. “We’ve got to quit conceding to Republicans what rightfully belong to us,” Mr. Fowler said, adding, “We are a party that has become afraid to talk about our heart and our soul.”
I am running because the national party needs the kind of innovation and creativity found in the new grassroots movement and in Silicon Valley where I have worked for almost four years. We must get out of the web of conventional wisdom in Washington and reform the DNC from the bottom up. More voices need to sit at the decisionmaking table, especially local voices and new activists. Please take a look at my website — www.ChangeTheParty.com — to see how I believe we can get the DNC to embrace the new politics while perfecting the best of the old.
Happy Holidays,
Donnie Fowler
San Francisco, CA
December 12th, 2004 at 9:11 pm
Webb and Dean are the only two candidates who are truly independent from the special interests
December 13th, 2004 at 7:55 am
Women unhappy with this have asked Molly Beth Malcolm, from Texas to run as well. As I understand it, she€™s agreed to.
Who is she? I know nothing about her and I hope no one is asking a woman to run simply to bring a pair of ovaries to the table….
Everything I have heard about Ron Kirk so far doesn’t impress me. I don’t care how old Donnie Fowler is, I care more about what he’s done and I don’t see many accomplishments in his resume. Read it carefully–there are no quantified accomplishments at all. It’s not what you did that counts, it€™s about what you did well. (And Silicon Valley doesn’t own the market on entrepreneurship.)
The top two candidates AFAIC are Howard Dean and Stuart Rosenberg–all the others are talking about what these two have already done.
December 13th, 2004 at 9:04 am
Democrats and Bloggers
Electoral junkies who feared that they would go into withdrawal after November as they waited for municipal elections in 2005 and the next set of congressional elections in 2006, have little to fear about. One of the most interesting elections is shaping
December 13th, 2004 at 11:03 pm
I agree that it’s sad to see another all male group vying for the DNC chair. I am pleased to say, however, that Donnie Fowler is the one man I can support for that position. Having worked with Donnie in Michigan I know first hand that he understands the importance of grassroots organizing and the necessity to share power with a diverse leadership team. If you’re tired of the ‘good old boy’s network calling the shots, I urge you to take a good look at Donnie Fowlers plan for the DNC and then contact your DNC members to urge them to support a new voice for the Democratic Party - one that will include women and all minorities in the decision making process.
December 14th, 2004 at 8:18 am
I have to take issue with one thing Mini
Mum
December 15th, 2004 at 2:17 pm
The ADSC Meeting
Round Up of reportage on the ADSC Meeting this past weekend. Jerome Armstrong at MyDD: Following up on being the…