Dean failing to raise DNC funds

[Blue Rectangle]

Dean's tenure so far has shown a lot of the outrageous rhetoric that Terry McAuliffe was famous for.  As much as Republicans loved Terry's overboard statements that seemed to alienate swing voters, Democrats loved his fundraising capabilities.  It's still early, but it looks like Dean has failed to emulate that part of Terry's legacy.

Article at Business Week

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Do the small, internet-based contributions that made Dean famous in the primaries work for the DNC?  Looks like no.

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Terry was an ardent Clintonite and had enough of a pro-business rep to get the big bucks.  Was choosing a true liberal for DNC chair a mistake?

[Blue Rectangle]

I don't want the big corporations to control the Democrats like they do the Republicans. Democrats need to be the party of the people, and not the corporations.

Dean is doing just fine.

Democrats are losing the union vote, which itself isn't as strong as it used to be.  The Party can long longer be anti-business and expect to raise money and win elections.  Just being pro-union won't cut it.

The last paragraph of the story:

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First of all, Terry's failings at the polls do not translate to success for Dean.  The Democrats are not playing to beat their personal best, they're trying to beat the Republicans (or at least they're supposed to be).

Second, it sounds like Dean is stuck in the Democratic strategy that failed in 2004: fire up your base and boost voter turn out, and you'll win.  That's not good enough any more.  Dean's message, which is supposedly intended to "take the fight to the Republicans", has backfired.  His message was not aimed at swing voters, but at the faithful.  Did you see his "Meet the Press" performance?  He spent most of the time explaining his past statements--that's defense, not offense.

[Blue Rectangle]

Latest CNN/USA Today / Gallup poll has
Bush with a 46-50 approval rating
Dean with a 35-33 approval rating

Dean has 6 points better net favorables than Bush.

The country is about 33/33/33% Dem/Rep/Ind.
Almost all Republicans approve of Bush, almost all Democrats disapprove and the independents are split.  Net result: 50/50 approve/disapprove (this is the poll result, within the MOE).
Almost all Democrats approve of Dean, almost all Republicans disapprove, and the independents don't know who he is.  This produces a 33/33 split.

This poll tells us nothing.

[Blue Rectangle]

Democrats are losing the union vote, which itself isn't as strong as it used to be.

They're not losing the union vote.

I should have said "losing ground".  I know Kerry won a majority of union voters in 2004, but it was a small majority when you at historical numbers for the Democrats.  Republicans have been eating away at the Democrats' union vote since 1980 and the the number of union members has been falling for decades.  The populist, pro-union/anti-business message is a big time loser for Democrats.  The average American is a middle-class suburbanite who is not a union member.  Populism is a tough sell to these people.

[Blue Rectangle]

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I agree with some of your points. But isn't " "fire up your base and boost voter turnout" exactly what Bush did ? Remember those famous 4 million evangelimentalists or whatever baptists call themselves that Karl Rove tried to "reach" last year? Since that strategy worked for Bush, it should (in theory) work for the Dems as well.

Another thing, this isn't an election year. It's true that Bush tried to appeal to the middle during his initial run, when he pretended to be a "compassionate conservative" and made all the right "centrist" noises. But if he put on a moderate face in 2000, that was because he had spent 1999 shoring up and sewing up the base-- and even then nearly lost because not enough of Rove's evangelicals showed up.

Simply put, you've got to have a place to stand on before you can "reach out" to anyone.

On the GOTV issue:
Democrats have historically had a big advantage in party affliation numbers, so logically they would win if they simply got all those registered Democrats to show up.  That's the old strategy, though, and it doesn't appear to work anymore.

The Republicans didn't win solely on successful GOTV efforts.  The idea that evangelicals won the race for Bush is a myth that some Democrats use to convince themselves that they are right: "the majority disagrees with me because the majority is a bunch of loons."  Bush won because the major issue in the election, Iraq, was a winner for Bush.  Kerry couldn't get a majority of voters on the question "whom do you trust more on the issue of Iraq?"  Bush always had a strong lead on the Terrorism issue and was able to play to a near-draw on economic issues (thanks to efforts like NCLB and Medicare drug coverage).

[Blue Rectangle]

That analysis simply isn't correct. The Iraq war mobilized Democrats and turned many people who would have supported Bush solely on 9/11 against him. It gave us a campaign issue-- only Kerry didn't fully take it. Nevertheless, among those who said Iraq was the most important issue for them, the vast majority voted Kerry. Take those voters out of the electorate, and Bush wins a landslide. Take evangelicals out of the electorate, however, and Kerry wins a near landslide. The Vorlon posted a great analysis on this by a polling firm a couple months back but I don't know where the thread is now.

Kerry didn't fully take the Iraq issue?!?  The entire Democratic convention was about what a great war hero Kerry was.  Kerry virtually abandoned economic issues in favor of a message of how he would be a better Comander in Chief than Bush.  It failed.

Take evangelicals out of the electorate, however, and Kerry wins a near landslide.

Take out Black voters and Bush wins in a huge landslide.  Does that prove the election was about racial issues?

Anyway, if Bush benefitted from foreign policy issues at all, it was the terrorism issue. That was where he drew his decisive advantage from-- and it was enough to offset (not complement) the damage done to him by the Iraq issue. Bush won because of 9/11. Plain and simple.

Bush consistantly beat Kerry on the question "whom do you trust more to handle the situation in Iraq."  Immediately after the DNC, the best Kerry did was to pull within the MOE on that issue.  Bush consistantly had a big lead on the "trust on Terror" question.  The only big issue that Kerry consistantly won on was the "trust on the economy".  Kerry mistakenly pushed the Iraq issue into first place.  Terror was second, and the Economy fell to third because no one was talking about it.  This is why Kerry lost.