Howard Dean a Miserable Failure as DNC Chairman

[TheresNoMoney]

The pundits were right, Howard Dean has been proven a failure as chairman of the DNC. We only picked up six Senate seats, 28-30 House seats, 6 governorships, all the while running competitive races in states like Wyoming and Idaho.

His whole "50 State Strategy" was a dumb idea from the beginning, I think we can agree on that. And what was the deal with putting money into the state parties and building infrastructure?? Obviously that money would have been better spent on TV ads!!

[Conan]

Yea hes a damn failure.

[Eraserhead]

The pundits were right, Howard Dean has been proven a failure as chairman of the DNC. We only picked up six Senate seats, 28-30 House seats, 6 governorships, all the while running competitive races in states like Wyoming and Idaho.

His whole "50 State Strategy" was a dumb idea from the beginning, I think we can agree on that.

Yeah what were we thinking allowing this communist wacko to run things?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Dean especially blew it in New Hampshire with both House seats flipping, a 74% win in the governor race, and the first time Democrats have controlled the entire state government since 1874.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

His whole "50 State Strategy" was a dumb idea from the beginning, I think we can agree on that. And what was the deal with putting money into the state parties and building infrastructure??

Better make that a 49 State Strategy.  I've seen no evidence that the Democrats have a functioning party in South Carolina.  If they had, then the apparent sweep of Statewide offices by the GOP (the Lt. Gov. and Superintendent of Education are in doubt but the GOP candidates are leading at the moment pending the recount triggered by a close race) would never have happened.  The Democrats would have been able to find a challenger to run in the Attorney General's race and a credible candidate for Secretary of State instead of the idiot they did have.  (Their Adjutant General candidate was a bit of a joke, but at least it was an intentional one:  A National Guard staff sergeant running on the platform that the position of Adjutant General should be appointed rather than elected.)  I'd like to see a functioning two party system in this State and we don't have one.  The Democrats never bothered to build a working party while they were the dominant party, and they still don't have one.

[Eraserhead]

His whole "50 State Strategy" was a dumb idea from the beginning, I think we can agree on that. And what was the deal with putting money into the state parties and building infrastructure??

Better make that a 49 State Strategy.  I've seen no evidence that the Democrats have a functioning party in South Carolina.  If they had, then the apparent sweep of Statewide offices by the GOP (the Lt. Gov. and Superintendent of Education are in doubt but the GOP candidates are leading at the moment pending the recount triggered by a close race) would never have happened.  The Democrats would have been able to find a challenger to run in the Attorney General's race and a credible candidate for Secretary of State instead of the idiot they did have.  (Their Adjutant General candidate was a bit of a joke, but at least it was an intentional one:  A National Guard staff sergeant running on the platform that the position of Adjutant General should be appointed rather than elected.)  I'd like to see a functioning two party system in this State and we don't have one.  The Democrats never bothered to build a working party while they were the dominant party, and they still don't have one.

That is a bummer but you will have trouble shaking some of us out of our excited haze...especially me since my state is moving toward one party government.

[7,052,770]

His whole "50 State Strategy" was a dumb idea from the beginning, I think we can agree on that. And what was the deal with putting money into the state parties and building infrastructure??

Better make that a 49 State Strategy.  I've seen no evidence that the Democrats have a functioning party in South Carolina.  If they had, then the apparent sweep of Statewide offices by the GOP (the Lt. Gov. and Superintendent of Education are in doubt but the GOP candidates are leading at the moment pending the recount triggered by a close race) would never have happened.  The Democrats would have been able to find a challenger to run in the Attorney General's race and a credible candidate for Secretary of State instead of the idiot they did have.  (Their Adjutant General candidate was a bit of a joke, but at least it was an intentional one:  A National Guard staff sergeant running on the platform that the position of Adjutant General should be appointed rather than elected.)  I'd like to see a functioning two party system in this State and we don't have one.  The Democrats never bothered to build a working party while they were the dominant party, and they still don't have one.

ditto in MS, but we're getting better.  Dean is amazing.

[Conan]

Moore made a good showing in SC with 45%.

[RBH]

Yeah, I hear they're actually spending money in MS.

And I wouldn't be shocked if fruit was being bore with the Dem gains in the WV state government.

Other than Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas, The Dems have a huge weakspot in the South.

The Dems actually lost local seats in GA and AL.

[Platypus]

His whole "50 State Strategy" was a dumb idea from the beginning, I think we can agree on that. And what was the deal with putting money into the state parties and building infrastructure??

Better make that a 49 State Strategy.  I've seen no evidence that the Democrats have a functioning party in South Carolina.  If they had, then the apparent sweep of Statewide offices by the GOP (the Lt. Gov. and Superintendent of Education are in doubt but the GOP candidates are leading at the moment pending the recount triggered by a close race) would never have happened.  The Democrats would have been able to find a challenger to run in the Attorney General's race and a credible candidate for Secretary of State instead of the idiot they did have.  (Their Adjutant General candidate was a bit of a joke, but at least it was an intentional one:  A National Guard staff sergeant running on the platform that the position of Adjutant General should be appointed rather than elected.)  I'd like to see a functioning two party system in this State and we don't have one.  The Democrats never bothered to build a working party while they were the dominant party, and they still don't have one.

That is a bummer but you have trouble shaking some of us out of our excited haze...especially me since my state is moving toward one party government.

That's not a good thing, and in a few years you'll realise that.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Moore made a good showing in SC with 45%.

No that wasn't a good showing, it was a terrible showing  Sanford was never going to break 60% unless Moore had a scandal.  South Carolina has a core ~40% Democratic vote and ~45% GOP vote that any Statewide candidate with a D or R respectively gets more or less by default.  In that narrow 15% of swing votes he got only about 1 in 3 voters.  The GOP isn't the dominant party in this State because it wins by large margins Statewide, but because our narrow middle makes the slight absolute advantage of the GOP hard to overcome because there are so few swing voters to swing.

[RBH]

Clinton really ed over the South.

NAFTA and AWB leads to more Dems moving over, since they don't value economics as much and they value social issues more.

[Eraserhead]

His whole "50 State Strategy" was a dumb idea from the beginning, I think we can agree on that. And what was the deal with putting money into the state parties and building infrastructure??

Better make that a 49 State Strategy.  I've seen no evidence that the Democrats have a functioning party in South Carolina.  If they had, then the apparent sweep of Statewide offices by the GOP (the Lt. Gov. and Superintendent of Education are in doubt but the GOP candidates are leading at the moment pending the recount triggered by a close race) would never have happened.  The Democrats would have been able to find a challenger to run in the Attorney General's race and a credible candidate for Secretary of State instead of the idiot they did have.  (Their Adjutant General candidate was a bit of a joke, but at least it was an intentional one:  A National Guard staff sergeant running on the platform that the position of Adjutant General should be appointed rather than elected.)  I'd like to see a functioning two party system in this State and we don't have one.  The Democrats never bothered to build a working party while they were the dominant party, and they still don't have one.

That is a bummer but you have trouble shaking some of us out of our excited haze...especially me since my state is moving toward one party government.

That's not a good thing, and in a few years you'll realise that.

I'm a pretty hardcore Democrat so I doubt it. They would have to screw up pretty damn bad to lose me.

[Deano963]

Yeh Dean is a complete f-ing moron.

I mean, wasting all that money on compiling a detailed voter list in Missouri?

What did we end up gaining from that?

[MarkWarner08]

Nancy Boyda got blown out despite Howard Dean's help. Trauner also lost by 20 + points.

Fire Dean!

[Sam Spade]

The Democrats did well despite Howard Dean's efforts, not because of his efforts.  In the fog of euphoria, it is sometimes hard to see these things clearly.

The credit should go to Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer, who both did such an excellent job recruiting candidates and running the general campaigns.  In many ways, they made up for the ineptness at the top of the food chain.

This will become manifest soon enough; right now, it's quite easy to ignore for the obvious reasons.

[TheresNoMoney]

The Democrats did well despite Howard Dean's efforts, not because of his efforts.

You are dead wrong. Dean, Schumer and Emmanuel all deserve equal credit in the victories.

Please tell me what Dean did wrong and what he should've done different?

[Eraserhead]

The Democrats did well despite Howard Dean's efforts, not because of his efforts.  In the fog of euphoria, it is sometimes hard to see these things clearly.

The credit should go to Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer, who both did such an excellent job recruiting candidates and running the general campaigns.  In many ways, they made up for the ineptness at the top of the food chain.

This will become manifest soon enough; right now, it's quite easy to ignore for the obvious reasons.

Wrong. If it was up to Emanuel and Schumer we would have ran hard in less than 20 House races.

[TheresNoMoney]

Wrong. If it was up to Emanuel and Schumer we would have ran hard in less than 20 House races.

Exactly. It is always a good idea to run competitive races in as many districts as possible. The political climate in any given race can change overnight (due to scandal or something else) and you always want to be able to capitalize. In addition, it helps to build the party brand and win new voters over the long term.

Hell, look what happened in New Hampshire. In the state House, we ran candidates in something like 60 more seats than the state Republicans and we ended up picking up 90 seats. This never would have happened if we hadn't expanded the playing field!!

[Deano963]

The Democrats did well despite Howard Dean's efforts, not because of his efforts.

You are dead wrong. Dean, Schumer and Emmanuel all deserve equal credit in the victories.

Please tell me what Dean did wrong and what he should've done different?

I agree. Sam you're dead wrong. Chuck and Emmanuel did great, but Dean did even better.

Oh, and on a slightly-unrelated topic, has anyone heard about any talk whatsoever about who might be the next DCCC Chair? I know Schumer is coming back (hooray!), but who's replacing Rahm?

[okstate]

I agree with Sam.  Dean was a liability that the Dems overcame.

On the other hand, Chuck Schumer did an absolutely brilliant job in the Senate, IMO.

[Sam Spade]

The Democrats did well despite Howard Dean's efforts, not because of his efforts.

You are dead wrong. Dean, Schumer and Emmanuel all deserve equal credit in the victories.

Please tell me what Dean did wrong and what he should've done different?

Oh, Dean will get credit but he doesn't deserve it.  I'll give you a couple of reasons right now.

He threw money at many state parties in solid Red states in the South, with which there was absolutely no return guaranteed and none occurred.  The South as a whole (with a couple of exceptions) was pretty much immune to the wave in general and showed very little signs of stress in its Republican margins.

Because of these exorbitant expenditures, the DNC essentially took itself out of the midterm elections as a spending enterprise.  The GOTV effort was mainly coordinated with some private efforts (the unions and 527s), along with major expenditures by the DSCC and DCCC.  You can review the political expenditures this year on the political races this year by committee, the spending from the DNC was nonexistant.

If there's one thing he did right , it was making up with Emanuel and Schumer 6 weeks before the election and essentially staying out of the way (except for writing a few articles and speaking to the base) during the election.

As for the argument Eraserhead is making about the "less than 20 seats" thingy, even if you think this is a historic year, you spend the money in the seats that look like the toughest to win.  If a wave occurs, other marginal seats will naturally fall anyway, the trouble with spending for those is that you often don't know where they are.  About 5 of the seats that the Democrats won qualify for this category and were totally off the radar for all of the election.

And even with the massive spending the Democrats put into those "less than 20 seats", they're still only going to win a little more than half of them in this election.  If you had ignored those seats while trying for reaches, you would have won less seats in general.  The extensions into places like KS-02 were warranted by polling.  But notice the extension didn't work with KY-02 or WA-05, for example.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Sam, you're missing the point of what Dean has been trying to do.  He's been trying to build for the long haul, which is something the Democrats desperatly need to do.  When he began he had no assurances that 2006 would turn out to be a wave year in which the Dems needed to concentrate on the short haul so as to take advantage of opportunities that might well not be available for a while. While one can fault Dean it would be for focusing too much on the long term, it is a refreshing and unusual fault to be encountering in politics these days.

[bullmoose88]

Sam, you're missing the point of what Dean has been trying to do.  He's been trying to build for the long haul, which is something the Democrats desperatly need to do.  When he began he had no assurances that 2006 would turn out to be a wave year in which the Dems needed to concentrate on the short haul so as to take advantage of opportunities that might well not be available for a while. While one can fault Dean it would be for focusing too much on the long term, it is a refreshing and unusual fault to be encountering in politics these days.

I still think Howard Dean would have made a fine president.

[Sam Spade]

Sam, you're missing the point of what Dean has been trying to do.  He's been trying to build for the long haul, which is something the Democrats desperatly need to do.  When he began he had no assurances that 2006 would turn out to be a wave year in which the Dems needed to concentrate on the short haul so as to take advantage of opportunities that might well not be available for a while. While one can fault Dean it would be for focusing too much on the long term, it is a refreshing and unusual fault to be encountering in politics these days.

Your point is well-taken and I understand what Dean is trying to do.  I am simply questioning the method with which it was carried out.  There was no need to throw money at the North Carolina or Mississippi state party, for example.  If you want to give a little to the state party, ok, but in North Carolina there's not another statewide election until 2008.  But doing this until you become irrelevant for the whole election cycle is entirely another.

Also, no one can ever predict "waves".  You have to prepare for them regardless.

Use this money into getting out the vote and promotion, and the Democrats could easily have probably had another 10-15 CDs thrown their way, something which could make a lot of difference down the line.

Look, it's a continual pattern I've seen from Howard Dean in the national scene.  He overspends, overspends, and by the time the important stuff comes around, he has nothing left.  It's hard to argue with history.