Yesterday, Barack Obama came to Democratic headquarters to introduce Virginia Governor Tim Kaine as the newest party chairman. Both men went out of their way to praise outgoing leader Howard Dean for his work at the party and his fifty-state strategy, but Dean was missing, apparently in American Samoa raising money for the local Dems there. Dean's absence at the press conference has been taken by some as an intentional snub -- dare I say, a slap in the face -- as people close to him say he would have been there had he been asked. I find the snub angle a little hard to believe, since Obama hasn't even snubbed his former enemies, much less an uncomfortable ally, and spent a good deal of the press conference lauding Dean and his ideas.
No one is missing the symbolism of replacing Dean with Kaine. The former is a symbol of firebreathing progressivism -- although he never was the progressive progressives give him credit for being and the MSM has recently been focused on his effective and pragmatic chairmanship -- and the latter representing a faith-based, win-over-the-other-side, "pragmatic progressive" style of politics. Incidentally, if it had been a snub, would Kaine have gone along with it? I understand he has a good relationship with Dean himself.
In my reporting I've also found the whole Rahm Emanuel-Dean conflict to be rather manufactured; they certainly had strident arguments about party priorities but developed an effective partnership towards the end of the 2006 campaigns and certainly through the last cycle. Ambers reports that Emanuel had nothing to do with organizing the pres conference, but some Dean loyalists apparently see the mention of Dean working with Emanuel to take the House during the press conference as a particular insult. I look at it the other way around: Emanuel generally takes all the credit for winning the House majority in 2006 -- that's the basis of the argument between the two, really -- so giving Dean a big chunk of credit in the speech is an explicit concession to the absent Vermonter.
Whatever the case, it's clear that just as Obama built on Dean's ideas and mechanisms in his own campaign, so will the new DNC combine aspects of the Obama organizing method and the fifty-state strategy, which work hand-in-hand. Given as well the fundraising resources of the party -- the only real barrier to putting Dean's ideas in practice were short-sighted operatives worried about money -- it will likely be even easier to keep a broad-based, interactive organizing strategy available. As for Kaine, it's unclear what kind of role he'll play at the committee during his last year as governor (he's termed out in 2010) but likely that former Daschle-aide Jennifer O'Malley-Dixon, the incoming executive director, will be running the show at least for the first year, in close consultation with the White House. Kaine, who didn't want the job in the first place -- even cracked a joke about it at the announcement -- may be hoping to move up into a cabinet job after some time at the DNC. But his goals while party chair -- help move the administration's agenda, build the party and develop new ways to foster political engagment -- seem to hint at the synthesis the party is looking for.
On a lighter note, the press conference itself was a funny bit of politilcal theater, as the assembled journalists couldn't decide whether or not to stand when Obama entered, as they will do for a sitting president. The ultimate result was a third of the room standing, a third sitting, and a third doing a kind of awkward half-stand, half-hunch as PEOTUS entered the room. Told there would be no questions, reporters chose to ask only one, screaming "WHY NO QUESTIONS?" as Obama and Kaine walked away from the podium. And then the motorcade was gone.
-- Tim Fernholz
