If the anecdotal evidence I've been collecting from Democratic National Committee (DNC) delegates over the last couple of weeks proves to be any sort of indicator, Howard Dean is poised to become the next party chairman. Lest the guy who represents (as the conservative Club for Growth put it in a memorable advertisement) the “latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show” class of the Democratic Party put the panic of permanent Republican majority in you, I say: Don't fear the doctor.
Sure, he's likely (for better or worse) to rile up all sorts of emotions in voters; people seem to love him or hate him, with little in between. But his appeal to voters is beside the point. After all, did anyone really decide for whom to vote in 2002 and 2004 based on Terry McAuliffe's temperament?
Dean's detractors' understandable fear is that the doctor's northeastern roots might contribute to the problematic consolidation of Democratic power in blue states at the expense of expanding the party's appeal outward to the Midwest and the South. As Michael Lind aptly pointed out in the January issue of the Prospect, unless the Democrats broaden their geographical appeal, they are in danger of becoming a permanent minority party representative of “Greater New England.”
Dean's platform recognizes this problem. Beyond his oft-repeated sound bite of not conceding a single race in a single state, he has argued for a more systemized devolution of power to states and local parties. This includes, if we are to take him at his word, giving each state party the means to pay for its own executive director and creating more robust local party structures in all 50 states. The inevitable result of this kind of decentralization is a steady march toward making the Democratic Party a coalition of state parties rather than what it is now: a coastal, blue-state dictatorship.
As I see it, the best case against Dean is that as national chair, he would embody the confused state of Democratic foreign-policy and national-security outlooks. Re-establishing the party's national-security bona fides ought to be a top priority for the party, and it's true that Dean has done little to do so. Indeed, in the primary season, Dean never really articulated a coherent vision of America's role in the world, and for that reason, I couldn't bring myself to back him. But Dean's not running for president anymore. The job of coming up with a Democratic alternative to the Bush doctrine is a job for the entire party apparatus. As chairman, Dean could (and should) steer that process, but his voice needn't be the most prominent.
I have no doubt that any of the non-Roemer 6 would make excellent party chairs. Martin Frost has clearly shown himself to be a fighter, and Simon Rosenberg is one of the most innovative political entrepreneurs out there. But since the passing of Paul Wellstone, it's damn hard for a progressive Democrat to look up to a politician of national prominence and feel an ounce of inspiration. I for one look forward to having someone like Howard Dean as the titular head of the Democratic Party, offering a reformist narrative to a party that momentarily lacks a soul.
-- Mark Leon Goldberg
I haven't followed the DNC race closely, and like a lot of people I've gotten most of my information from a few bloggers with a rather clear dog in this fight. I have far more questions than answers. To wit:
What is the DNC chair's role? What is the DNC for? The post historically has never played anything close to the transformative role in the party that many seem to envision for this incoming chair. If that remains true, turning this race into a proxy fight for the strategic, organizational, or ideological soul of the party seems unhelpful. But even if this particular moment for the party really does mark a historically unique turning point -- a time ripe for fundamental reforms and reconsiderations that lends the DNC chair a new kind of influence and significance -- it still begs the question of what it is Democrats should be looking for, or wary of, in a candidate.
Should this race serve as an ideological proxy fight? That seems misguided. The party's chair doesn't delineate its philosophy. Who knows whether Marc Racicot or Ken Mehlman falls to the left or right of, say, Bill Frist on an ideological spectrum? They're ruthless partisans and tacticians; that's what matters. The only DNC candidate (of the candidates I know a damn thing about) who fails the partisan litmus test is Tim Roemer.
Is the chair supposed to be the face of the party? That is, are his skills as a spokesman and communicator dispositive qualifications? Again, that hasn't been the case -- for either party -- in the past. If Howard Dean were to be chair, he most certainly would serve as a preeminent party spokesman, a leading face of the party. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? He would also be the first party chair I'm aware of who comes in as a nationally known figure with his own organization and independent base of support. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Think soberly about this.
The qualifications for party chair have traditionally been fund raising and organizing. If old-school nuts-and-bolts acumen is what's needed and experience counts, no one can hold a candle to Martin Frost. But Dean's revolutionary presidential campaign and his well-known rap on the Dem status quo make him the embodiment of the reformist, shake-things-up spirit that now grips so many Democrats. One assumes a Dean chairmanship's central focus would be carrying through the transformations in organizing and advocacy that his campaign helped to inaugurate two years ago. But what, exactly, is Dean's reform agenda? What changes does Dean advocate that the other candidate in the reformist, Net-friendly wing -- Simon Rosenberg -- hasn't articulated with more precision and a more expansive sense of vision? I thought the whole point of the Dean movement was that it wasn't about Dean -- it was about the movement. Isn't the leading figure behind the rise of that movement backing Rosenberg?
-- Sam Rosenfeld
Let me be among the -- all right, I guess I'm not among the first, but let me join the chorus in saying that a whole lot of things could go wrong if Howard Dean becomes DNC chair. I have a bucketful of misgivings myself, and they center on the fact that Dean, at bottom, represents only liberal party activists. Not even -- and this is a crucial point -- all liberals; just liberal party activists.
Last Thursday, I was chatting with a good friend in New York. He's a pretty liberal guy who reliably votes Democratic at the national level; he pays a lot of attention to politics, but he is not in politics -- he observes it from a distance. In other words, a lot more Americans -- and Democrats -- are like my friend than are like the 447 committee members who are voting on February 12. He was incredulous at the thought that Dean was going to be chair. The notion struck him as inconceivably dumb.
And maybe it is. But here's what could go right if Dean won: The fact that he represents the party's hard-shell activists could prove to be a good thing. Democratic activists are pretty disengaged from the party. Every presidential-election season, they watch as candidates scamper away from the word “liberal” during the primary-season debates; they come to terms with the fact that they're going to for vote a guy who supported the Iraq War, or supported the death penalty, or was afraid even to defend the theory of evolution (to say nothing of the fact that Democratic nominees won't articulate the central credo of liberal thought: that government exists to ameliorate the free market's inherent inequities and has actually done many good things).
Generals have to make sure their front-line infantrymen get good food and liquor, the better to ensure that they're willing to take bullets. And parties need to make sure that their front-line activists are engaged and feel represented, so they'll go out and do things (yes, people “went out and did things” last year, but that was to stop George W. Bush, not because John Kerry or Terry McAuliffe inspired them a great deal). Dean as chairman could probably make the most loyal Democrats feel once again that they have a real stake in the party. And that could produce some energy, and the energy could lead to action, and the action could produce ideas, and the ideas could eventually get through to people like my friend in New York, who could, in a conversation two years from now, say to me something like, “Hey, it's good to see that the Democrats have some life in them again.”
Notice that there were a lot of “coulds” (not “wills”) in the preceding sentences, and a chain reaction of that sort rarely occurs in the natural world. But for you Dean adherents, I'll leave you with one “will.” Right now, not much of anybody is terribly excited about the Democratic Party. If Dean becomes chair, at least some number of people will be. Of course, some number of people will be upset. . .
-- Michael Tomasky
