CHAIRMAN DEAN

Party politics are not at all my area of expertise--I'm much more of an issues-oriented kind of guy. So, while I really like Howard Dean, I've really only been intrigued from a distance by his reputation for upstart fund-raising and organizational strategy: "that's cool; he used the internet in new ways that other politicians don't yet seem to understand." Of course, inherent in such a statement is that I don't understand, either. Consequently, I've had very little to say about Dean's coronation as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. As far as I can tell, issues aren't nearly so important to this position as is strategy.

Fortunately, others are much better informed on this topic than I am. Enter Rob Salkowitz from Emphasis Added:

Howard Dean won the party chair by preaching a devolution of control (and money) to local and state organizations. His ideology on policy matters, while appealing to the party faithful, is largely irrelevant to the task at hand. His challenge is to reorganize what has been a centrally-managed national coalition of horizontal issue-advocacy constituencies into a federation of 50 locally-run “vertical” state organizations, each able to contest races by running a better ground-game, rather than relying on the air-cover of an overarching ideology. This will mean putting some long-time friends in discomfort, while trying to breathe new life into nearly moribund operations in many states.

The stereotype of Dean is as a raving liberal, far to the left of the country and even the party. This is largely a caricature, but it will serve Dean well in his work, since he enjoys the trust of the progressives who will often be the targets of his organizational battles. Dean’s real support for DNC chair comes not from those who favor unlimited abortion on demand or immediate withdrawal from Iraq, but from those in the party who understand that it takes different tactics to win elections in Alabama than it does in New York.

Click here for the rest.

Of course, if Salkowitz is correct in his analysis, Dean gaining the DNC chair does not mean that the party is going to surge to the left, which is something of a bummer to me, but I wasn't really expecting that, so it's not a huge bummer. What this does mean, however, is that the Dems may very well develop some balls. That's something I can get behind.

Theoretically.

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