Dean for DNC

[akirlu]

Ezra Klein over at Pandagon has some pretty intriguing reasons why making Howard Dean the next Democratic National Committee chair is a good idea.

I'll add a couple of my own:

Dean is a fighter; he's a fighter even in defeat. When Kerry got the nod, Dean didn't take his marbles and go home. He continued to campaign, this time for Kerry, and continued to push his organization to reach out to and bring in more Democrats and Democratic allies. This is not a man who's going to roll over in tough times, and we've got some tough times ahead of us. We're going to need a Churchill for this war, and Dean has that kind of grit.

Dean is upbeat. That guy smiles like he means it, like he can see a way through. Too many of us are going to be prone to occasional fits of despair in the coming months and years, and having that pugnatious, grinning mug to look up to when things seem darkest will make it easier to pull through. Anything that gets us fired up is a good thing.

Dean is a DNC outsider. Yeah, that doesn't seem like an advantage on the face of it, but I think it is. From what I can gather, the DNC has continued to suffer from cliquishness, even gearing up for this last election. They've been refusing to back candidates, or fully back candidates, who weren't DNC vetted already, who weren't part of the established boys' club. That has so got to go. It's big tent time. "Just Win, Baby," must be the new motto. Which means the DNC chair must be someone who doesn't give a rat's ass whether a candidate has kissed the right DNC butts in the past, so long as they've got the right appeal. Dean is all about outreach to parts of the Democratic coalition who have felt disenfranchised and ignored up to now. The party needs a healthy dose of that attitude.

Update:
The Draft Howard website is now up. If you agree that getting Dean in to do a thorough housecleaning at the DNC is a good idea, go sign the petition.

Comments

[scottscidmore.livejournal.com]

IT would be interesting, seeing as some on the DNC were funding the anti-Dean campaign before the primaries...

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It's precisely that kind of butt-headed wasting of capital (both financial and political) that has got to be weeded right out of the party leadership. Starting the circular firing squads before the primaries even begin is nothing less than moronic.

[scottscidmore.livejournal.com]

Where they may have really lost is that without the tearing down of Dean, Kerry may still have been the winner but there would have been more excitement before the party convention.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Dean also knows how to give a rebel yell when it's appropriate. Why he got criticized for that absolutely escapes me.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Because if you hear the directional mic recording of Dean, which effectively edits out all the enormous crowd noise that was the context of that yell, it sounds a bit weird. "Unhinged" was how it was sold. The official narrative as promulgated by the press about Dean was that he was too emotional, too excitable, the candidate that people loved in their hearts but couldn't in good conscience support. Feh.

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

He was criticized because the stupid DNC thought they needed someone from inside the beltway as a candidate, and Kerry definitely has that experience. At least that's my theory.

If anyone with a brain had actually watched that clip, they would have seen that *everyone else* in that audience was cheering him on, too. Yelling and screaming, etc. He was totally spinned out of the candidacy.

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Sigh. I was in the room when that noise happened. It wasn't a rebel yell, it was the sort of cheering noise almost all candiates use to rally their followers. And at that point, the party at the end of the Iowa causcuses, people needed rallying. It was made to sound odd not only by strange mikeing, but also the fact that Dean had been talking nonstop for days and had little voice left and no control over what he did have.

MKK

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

Hey ulrika, totally not related, but I responded to your post on my site regarding e-voting. Moveable type does not e-mail when someone posts to a comment....

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

Done! And linked to from my journal. Thanks!

Drafting Dean

[amy-thomson.livejournal.com]

I don't generally sign e-petitions. But this one seems sound. I've been a long time go-to-meeting Democrat, and now that people are sad, angry, and depressed enough to withdraw, we need something to pull them together and keep them active. I believe Dean can do this!