Howard Dean will be remembered as a great Party Chair

ILLUSTRATED: Party building should be done equitably, Campaign support should be done efficiently.
Party insiders are upset with how Howard Dean is spending DNC money. Here is why Dean is right:
Comparing party building and campaign support is like comparing apples and oranges. There should be a double standard in the approach to how resources are used. With parties, think equity, with campaigns, think efficiency.
Parties are permanent, they need to be robust in every state. No matter how small the county, every Democratic voter in America should be within a 1-hour’s drive from a Democratic field office, year-round every year. I call it the Red County Bill of Rights, rural people should be entitled to party support. With party support, then over time, candidates will come up the ranks from school boards and be running for high office. It took the GOP 30 years form the Goldwater defeat to take Congress. But they started by putting operatives in Democratic states and training candidates for their careers, not the next election.
Campaigns are fleeting, they disappear after Election Day. Therefore, campaign funds and resources ought to be strategically used. I worked for Kerry as a volunteer in California, and had many arguments with people who wanted the Kerry campaign to be a gravy train to help local efforts (Hint: that’s the party’s job and it wasn’t doing it until Dean started changing things).

Let Howard Dean do his job which is to build up the party from the grassroots, in all 50 states. This is a 20 year plan, not a 2006 plan.

Why can't we elect veterans any more?

ILLUSTRATED: There are currently 55 Democratic governors, senators, and representatives under the age of 50, ZERO served in the military.

I just spent an hour on a research project thumbing through the 2006 Almanac of American Politics. I wanted to know how many of our party's governors, senators and US representatives under 50 served in the military. The answer: 0 for 55.

I have known there was a problem with our party and the military post Vietnam, but I did not realize how bad it is. We can't elect any veterans to high office in the generation after the Vietnam draft.

War in the Middle East and against terrorists will be with us for the foreseeable future. I hope these "Fighting Dems" get elected to the House this fall. We need candidates who personafy the times we live in.

Language for 2006: "Monitor" and "Fairness"

ILLUSTRATED: Conistent language helps frame political dialogue.

-Monitor the executive branch, a.k.a. "checks and balances". We will have hearings to monitor the executive branch, like Congress is suppoed to do but hasn't. The people have a right to know about any incompetence in their government.

-Monitor our ports and borders. We will buy high tech equipment to improve our security and keep out dangerous materials and dangerous people.

-Fair minimum wage. It's been about a decade since the last increase. $5.15 an hour??? That means after taxes, eight hours of work will buy about eight gallons of gas.

-Fair prescription drug benefit. This fruad is just a goverment giveaway to drug companies.

-Fair budget process. You would give your kids money without asking them what it's used for. A bank can't loan money without you telling them. Politicians should spend your money in an open and fair way.

Ironies of Immigration

ILLUSTRATED: On immigration, we need to save Bush…but in a patronizing way.

No one needs to tell you that Immigration slices and dices so many interests and demographics that any successful coalition will be a strange one. This threatens to become an election issue for Republicans who hope to fire up their base, as opposed to reach out for moderates.

One thing looks clear to me: whoever wins each chamber on Capitol Hill, neither party will be in operational control. Therefore nothing major will get done before a new president is in office in 2009. Therefore, given the disaster Bush’s second term has been thus far, George W. Bush seems destined to become a “Failed President”. Congressional Republicans see this and Immigration is the issue to save their skins.

To Bush’s credit, both as Governor and as President, his policies on immigration have been moderate. I’m not quite sure what his version of a “Guest Worker” program will be, (be careful of Indentured Servitude legislation) but he has refrained from bashing immigrants on the stump.

Congressional GOP candidates will have no such qualms if they need to turn out their base. They will contrast themselves with the president, even to the GOP base.

We need to save Bush, but in a patronizing way. What this means is our line needs to be: “Candidate Smith is even worse than Bush”. That confirms that Bush is bad, but makes the Congressional Candidate look worse.