Dean Out, Fifty-State Strategy Likely Done

by: Chris Bowers

Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 16:00


To no one's surprise, Howard Dean has stepped down as DNC chair:

Former Vermont governor Howard Dean, who rose to national prominence during a failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, will not seek a second term as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, clearing the way for a loyalist of President-elect Barack Obama to be named to the soon to be vacant post.(...)

"At this point he has said that he doesn't intend to run again," said a DNC source granted anonymity in order to speak candidly. "He has said so publicly for a while. He has not said what he will do next."

And, confirming earlier reports, the nearly 200 locally based organizers who form the core of the fifty-state strategy have all been fired (more in the extended entry):

Chris Bowers :: Dean Out, Fifty-State Strategy Likely Done

I've been checking around, and what I'm hearing from reliable sources is that this report is true.

A rumor at this point (or rather, someone unwilling to go on record) but what I'm hearing is that the DNC organizers who implement the 50 state strategy are about to be let go. Apparently they will be laid off at the end of the month, and the new DNC chair will decide whether he or she wants to continue the 50 state policy.

Basically, what's happening is that 50-state organizers like Susan Mariner (Hampton Roads) and Joe Montano (NOVA) will be let go at the end of this month, the program "suspended" and subject to "reevaulation" (excuse me, but don't you usually reevaluate first, THEN decide to "suspend" or not to "suspend?").

Dan U-A points to an email from the Obama campaign as an encouraging sign that the fifty-state strategy will continue, but I am not optimistic. As Lowell said in the above quote, you don't fire everyone, suspend the program, and then "re-evaluate." Further, Rahm Emanuel has long been the most outspoken opponent of the fifty-state strategy, and now he is Obama's Chief of Staff. So really, given the amount of say Emanuel will have over this, kiss the fifty-state strategy goodbye.

Right now, the strategy means handing over large grants to state parties from the DNC, and also paying for local organizers in the state. It was effective both as an organizing strategy (see the DNC memo on the subject) and as a political strategy for Howard Dean, as state parties hold large numbers of votes in the DNC and like receiving lots of money and free organizers from the DNC.

This was a program for which the netroots fought hard the past several years. Now that it seems to be over, I hope that our opinion of the fifty-state strategy doesn't take the same route as our opinion of the utility of appearing on Fox News, including telecom immunity in FISA, or elevating Rahm Emanuel to positions of extreme power. It isn't right just because Obama did it, although I fear many people will say so.

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Dean Out, Fifty-State Strategy Likely Done | 27 comments
I don't think that the 50 state strategy is done... (4.00 / 1)
...it makes no sense to kill what has been incredibly successful... I think there will be a reorganization and the vacancies filled with Obama people, but the overall strategy was key to Obama winning... it makes no sense that they would dump it now...  I know Rahm hates it, and they wanted to oust Dean after we won big in 2006... I'm not sure exactly what their counter strategy is, after all, you don't win more seats without expanding the map!

But, since we have expanded the map, it does make sense to morph it into a more sustained expansion, instead of building from the ground up...

I know Rahm hates the thing, but I think it's more that he loses some cash that he likes...  He's not in charge, anyways, Obama is... and I can't see that he would abandon the idea that allowed him to win and win big.

The most logical conclusion is that Obama will, instead, replace the 50 state folk with his own people... it's also possible that the state parties are going to take over their organizing on their own...

I want to see the big picture here before we say that the 50 state strategy is somehow "dead"....  If Claire McCaskill is going to be the new head of the DNC, she's not opposed to the 50 state strategy, either... so, I think funeral announcements are premature...

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

Claire will be the titular head (0.00 / 0)
And someone else, maybe Steve Hildebrand, will be the operational chair.  It happened under Clinton when Dodd was titular head only.  It's an unwieldy and unfocussed system. It is something done when we have president at the WH....it's fine for the president...but paradoxically it always seem to have the effect of underming the strength and structure of the party itself.  Party building takes a back seat to presidential plumpering.  

That why the 2 best chairs in recent memory have been Dean and yes, Terry McAuliffe.... Both had no president. Their only concern and mandate was to strengthen the party.  McAuliffe got it out of debt, with milllions of voter file, its own building, and with lots of momey.  Howard built the 50 state strategy...which has led to many victories ....both had only the Democratic party, rather than one person, in thier mind.

Obama is not going to revive the 50 state strategy.  He will use the campaign strucutre he built and use those local volunteers..unpaid volunteers...

They will probably in all likelihood be very much in line with what Obama wants to get done.  They will not necessarily be an independent power center.

So I'm pulling for Obama to aim high, think big and make good on his progressive promises...and sic his organization on those reluctant to move the country in that direction.

Or he might go somewhere else. I hope not.

"Incrementalism isn't a different path to the same place, it could be a different path to a different place"
Stoller

[ Parent ]
I expect some 50 state style organizing but not under the DNC umbrella (0.00 / 0)


"Incrementalism isn't a different path to the same place, it could be a different path to a different place"
Stoller
[ Parent ]
Some sort of restructuring? (0.00 / 0)
Maybe instead of 50-state-strategy organizes under the umbrella of the DNC, it'll be structured under the direction of the individual state parties.

It sounds like Howard Dean never planned on staying at the head of the DNC longer than this, but it seems weird to thrown a plainly successful strategy overboard...

Conduct your own interview of Sarah Palin!

Dean said as early as 3 years ago... (0.00 / 0)
...that he was staying only for one term...

I don't think he liked the job, really, but felt that it was necessary...

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

[ Parent ]
I think your wrong on this one Chris... (4.00 / 2)
The staff dismissal is weird, I'll give you but all other signs point to its continuation based on how effective its been.  BRazille and several others have said they fully expect it to continue.

Now that being said, we may see changes from the Dean implementation.   We may see more coordination from the Obama people with the state level... maybe an effort to get their own people in... people who are effective at Grassroots organizing to take advantage of the Obama masses to help get Dems elected everywhere.

However, I just don't see the concept of competing in all 50 states as gone.  Its been too effective to dismiss.   Rahm hasn't said a word about it in a while.     I guess we will see, but my guess is the strategy remains, but the implementation is changed.

Best-case scenario (0.00 / 0)
What we may be seeing is the Obama people restructuring with an eye toward putting Obama field organizers in these slots.

I'd have to guess that in a number of these "rebuilding" states, what infrastructure had been put in place was already likely to be subsumed by the influx of Obama partisans.

In 2005, a lot of the unwashed masses who had become active to defeat Bush stayed on to take over leadership positions in local parties. With some encouragement from Obama, the latest crop of insurgents could stick around in even larger numbers.

If that happened, it would make sense to put in place people from the campaign who had built networks within this new wave.

We anti-authoritarian progressives may not like it - we're suspicious of any concentration of power - but given the ways Obama expanded the map, my guess is that local parties and down-ticket officeholders might not mind.

[ Parent ]
Just so we are clear though.... (4.00 / 1)
If there is a total abandonment of competing and bench building in all 50 states I will be severely disappointed.  I just can't see that though given this is a concept Obama's campiagn was built on.  I think we are seeing a reorginization instead.
this is a bit short-sighted (4.00 / 1)
Given our giant gains this year because of the 50-state strategy, saying that it will be axed with Dean is a bit premature.

I agree that these signs are a bit odd, but until the new head of the DNC comes in and says "no 50-state strategy", we're more-than-likely seeing some reorganization.

Why on earth would Emmanuel overrule the President on this? The new head of the Democratic Party is in the White House because of this strategy.

It just doesn't add up, but perhaps high levels of cynicism are more in order than I'm feeling.

The firings suggest otherwise (4.00 / 2)
200 organizers have been let go, presumably experienced people with rather deep ties to their respective regions.  This reminds me of a similar centralizing impulse to that of the Catholic Church turning its back on Vatican 2.

[ Parent ]
Agreed (0.00 / 0)
Weird that Obama would turn away from one of the keys to his success, but how else to read this?  He must not perceive of those particular staff as being part of his victory, or ongoing plans for governing.

[ Parent ]
Dean isn't getting axed. (0.00 / 0)
He isn't getting asked - asked to stay, that is - either, but he's been consistent about only wanting one term as DNC chair.
[ Parent ]
This Is Idiotic (4.00 / 6)
Let's be perfectly clear. I don't care what the spin or "explanaiton" turns out to be, but you just don't fire everyone after winning the biggest political victory in a generation.  There is no possible justification for this.  None whatsoever.

At the very least, you keep everyone on board to do a detailed after report, and have some meetings to discuss and synthesize your findings.  Even if you've decided in advance to do something different (a foolish choice in itself, since reinventing the wheel is like, well, reinventing the wheel) it's only common sense to get a comprehensive report on what you've done, what results you've had, and what accounts for any unusual successes or failures.

So much for the bottom-up campaign rhetoric.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

Do we have any idea if this is actually (0.00 / 0)
happening? All I'm seeing is some unsourced rumors from two and three days ago. It's certainly possible that not a single person who was fired has actually gone on the record yet.
[ Parent ]
In Missouri Ozarks and St Charles (0.00 / 0)
the offices I visited were very pro for everyone running in localareas but they kept a distance from Obama and that is what lost him Missouri think. I don't want to give them money to allow them to keep on with their rascist agenda. They definitely need to be re-evaluated here anyway.  
[ Parent ]
Which Is Fine (0.00 / 0)
The way you do evaluations is by keeping things intact.  If there are significant problems such as you indicate, then that's all the more reason not to break things up beforehand.  It only muddies the waters further, when the task is to clear them up.

And, uh, who says that Missouri is lost?  Still not called where I look, and enough irregularities on election day to warrant a recound, IMHO.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Maybe (0.00 / 0)
I doubt it will happen though unless its state or court mandated.
[ Parent ]
My guess... (4.00 / 3)

  ...is that the fifty-state strategy might be yielding a few too many Better Democrats for Rahm's comfort.

  The DLC crowd prefers that Democrats lose, or if they must win, win narrowly -- that keeps the DLC element with some leverage. If Democrats win BIG, the DLC element becomes irrelevant.

  So this is completely predictable.  

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

[ Parent ]
see my comment upthread (0.00 / 0)
I expected this from the beginning....and by that I mean early 2008 when it became possible that Obama might win.  

This is just another version of what matt wrote about in terms of consolidating control over the Democratic party..

Of course all presidents do that...some more thoroughly than others.

"Incrementalism isn't a different path to the same place, it could be a different path to a different place"
Stoller

[ Parent ]
If the 'powers that be' let this strategy, this program, lapse and (4.00 / 1)
Democrats fail to increase gains made in the red to purple states in 2 years...we'll know who to blame.

What a DUMB decision....taking something that has proven it's worth and stopping it.

Someone's ego cannot handle this concept, which, simply put, is that people are taking back their states, AND the Democratic Party from the losers that nearly ran it into the ground.

Power grab....pure and simple

lots of rumors right now... (4.00 / 1)
My guess and my hope would be that these rumors represent a restructuring of the program, not an outright elimination. To abandon the idea of the national party funding organizers in all 50 states would seem very foolish, and to abandon the idea of competing in all 50 states even more foolish.

Given the inevitable reality of post-election turnover, plus comments like this one from people connected to the DNC, I think it is way to early to conclude that the new crew is going to abandon the program entirely. Obama had paid organizers in close to all fifty states for most of the election cycle, so it seems to me that a much more likely explanation is that Obama is working towards integrating his campaign operation and the DNC operation, not that the Democrats are suddenly going to decide that competing in 15 states is now better than competing in 50 states.

i am going to give obama the benefit of the doubt (0.00 / 0)
I can totally understand your irritation at the kool-aid kids; however, i hope you can understand why I might give president-elect obama the benefit of the doubt. i didn't work this hard to start sniping at his heels now.

Not Totally Unheard Of (0.00 / 0)
The DNC and the campaign committees generally downsize after elections to keep costs low in the off year and then start ramping back up in the very late part of the off year or beginning of the next year.  It saves about a year worth of salaries.  Dean's hiring in 2005 was good but actually quite unusual.  That could be all that is going on here.  It could also be the 50 state strategy is done.  Time will tell.
asdf (0.00 / 0)
I see the grand lefty's can't stop their cynicism and still second guess Obama after he won more PV/EV than any democrat in 40 years. keep it up Chris, hopefully you will continue to agonize yourself the next four years and it will live up to extreme liberal stereotypes.
[ Parent ]
Also.. (0.00 / 0)
congrats to Mike Lux, glad someone sensible and intelligent(history) was chosen from a sess pool here.
Put Howard Dean in Charge of Health Care (0.00 / 0)
Obama's health care plan greatly resembles the one Dean put forth in 2004.  It was originally supposed to be the centerpiece of Dean's presidential campaign before Iraq proved its salience.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both
Easy does it (0.00 / 0)
This glass-is-half-empty approach to the Obama administration is going to wear thin very quickly if it continues. The reporting of nothing more than speculation-as-fact is distressing and, quite honestly, pointless. Let a little light in, Chris! You have no idea what's coming. I doubt very seriously that anyone in the Democratic party wants to do anything other than continue to build on what was accomplished last Tuesday. And I'm sure the Obama team has a plan for this (they've had a plan for everything else, afterall). Relax already.
Dean Out, Fifty-State Strategy Likely Done | 27 comments
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