With apologies to Jerome, I decided to do my own Cattle Call. While the official MyDD Cattle Calls are unbiased analysis of what is going on in the races, I'm going to leave that to Jerome. In the spirit of Gonzo-Blogging I'm going to insert myself into the conversation while covering the race.
There are only a few candidates remaining, so I think now is the time for other users to also post their views on the field.
Tim Roemer now has a website,
www.TimRAemer.com, where patriotic symbolism appears more important than spelling. Roemer is the candidate that Reid and Pelosi convinced to run to ensure that the money flows through their campaign committees instead of helping state parties. Targeting is important, but considering 75% of state parties don't even have a blog and many don't even have an organizer, I believe this approach has failed to meet primia facia burdens for Democrats having a national party. As
Talking Points Memo reports, Roemer is anti social security, pro-abortion criminalization, anti-balanced budget, and pro-deficit spending. Chris Bowers said
Roemer should not be chair and started a firestorm of netroots declarations that a Roemer DNC would be abandoned by the base. Read more
here and then
here. Make no mistake, Roemer is not running because he wants to lead our party, he is running because powerful people have asked him to help safeguard their turf. He's wrong on the issues and would splinter the party.
Terry McAuliffe is the latest to be discussed by the ABD crowd -- henceforth referred to as the Noalition. This trial balloon was launched by the General Custer wing of the Democratic Party. When Jerome blogged it the reaction went from shock to angst quicker than T-Mac's primary season. People who mistakenly believe that McAliffe could succeed where he has failed before are wise to also understand the fact that, "Bloggers like the Daily Kos have made ridding the party of McAuliffe a central political crusade." McAuliffe bet the wrong way on the length of the primary season, on corporate funding instead of grassroots support, on the early convention, and on how to deploy resources during the 2002 midterm. All of his bets were placed from his experience as a bagman and all proved he is not a strategist.
Martin Frost has the unique distinction of being amenable to both the Noalition and the General Custer wing. Annatopia was represented by the guy and seems to have the best grasp of what he's about. She thinks he's a "dime a dozen" and was kind enough to bring to light the scandal that will doom his campaign. During his re-election bid, Frost ran ads praising Bush. If that wasn't bad enough, he also ran an ad that, "casts fellow Democrat Ted Kennedy in the same liberal boogeyman role as some Republicans do" (in the words of the Dallas Morning News). Not only did his selfishness fail to get him re-elected, but Annatopia notes this strategy of hating our party also cost down-ticket Democrats in tight races -- meaning Dallas County ended up a half a percentage point from turning blue. To recap, Frost is a loser who ran ads praising Republicans while also running ads attacking Democrats -- hurting all of the Democrats around him. Now he wants to take this approach nation-wide?
Wellington Webb decided to announce in secret so that not even Kos found out. Webb has some baggage, or should we say expensive lost baggage. WeatherDem explains that he, "helped make sure the state of the art baggage system would be built for the airport. Remember that baggage system? It still doesn't work. Originally estimated to cost $12 million, it ended up costing $250 million and delayed the opening of the airport one and a half years. Oh, and it's now being turned into scrap metal." The word on the street is that Webb will endorse Dean if he continues to fail at achieving traction.
Donnie Fowler is now Donnie "king of the burning dog poop" Fowler. While Don's kid has been telling anyone who will listen that he is a netroots genius, he proved himself wrong this week in with the flaming dog poop scandal that destroyed his credibility as an online campaigner while earning him his new nickname. To respond and prove he could interact online, he came out of hiding between 3 and 4 AM with requests for people to read his 14 page manifesto. Not surprisingly, there weren't many people there for him to interact with. It just keeps coming. Voting for the King of Dog Poop is a crappy vote (if he is elected chair, then what does that make us). Of course, if Don can get his son the job, then the GOP will have a field day with his nickname.
Reform Candidates are all that remain and I would be proud to follow either Howard Dean or Simon Rosenberg. I actually think that the Democratic Party is screwed up enough to need both of them. Governor Dean's candidacy is being supported online by Draft Howard, Mainstreet Moms, Driving Votes and there is also Dean4DNC yahoo group. Rosenberg announces tomorrow at the National Press Club. Directly after his announcement he'll be talking with BlogPAC to answer blogger questions.
