I thought you were right. ;-)

Anyway, good luck. Oh yes, and you have my full support, Bob. I'll start bugging my DNC friends ASAP to organize against Kaine.

So who else is running? Who can we organize for?

There is no way the party is going to go against the President on this.

The President gets to choose who he wants to be the party chair since Obama is now head the party.

David Wilhelm (1993-1994) Ohio
Debra DeLee (1994-1995) Massachusetts
Christopher J. Dodd (1995-1997) Connecticut
Donald Fowler (1995-1997) South Carolina
Roy Romer (1997-1999) Colorado
Steven Grossman (1997-1999) Massachusetts
Edward G. Rendell (1999-2001) Pennsylvania
Joseph Andrew (1999-2001) Indiana

Please note that Chris Dodd and Don Fowler served together, Dodd being more the ceremonial, public face and Fowler more administrative.  The same with Rendell and Andrew. Dodd did less fundraising than did Rendell.

The chair prior to Clinton's elelction was the highly regarded Ron Brown who rebuilt  part of the party in the late 80's...though did not do much to build the party's infrastructure in money or long running programs like ongoing voter databases.

Historically when we have a Democratic president is has been the tradition that the President chooses the chair and the members of the DNC oblige. Do not take this descriotion to mean I approve, I don't.  

When we don't have a president, then the votes of the DNC members really do matter.  

Under Clinton the chairs were weak, without power and often terribly behind the eight ball in terms of raising money.  When we have had a president, the DNC has lost its autonomy, its long range vision on building the party.  At the end of each of the presidents terms the party apparatus is weaker than it was at the beginning.  That is because the DNC is almost solely the creature of the president, who has his own agenda and his/her? own needs.  The needs of the party overall are not a priority....also because the success of the president is seen as the success of the party.  Of course terms of having a strong and not a hollow Democratic party that is not true.

By 2000 the DNC in comparison to the RNC  was terribly in debt, had no ongoing voter database programs, its own media capabilities  and paid enormous sums to rent office space from a Republican landlord.

The 2 best chairs we have had....and I say this as part of a DNC affiliated group since the early 90's, were Howard Dean and Terry McAuliffe.  Part of that was they did not have dual allegiances...to a president and the party....but only to the health and power of the party itself.

Terry McAuliffe came on in Jan 2001, full of ideas to get those all important ongoing voter databases, get the party strong and permamnently out of debt, make the DNC financially competitive with the RNC and to own its own space so that hundreds of thousands no longer went to fund Republicans.  He succeeded. We rivalled the RNC in 2003-2004 in terms of money.  I know that many dislike Terry McAuliffe for his Clinton loyalites and his big money fundraising, but 2001-2005 he used that to make the Democratic party a much stronger party in terms of infrastucture and money. He also never backed off in those 4 years from saying that George Bush was illegitimate...unlike our new HHS Secretary, Tom Daschle, who was forever more silent at the first pop eyed glare from Tim Russert.

Howard Dean...we all know decided to give up any of his own ambitions for public office, in order to strengthen the party throughout the country, up and down the political arena.  Howard has been a selfless visionary....who made us a much stronger party...everywhere.

We had 2 excellent chairs who made the party better, when we didn't have a president.  Otherwise the chairs have been weak.

I don't think it has to stay that way.  

And I do think puting in someone who has neither the time, inclination or motivation to serve aggressively as chair, very much ill serves the future strength and health of this party.  I do fear, well frankly I feared for that early on in the Obama primary camapaign,  that he would use his own barackobama list to pressure lawmakers and create other political strucutres.  This further deprives the national party of focus, strength, activism and money.  

I am hoping that the state party chairs realize that a mere caretaker is not in their interests of a continuting, strong party.  Indeed using barackobama.com leaves the party stranded at the end of 8 years...unless of course the intention is to keep using barackobama.com after 8 years...but for what safe political purpose could it be used for?  A mere caretaker will leave the party stranded floating about in the sea with no way to get to land.  

I hope the DNC members make a stink....The meeting though is Jan 21, 2008...Not much time to get another candidate who is willing to go against the will of new president, esp a popular one....no matter how bad the choice is.  I suppose that this was a consolation prize for not being chosen to be VP.

PS Do you think Kaine would reinstitute the 50 state strategy?...I have a feeling no...they will say that the activists of barackobama.com will be enough.

Yeah, I know. My point though is that if you want to torpedo Kaine your target should be Obama. The only way Kaine won't be DNC chair is if Obama changes his mind. There will be no revolt of DNC members, no matter how much pressure we put on them.

Hilarious.  Since when has anyone around here been giving him carte blanche to shift anywhere?

168 comments on the Bowers diary from '05. I forgot how popular this blog used to be.

Good post though. I was indifferent when I first heard about Kaine, but you've made some really good points and I think there are better options. How about David Plouffe?

He also went before the same Family Foundation of Virginia and defended gay and lesbian families adopting kids.

I hope Dean will make the decision to run for re-election after this.

I mean, after all his hard work does he really want to see the Party go backwards? And by the guy who McAuliffe emptied the DNC bank account to a week before Dean took over to screw Dean?

I doubt very seriously that Dean is going to run again for it especially after it was made clear by Obama that he wants Kaine to be the next DNC chair.

I would like to see Dean some where in the Obama administration though.

I think that Obama and Kaine are SIMPATICO together and they are very close.  Plus Obama probably liked the fact that Kaine used to be a community organizer like Obama was.

Again I fully expect Kaine to be the next DNC chairman.  Dean steps down on January 21st.

Obama would be making a HUGE mistake to go all Louis XIV on us. We supported him because he was supposed to empower us. Not even he can take our power away.

The DNC Chair is the public face of the Party. Views are important (Roemers' support of Social Security Privatization would have been a disaster as Chair going into the '05 fight, for instance).

How can a Chair represent the values of our Party if he does not believe in them?

As for strategy, his DLC triangulation approach is the last thing we need.

Just like he's opposed women's reproductive rights & supported corporate tax giveways. Try reading Bob's diary before you comment.

Constitutional Amendment process. It's votes in consecutive years by the Legies, followed by referendum.

Both Doyle and Feingold spoke out against the Amendment.

He came from ten points behind to beat Jerry Kilgore in 2005, helped Democrats win several special elections for state legislative races, helped take over the state Senate in 2007, and helped Glenn Nye and Tom Periello pick off Republican House seats.  This guy knows what he is doing.