Dean to announce on Wednesday
From Joe Rospars (a Dean Nation alumni) at the O-blog comes word that Dean is set to make a major announcement about "the future of [the Democratic] Party" on Wednesday. The DNC chairmanship is not explicitly mentioned, but you can read between the lines. Click extended entry to read the post, and my comments:
I've seen plenty of glee from the Rightsphere about the prospect of a Dean candidacy, but the fact remains that Dean was the single candidate that Rove and team were genuinely afraid of. It was Kerry, Vietnam baggage and patrician stereotype, who they wanted to face in November, and they demonstrated that even a war hero wasn't immune to the slime machine. Dean would have faced the same slime, but he would have fought back - and he would have run a true 50-state campaign.
Dean for DNC is something that the Right may lampoon as the Democrat's increasing political irrelevance, but I've seen this rhetoric before. They have a vision of Dean grounded firmly in straw.
But Howard Dean, as DNC Chair, would be a landmark event in American politics. I have my gripes about the campaign he ran, and their use of the internet, but the Dean campaign was still the most innovative and receptive to evolution. Kerry represented a fallback from activism, Meetups, and grassroots, relying instead on 527s to do the legwork and treating his inherited internet netroots as a big money machine. It's far more than that. And under Dean, the DNC will have a higher probability of actually empowering the grassroots to exert oversight of the political process.
Dean to Speak Wednesday on the Future of Our Party
Over the past month, as he always has, Governor Dean has been listening to what Democrats, independents, and regular people across the country have to say.
On Wednesday, December 8, at The George Washington University, Governor Dean will speak about a vision for the future of our party.
He'll be speaking at the Jack Morton Auditorium in the Media and Public Affairs building at Noon.
We'll be streaming the speech live here on the blog and at democracyforamerica.com.
More details to come over the next 24 hours ...
UPDATE: The time of the speech has been changed to 12 Noon on the same day, this Wednesday.
Posted by Joe Rospars at 12:04 AM
I've seen plenty of glee from the Rightsphere about the prospect of a Dean candidacy, but the fact remains that Dean was the single candidate that Rove and team were genuinely afraid of. It was Kerry, Vietnam baggage and patrician stereotype, who they wanted to face in November, and they demonstrated that even a war hero wasn't immune to the slime machine. Dean would have faced the same slime, but he would have fought back - and he would have run a true 50-state campaign.
Dean for DNC is something that the Right may lampoon as the Democrat's increasing political irrelevance, but I've seen this rhetoric before. They have a vision of Dean grounded firmly in straw.
But Howard Dean, as DNC Chair, would be a landmark event in American politics. I have my gripes about the campaign he ran, and their use of the internet, but the Dean campaign was still the most innovative and receptive to evolution. Kerry represented a fallback from activism, Meetups, and grassroots, relying instead on 527s to do the legwork and treating his inherited internet netroots as a big money machine. It's far more than that. And under Dean, the DNC will have a higher probability of actually empowering the grassroots to exert oversight of the political process.
Comments
Are they offering Dean this job to make up for the creepy things they did to him all through the campaigning? I wouldn't be one bit surprised if they did more than that to him. Too bad they don't go after the republicans the way they do their own.
Here's the link to the article, again, I don't know how true it is but I guess we'll find out when he makes his major announcement.
This year the Democratic National Committee will select a new chairman. With an eye toward healing the rift between Clinton centrists and the party’s liberal base before Election 2008, the committee’s leaders have quietly offered the top position to Dr. Howard Dean--former governor, former presidential candidate
http://www.thesimon.com/magazine/articles/article_of_the_week/0695_a_perfect_job_howard_dean.html