Associated Press photo
2004 Democratic presidential nomination contender Howard Dean, above, was the star of Democratic National Committee's Western Regional Caucus in Sacramento today. During a two-hour forum today, the seven candidates for the chairmanship of the DNC made their cases for themselves. The candidates are, from left to right below: Dean; party activist Donnie Fowler; former U.S. Rep. Martin Frost; former Ohio state party chairman David Leland; former U.S. Rep. Tim Roemer; Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democratic Network; and former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb.
Associated Press photo
Howard Dean the star of the show
at DNC's regional caucus today
I attended the Democratic National Committee's Western Regional Caucus today here in Sacramento. Today's forum was one of four across the nation before the 447 members of the Democratic National Committee vote for a new DNC chairperson on Feb. 12. (The next forum is scheduled for next weekend in New York.)
I went to the forum today because the next DNC chairperson will set the tone and direction of the party for the next four years, and the party is in dire need of a new tone and a new direction; because I live in Sacramento, so going there was easy; and because I figured I'd get a pretty good blog piece out of it.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was the clear favorite of the crowd of hundreds, but it will be the 447 members of the DNC who chose the next chairperson, not us rabble.
The first most prominent Democrat who spoke to us rabble in Sacramento today was 2004 Democratic presidential nomination contender Al Sharpton, who spoke to us during our breakfast before the forum.
He mentioned the courage of California Sen. Barbara Boxer and the crowd broke into a roar of "Box-er! Box-er! Box-er!" (This woman is loved.)
Sharpton talked about Boxer's lone senatorial challenge of the highly irregular Ohio vote and added, "And just in case you think she was having a bad day, she came back during the Senate confirmation hearings and wouldn't let Condoleezza Rice off the hook."
He added, "Condoleezza is my color, but Boxer is my kind!"
The crowd roared with applause.
(I had my picture taken with Sharpton, who, like a costumed character at Disneyland, walked around a bit and had his picture taken with many people. He's a very friendly, accessible guy. I have never posted a picture of myself on my blog and I'll probably come to regret it, but fuck it, here it is:
Hugh Lafler
I hope that I don't destroy Sharpton's reputation by having been photographed with him. Anyway, I wanted to also get a picture with Dean, but he was always thronged and he apparently stealthily slipped out of the hotel ballroom right after the forum concluded.)
The next pre-forum breakfast speaker was Dean. Dean is short and has a thick neck; he kind of reminds me of a pit bull. However, he did nor said anything that gave me the slightest impression that he's a bit unstable, the impression that I got during the primary season (an impression of which the corporately controlled mainstream media apparently felt no desire to disabuse me, I have to say in Dean's defense).
Dean covered a variety of topics in his breakfast speech. Here are some tidbits:
- Of Election 2004 he said, "We raised as much money as the Republicans did... The problem is that they were better at organizing." We Democrats have an opportunity now to make our political organization equal to or better than the Republicans', he said. He noted that he admires the Republicans' discipline and organization but detests how they divide and conquer the American people by such things as race and sexual orientation.
- Dean spoke of the importance of empowering Democrats at the local level. "The way to get power is to give it away," he said. Dean called for a bottom-up rather than a top-down party organization. "Neighbors talking to neighbors is how we're going to win," he said.
- "We need to change our language," Dean said, a reference to the effort now under way to help Democrats master the art of framing, which the Republicans have been using, nefariously, for years. (While they use their powers only for evil, we Democrats and progressives will use our rediscovered powers for good.)
- Dean talked about the importance of having a balanced budget. "You can't trust the Republicans with your money anymore," he said, adding, "It is a moral value not to leave debts to your children." He enumerated other moral values as well, such as health care for all Americans, preserving our natural resources, and telling the truth to the American people about our reasons for going to war.
- Dean surpised and delighted me when he quoted a saying of Jesus' that I recently quoted: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." "I didn't see that in the GOP platform," Dean quipped. We Democrats need to take back not just the country, but also God and Jesus Christ, and it was good to hear Dean quote one of many of Jesus' sayings that you'll never hear the Republicans quote.
- "We cannot win if we take our core contituency groups for granted," Dean said, and enumerated the Democratic Party's core constituency groups as labor, women, blacks and Latinos. Organized labor is good for capitalism and for democracy and we need to rejuvenate organized labor, not run away from it, he said.
- Dean told a story of an evangelical Christian woman who told him that she supported his candidacy for president because although she disagreed with him on such issues as homosexuality and abortion, she admired his "deep conviction" and believed that as president he would provide a safety net for her family.
- "We are going to be the party of change and reform," Dean declared toward the end of his speech, enumerating the voting system, the health care system and the education system among those systems that need reform, and he called for an end to corporate welfare.
"This country does not belong to those who divide. It belongs to those who unite," Dean ended his speech, to thunderous applause.
After the breakfast speeches, in the afternoon, was the forum for the seven candidates for DNC chairperson to make their cases as to why they should be chosen for the job. (The forum began with, yes, the Pledge of Allegiance, and yes, we even said the word "God"!)
I was most impressed by Dean, party activist Donnie Fowler and Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democratic Network. Dean, Fowler and Rosenberg impressed me as the most forward-looking.
Former U.S. Representatives Tim Roemer and Martin Frost, former Ohio state party chairman David Leland, and former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, while each have some good ideas, struck me as more old-school Democrats, and the party desperately needs a transfusion of new blood.
Tidbits from the forum, which lasted a little more than two hours:
- Dean, Leland and others remarked that we Democrats and progressives needs to be politically active 365 days a year, not just during election time. I wholeheartedly concur. You can't virtually ignore your base and then ask for their blood, sweat, tears and dollars once every four years.
- Fowler remarked that he's sick and tired of the Democratic Party conceding the South, rural voters and religious voters to the Republican Party and is sick of the Democratic Party conceding to the Democratic pundits in Washington. He said "DNC" shouldn't stand for "Do Not Change" but should stand for "Do Not Concede." He spoke about strengthening the Latino and Asian-American votes and the importance of using current technology in party-building.
- Dean and others called for a strong Democratic Party presence in all 50 states.
- Webb stated that the party shouldn't take its base for granted (I felt that the Kerry campaign and the DNC took its base for granted in 2004, and Webb probably was alluding to this fact). He also remarked that among the seven candidates for the DNC chairmanship there should have been a Latino, an Asian-American and a woman. (The seven candidates are all male, and only one of them, Webb, is a person of color.)
- Rosenberg talked about the need to build/rebuild the state party infrastructure and a party media network (Air America Radio, of course, is a great first step in the latter objective). He called for an end to the "monopoly" that Iowa and New Hampshire have in the Democratic presidential primary season and called for the inclusion of the South and the West in the early decision-making process. (I wholeheartedly agree with him on this. [People who whine, "But that's the way we've always done it!" should be shot on the spot.])
- Roemer stated that the party should focus more on national security and fighting terrorism, and while he probably is right -- the Democrats, after all, can do a better job keeping the nation safe than can the Republicans -- he sounded much like a Republican to me, perhaps because the "war on terror" is about all that BushCheneyCorp ever fucking talks about. Frost later noted that it was the Democrats who proposed a department of homeland security and a 9/11 commission, both of which the Bush administration initially opposed and then co-opted only after there was popular demand for them.
- Dean pointed out that the Democratic Party used us Californians like an "ATM" during Election '04 -- and it did -- and that more money should stay in California to help the party in California's many red counties.
- Dean emphasized the importance of presenting a positive platform, not just criticizing our opponents. Contributing to the Democratic Party's losses in '04, he said, was too much criticism of the Bush administration and not enough of a positive message of the party's own.
- Leland advocated more caucuses and fewer primary elections during the Democratic presidential primary season. He said that primary-election winners tend to be those who spend more money. While caucuses sound like a lot of fun, I can't see voters who are used to primaries parting with their primaries; I can't see caucuses going smoothly in huge states like California, New York, Texas and Florida; and primaries seem more fair and less corruptible to me than do caucuses.
- Fowler noted how little the Kerry campaign spent on Latino outreach -- less than $1 million, he said. I wholeheartedly agree that the Kerry campaign's Latino outreach was for shit. Perhaps because so many in Kerry's campaign were Northeasterners, they didn't appreciate the importance of the rapidly growing Latino vote, which is mostly in the West (including California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico) and in Florida.
- Dean stated that most state parties are weak and so people don't give them money and so they are weak and so... A 50-state strategy, he said, means "Show up!" He said that the red state of Montana now has a Democratic governor and a Democratic legislature. "If we can do that in Montana, we can do that anywhere," he said.
- Rosenberg, in what appeared to possibly have been a swipe at Dean, stated that Dean's former campaign manager, Joe Trippi, has endorsed him. (Trippi, I understand, was worshipped by the Deaniacs second to Dean. Dean didn't respond to Rosenberg's remark about Trippi's endorsement.)
- "We have to break the consultant culture in Washington," Frost stated. I agree. (There's a good AlterNet.org article on this topic here.) "This is a national party and there are bright, able-bodied people all over the nation and I want to put them to work," Frost said.
- Dean stated that he wants to be DNC chairman because he believes that the Democratic Party is the best vehicle with which to return the United States to sane government. (I agree. I flirted with the Green Party for a while [I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000] and I still agree with its philosophy, but if we want to destroy Sauron, we have to have a fellowship of the ring, and the Democratic Party is the best way for us splintered groups -- feminists, people of color, gay men and lesbians, environmentalists, labor unionists, pacifists, sane people, et. al. -- to come together in order to destroy the evil that threatens us all.)
- Fowler noted the animosity, antagonism and mistrust between the state parties and the DNC. "We need to rebuild the state parties and the local parties," he said. I wholeheartedly agree. The DNC needs to stop dictating from Washington, D.C., to us rabble, and we rabble need to start dictating to the DNC in Washington, D.C.
- Echoing Dean's earlier statement, Rosenberg said the Democratic Party has been treating its members as "ATM machines" rather than as "partners." He called for a cultural change within the party in which the party members are seen as "partners, not donors." (Praise the Lord! If you know someone who asks you for money every time you see him -- who, indeed, just expects you to fork over cash -- but who never gives you anything, who doesn't listen to what you have to say and who overall takes you for granted, when he comes around you're going to run like hell. Why should it be any different between the Democratic Party's leadership and its members?)
- Rosenberg said that we Democrats have to be "fiercer," that we have to fight. I think that I have the fierce thing down. Start copying me, peeps!
- In his closing statement, Fowler remarked, "We're a party that stands up and fights -- when we are led the right way. Ask Barbara Boxer!" He got applause, as every mention of Boxer today got applause.
- In his closing statement, Leland reminded us that the Democratic Party led the way in World War I and World War II; established Social Security and Medicare; established the Environmental Protection Agency; presided over the longest period of economic expansion in the nation's history; and, among other things, was instrumental in putting a man on the moon.
- Roemer saved any mention of the most controversial thing about him -- his personal opposition to abortion -- until his closing statement. (His stance on abortion had been the elephant in the room, so to speak. Har har.) Roemer said that he supports Roe v. Wade but like to see a decline in the number of abortions that women elect to have. (I don't think his stance is unreasonable. My own position on abortion is that while I would hope that with contraception and family planning more and more pregnancies are prevented than are terminated after they have begun, no woman should be forced to carry a baby that she does not wish to carry. All of that said, however, I think that of the seven candidates, Roemer -- while he struck me as a well-meaning man -- would be the worst choice of DNC chair. If we want to take care of our base, alienating at least half of it is, um, not a very good idea. Roemer's election as DNC chair would send, fairly or unfairly, accurately or inaccurately, the message to women that the Democratic Party is no longer their party. The Democratic Party absolutely cannot afford to do that.)
- In his closing statement, Dean, the last to give a closing statement, said the role of the DNC chairperson is to energize the party's base and to give people a reason to support the party. He said that as DNC chair he would raise money for the party, make sure that the state parties have the infrastructure that they need, and, "most of all," he said, he would emphasize the true moral values of the Democratic Party. At the conclusion of his remarks at the forum he received ear-piercing applause (really -- it hurt my ears).
Again, if a triumvirate chaired the Democratic National Committee, I would choose Dean, Fowler and Rosenberg, but that's not the way it works, so if I had to whittle it down to just one person, it would have to be Dean.
My long-time readers know that I opposed Dean as the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, that I supported Kerry as early as June 2003, and may find it odd that I support Dean now as DNC chair.
But there's a big difference between a Democratic presidential candidate and the DNC chair and there is a big difference in the political context.
I believed and still believe that Kerry was the best candidate among those vying for the Democratic presidential nomination to take on BushCheneyCorp in November. Had Dean gotten the nomination, I believe, Bush would have received the actual mandate in November that he falsely claims to have received.
The need at the time was Bush removal. Bush can't get a third term -- unless he figures out a way to subvert that constitutional law, too -- and so the goal now isn't Bush removal (as much as we'd like to see Bush removed), but is reforming the Democratic Party so that it can win in 2006 and 2008 and beyond.
Dean's ability to energize people, to draw apolitical and disaffected people into the political process, to organize and to raise money is proven. That he lost the Democratic presidential nomination is due in no small part to the fact that the Democratic deadwood in Washington vehemently opposed him. Now that the party has lost three elections, however -- 2000, 2002 and 2004; strike one, strike two, strike three -- it's pretty apparent to a majority of Democrats, I think, that the same Democratic deadwood that opposed Dean and is responsible for three consecutive biennial election losses has struck out and needs to be replaced.
We tried it their way; their way failed.
It's time to try it Dean's way.
It's time for the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party to take back the party and then to take back the nation for the good of all Americans and for the good of the world.
10:15:28 PM 
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