With a new Dem president (or even, heaven forbid, without), there will be a shakeup in the DNC in 2009. Should Dean not be interested in continuing as chair, who should we back?
Clinton is the only Dem presidential candidate who refuses to use VoteBuilder, preferring an entirely separate voter list. I conclude from this that she is absolutely hostile to continuing to invest in grassroots organization, but she is certainly not the only Democrat who would like to funnel money to consultants and other bullshit artists instead of organizers.
We need to plan how to fight back now. The internet combined with old-fashioned personal connection skills has remade politics in many places. How do we keep this going?
The following article is a nice take on how NH turned blue in 2004.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chaz-proulx/how-the-2004-primary-help_b_78008.htmlWhen Carol won the primary the campaign had about $19,000 dollars--not nearly enough to run television ads. The NH press declared that Carol Shea-Porter's campaign was dead in the water--arguing that Carol had lost the momentum needed to win in the general election. But we weren't running a conventional campaign at all, and frankly neither the media nor the NHDP knew how to evaluate it.
Of course a little nay saying always makes victory even sweeter! On election eve, the New Hampshire Democratic Party and the NH media were caught totally off-guard. Carol Shea Porter became the first women to represent New Hampshire in Washington and she did it on the lowest budget of any winning candidate in America. People in the Beltway are still asking her how she did it.
Two factors changed everything. Carol Shea-Porter turned out to be a dream candidate. She was strong from the get go, but her development was breathtaking. I likened her run to the "Beatles in Berlin." Sometimes the right person at the right time transcends everything.
Secondly, Carol's campaign was the culmination of all the lessons learned in 2004. A small group of very hard working people and a great candidate went from obscurity to victory in eleven months. <snip>
DFNH endorsed and helped elect dozens of candidates. Democracy For American generously supported a lot of NH Candidates especially early on. DFNH is less of a force politically nowadays. But nearly all of the founders are involved in running campaigns and many have gone on to public office.
One further note. Howard Dean of course left the helm of Democracy for America to became the Chair of the Democratic National Committee.
Those of us who have seen firsthand the power of net root politics knew he had it right with the fifty state strategy.
One aspect of that strategy is the DNC funding of district coordinators. Here in NH I met Ian Graves, one of Dean's early appointees shortly after he arrived. Ian and I have worked together on a number of projects and now he heads up all of the field operations for the NHDP. He is the strategist who is integrating all of the best practices learned since 04. In other words party building in New Hampshire will continue to reach new levels.
What goes around comes around--thanks Howard for everything.
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