Reply #3: First Read comments on this omission. [View All]

[madfloridian]

"*** Snubbing Dean? After delivering his speech on the stimulus today, Obama will head to Democratic National Committee to hold a press conference with the man he has selected to lead his party, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. But there will be one notable absence -- Howard Dean, the current DNC chair. Dean is reportedly traveling today to American Samoa, but had he been invited to participate at today’s event, those travel plans could always be rescheduled. Why wasn’t Dean invited? Your guess is as good as ours. While it would be wrong to suggest that Obama’s victory in November was somehow directly tied to Dean, the former Vermont governor did provide Obama with a roadmap he used (internet fundraising, 50-state strategy, a people-powered campaign). Perhaps more important, as head of the DNC, Dean was a pretty even-handed referee during the contentious Obama-Clinton fight. Does anyone not think that the decisions on the disputed Florida and Michigan primaries would have turned out differently had a Terry McAuliffe or Harold Ickes been DNC chairman instead? No doubt that Obama will have some nice words about Dean, and Obama’s transition office insists they aren’t snubbing Dean here. But the current chairman’s absence is hard to explain away."

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/01/08/1736885.aspx