dean

Issue #44

Last Update March 2, 2006

National Chairman Dean by Gerry Krownstein Over the muted objections of party leaders and Congressional Democrats, Howard Dean has been elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Dean's tenure may not assure Democratic victory in the midterm Congressional elections or the 2008 Presidential contest, but failure to put him in the Chairman's office would have assured defeat. No other Democratic leader of stature has shown a willingness to take the fight to the enemy, a requirement if the take-no-prisoners, compromise-is-treason, truth-is-what-we-say-it-is Republican party to be defeated.

Dean has been called angry and abrasive. Anger is certainly called for; time will tell whether abrasiveness is a handicap. What is clear is that Democrats acting as Republicans Lite only draw scorn from the opposition and much of the electorate. Dean will have to concentrate on two areas badly neglected by the national party: building local strength for local, state and national candidates; and acting as party spokesman to project Democratic policies and expose the true import of Republican policies and proposals to the public.

These are both roles at which he excels. Dean's strength in the primaries was to mobilize an enthusiastic grass roots base. It has been more than a generation since ordinary citizens found anything to be enthusiastic about at the DNC. He was also not afraid to speak clearly about Republican moves and actions, and to respond vigorously to Republican attacks on Democratic candidates and policies.

His two main projects, then, are to rebuild the party's grass roots strength, and to put heart into it. What will he face in doing so? A Republican attempt to portray him as an unstable wild man, and his policies (however moderate in actuality) as radical liberalism out of step with mainstream America has already begun, and Dean loyalists are confident he can deal with these attacks. A more difficult challenge will be opposition from within the Democratic Party itself. Party hacks will feel challenged by enthusiastic grass roots pressure, organized outside the traditional party hierarchy. Some party functionaries at the local and national level will get with the new program; others will drag their heels and try to make this uncomfortable "citizen democracy" and its leader go away. Similarly, Congressional Democrats, used to being steamrollered by the opposition and cringing before the wrath of economic conservatives and the Christian right, will have to adapt or be replaced. The less adaptable will not go quietly.

Dean has intelligently targeted for local organizing those red states that went for Bush by a narrow margin. Recapturing these states (several of them in the South) would cripple the Republican power base and remove some of pressure currently felt by local, state and national office holders to drift rightwards. As for Congress, he has been cautiously feeling his way to an accommodation that will yet allow him to deal with Republican attacks as they should be dealt with: promptly, positively and with strength.

Dean has the right program: organize locally and fight hard nationally. If he can avoid serious blunders, he may yet save the party, and with it, the country.