The Hill, the daily paper written for and about Congress, completely
nails Howard Dean's legacy at the DNC.
Although I was never particularly crazy about pre-or-post scream Dean during the 2004 primaries, I always thought he was the right person to run the Democratic Party the following year for exactly the same reasons I didn't think he was fit to run the country in the first place: 1.) he's an uncompromising jerk and 2.) he plays by his own rules.
And he's made it work.
While most lamented Dean's unpopular 50-state strategy, I supported the idea simply because it made so much sense. Why not try to get a Democratic presence in traditionally Republican counties and states? Isn't that the whole point of governing nationally? Aren't we in this to win it?
After an admittedly
shaky start, Dean eventually changed the way Democrats looked at the electoral map and, in the process, mapped out the red-and-blue-bricked road to the White House.
He also saved the Democratic Party from oblivion.
Since the
Deaniacs fired the first salvo in early 2004, the Democrats have been fighting over which direction to take the Party, either further to the center or back to the left. This internal struggle played itself out in operatic fashion during the contentious 2008 primary between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Hillary, of course, represented the moderate,
Terry McAuliffe wing of the Party; while Obama stood for the so-called Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party, a new generation of progressive Democrats, mainly younger Dems like myself and, yes, the untethered Deaniacs, who were not at all happy with Hillary's or other Democrats' votes for the Iraq war, among a myriad of other issues. Hillary and Obama's seemingly endless primary battle was, for all intents and purposes, a fight not only for the nomination but a fight for the Party itself. (Think back to which superdelegates backed which candidate and why).
Obama's victory, then, was also a triumph for Dean and his take-back-the-party policies.
At the same time, Dean also helped change the nature of fundraising, which, during the Democratic primary, split along similar lines.
As Joshua Green reported in the
June issue of
The Atlantic, Hillary, the early favorite, locked up McAuliffe's prized big-ticket donors in the opening months of the 2008 primary season. Obama, on the other hand, improved upon Dean's 2004 fundraising model and put together a kick-ass network of smaller donors (mostly venture capitalists at first) that carried him all the way to Denver and through the presidential campaign.
After the primary, Obama wasted no time in going after as many states as possible. While he campaigned in traditional swing states like Ohio, Missouri and Florida, he also got aggressive in Colorado, Dean's pick to host the Democratic Convention. Obama also targeted New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Montana, Iowa and Indiana. Before McCain selected Palin as his running mate, Obama and his campaign even had their eyes on Alaska, believe it or not.
Before Dean's 50-state strategy, no Democrat in his or her right mind would have thought about attacking these states and, like Gore and Kerry, would have lost a close election. Obama, though, recognized the value of Dean's plan, and had the foresight, the financial resources, the organizational network and the political skills to make it happen.
If Obama wins tonight, as expected, historians and pundits will rightfully point to Dean's 2004 grass-and-netroots campaign and, later, his 50-state strategy as helping to pave the way for Obama's historic march to the White House.
They should also credit him for breathing new life into a moribund Party and, with more than a little help from Obama's once-in-a-lifetime candidacy and George W. Bush's atrocious policies, giving Democrats another opportunity to govern after eight long years in the wilderness.
