Saturday, November 18, 2006

Why do the Dems like to punish success?

DNC Chairman Howard Dean finds himself defending his strategy just 10 days after a monumental Democratic victory (third myth down). I'm not a fan of Mr. Dean, but I have to give credit to him on his 50 State Strategy. For too long now the Dems have run from any fight they think they can't win. By definition, the scope of obvious wins goes down every year, and the Dems were dutifully following that spiral towards irrelevancy. Dean's plan to spend money in every state, even state's where the party won't win is not only a challenge to a fight, but it lays down roots for victory later. In the short term, it causes the GOP to spend money and fight in areas it has locked up (every Presidential election the GOP candidate heads to CA, they know they won't win, but it forces the Dem to go back to a strong-hold, spend time and money, and is always good for some press about how the GOP may have a chance this time - great strategy), and you never know where you're going to get lucky. Pressure causes mistakes, and heading into the stretch, a lot of Republican's who looked safe found themselves in a fight, and some lost. Dean, for all of his flaws sees this. He believes that the only way the Dems can grow is to go after the "guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks." I got that. I'm from the south, these guys exist and the Dems have written them off (Insert snide comment about the liberal North East media, ie Yankees not understanding the south here). In any case, for too long the party has had a strong NE bias, which shows in election results.

The combination of the NE bias and the fear of getting into fights they can't win doomed the Dems. Dean's nuts, but at least he's not afraid to fight, and he knows you can't win on the NE alone.

However, since Dean bucked both of those long held Democratic beliefs and won, he must be cast from the party lest success breed more success.

Finally, why anyone listens to Carville just amazes me.

1 comment:

Muscles for Justice said...

Dysfunctioncrats

http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F40611FF34550C728CDDA90994DE404482