At this point it's widely assumed that Howard Dean will be a shoo-in as Democratic Party Chairman when the DNC votes on Saturday. (American Prospect Co-Editor Robert Kuttner has a column in today's Boston Globe that assesses Dean's strengths and weaknesses as a prospective chairman, and also does a little retrospective analysis of Dean's presumptive victory. Great line: "While Dean is a great organizer, he is not famous for being well organized." You're too kind by half, Bob.)
I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican--or maybe it's more accurate to say that I'm a little bit of both--but I think it's vital that the Dems get their act together now, because the current state of one-party domination is not healthy for any (small-d) democratic society. Power corrupts, and all that.
So any policy differences aside, I want Dean to succeed in a big way. But disappointed Deaniacs who want him to use the chairman's role as a bully pulpit to shape party policy (or even as a staging ground for a comeback run in 2008) shouldn't hold their breath just yet.
Dean certainly expects to do more as party chairman than raise money. But bringing in the big bucks is his first responsibility, and his leverage to accomplish anything more will be directly proportional to his success (or failure) as a fundraiser. Firing up the faithful (Ed.: Insert Iowa joke here) just isn't enough.
For Dean, that means plenty of schmoozing with labor leaders, Hollywood heavies and other traditional Democratic donors. But a major part of Dean's appeal is the expectation that he'll be able to draw heavily on his 2004 campaign experience as an online fundraiser par excellence.
So...will he? I'm doubtful. Although the Dean campaign made plenty of mistakes, they were lean and nimble--in a word, entrepreneurial--in their approach to online fundraising, making effective use of the resources at hand, and changing tools and tactics to suit the situation. I don't think anyone would describe the DNC bureacracy that way.
When it came to online fundraising, the Dean campaign got it. But whether Howard Dean himself still has it, and whether he can successfully spread it through the rest of the Democratic party are open questions.
