There have been plenty of developments in the last few days in the race to become the next chairperson of the Democratic National Committee. Two candidates have left the race, one has formally announced, another is facing an embarrassing reminder from 1993, and the frontrunner has picked up a key endorsement.
First up, Harold Ickes, rumored to be Hillary Clinton’s top choice, and Ron Kirk, whose stature appeared to be on the rise, have withdrawn from consideration.
The field of potential candidates for Democratic National Committee chairman shrank by two yesterday when former White House deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes and former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk announced they had decided not to enter the competition.
Kirk, the 2002 Democratic candidate for Senate in Texas, gave a boost to former House member and fellow Texan Martin Frost by endorsing his candidacy, while Ickes, a veteran party strategist, said he would defer supporting another candidate.
Kirk had wowed a recent audience of state party chairs and seemed to have some momentum. His support for Frost could give the former House member a boost. Kirk, meanwhile, is considering another run for Senate, especially if Kay Bailey Hutchison runs for governor of Texas, as is expected.
Next up is Simon Rosenberg, a personal favorite of mine.
Simon Rosenberg, founder of the centrist New Democrat Network, has decided to run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, according to an aide.
Rosenberg, a 41-year-old activist based in Washington, plans a Thursday announcement at the National Press Club to talk about his goals for the national party, said the aide, Guillermo Meneses. Rosenberg has been calling DNC members for weeks to test the waters.
But wait; there’s more.
Former House Rep. and Dem member of the 9/11 Commission Tim Roemer continues to be very much in the mix. Indeed, rumors are he’s received considerable support from congressional leaders including Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Ideologically, however, Roemer is in for a tough ride. First, he’s opposed to abortion rights, which puts him at odds with most of the party. Second, he’s expressed some sympathies for privatizing Social Security, which for most of us, is Dem heresy.
But Josh Marshall noted a third and potentially fatal mark on Roemer’s record: He voted with the Republicans against the economic plan that created the strongest and longest period of prosperity in American history and with the Republicans for the most destructive budget plan in American history.
Roemer was one of the Democrats that voted against the Clinton budget of 1993 — the one that in the end won by a single voted and cost Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky and so many others their seats. (Not just the big vote, but a number that led up to it.) Then he was one of an even smaller number of Democrats who voted for President Bush’s 2001 Budget bill. If I’m not mistaken, he was one of only 9 Dems in the House to vote to make the Bush cuts permanent the following year.
Thanks for stopping by the booth, Mr. Roemer, but you have no shot at this job so you might as well drop out of the running now.
And, finally, the presumptive favorite for the post, a guy by the name of Howard Dean, has picked up a key endorsement that may help him secure the chairmanship.
Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) is actively lobbying Democratic National Committee (DNC) delegates to select former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean as their next chairman.
The endorsement of the leading antiwar presidential candidate by one of the Democrats’ most prominent early supporters of the Iraq invasion signals a rehabilitation of Dean’s image in the House and greatly increases his prospects of leading the party, many Democratic lawmakers and aides said.
Several lawmakers said support by the hardscrabble, old-school Vietnam veteran, who endorsed former Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) in the presidential primaries, would compel the DNC to take a second look at the firebrand governor and not simply write him off as an extreme avatar of the party’s antiwar wing.
At Dean’s request, Murtha wrote to Pennsylvania’s seven delegates to the DNC last week explaining why he is endorsing a candidate with whom he shares so few positions.
“I am not with him on all the issues, but he understands the party’s problems, what we need to do and how to get there,” said Murtha. “And he has executive experience. … A lot of people in the party don’t understand just where we are. We need a change. We need something different.”
One senior lawmaker, who asked not to be named in order to speak more candidly about internal party matters, said his colleagues would be shocked to hear of Murtha’s support for Dean. The lawmaker added, “Maybe we’ll all have to take a second look. A lot of us will.”
This is a pretty big deal for Dean. If Murtha’s on board, it’s considerably tougher for Dean’s critics to dismiss him as the favorite of the “hard-left” wing of the party.
In addition to the aforementioned candidates, still in the mix are activist/consultant Donnie Fowler, former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, former Michigan Gov. Jim Blanchard, former Texas Democratic chair Molly Beth Malcolm, former Denver mayor Wellington Webb, and former Mississippi governor Ray Mabus.
Party leaders will get together this weekend for the first of four regional conferences for potential candidates. Expect an announcement in about a month when the DNC meets in Washington for its annual meeting.