If I were one of the 477 members of the party who could vote for the next DNC chairman, I’d support Simon Rosenberg. That said, I’m starting to think the panic over Howard Dean’s chances is getting ridiculous.
[W]ith the DNC meeting approaching on Feb. 12, party insiders have been conducting an urgent, so far fruitless, search for a consensus Dean-stopper. The Clintons don’t like Dean on substance or style, seeing him as too left and too loose-lipped. But they’re being careful. Hillary, already eying a presidential run in 2008, doesn’t want to alienate the possible winner; she’s leaving DNC maneuvers to Bill, whose answer last month was to sound out current chairman Terry McAuliffe about remaining in the job. (He declined.) The Clintons are said to have encouraged a good friend, veteran organizer Harold Ickes, to enter the chairman’s race, but he begged off, too. Party leaders approached former senator Bob Kerrey, but he told them he would rather keep his job as president of the New School University.
Last week the search for a surefire Dean-stopper (if there is one) reached new levels, Newsweek has learned, with several governors — among them Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania and Bill Richardson of New Mexico — trying to gin up a last-ditch plan: let Dean be chairman, but confine his role to pure nuts-and-bolts duties by layering him with a new “general chairman” spokesman for the party. They abandoned the idea after realizing that they didn’t have the votes to change the rules — and because the person they wanted to take the new role, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, told them she had no interest.
The fact that Dean is generating this kind of opposition from party leaders speaks to a broader problem: Dean burned a lot of bridges during his presidential run and most have not been rebuilt. How he’d function as party chair despite having half the Dems hate him remains something of a mystery.
Regardless, the lengths his opponents are going to are absurd. Letting Dean take over the “nuts-and-bolts duties” doesn’t even make any sense — he was the candidate in a poorly run campaign. Dean excelled, at least before the Iowa caucuses, because he inspired his followers, not because he was a brilliant tactician and manager.
Shaun at Upper Left summarized the problem nicely:
But his greatest value is as a spokesman. If you don’t want him speaking for the Party (as if you could stop him, titles notwithstanding), then don’t elect him. Don’t, though, give him a title and then muzzle him. It’s pointless.
Want to share the responsibilities? Put Howard on the talk shows and give Simon Rosenberg the nuts-and-bolts job. Simon’s a proven pro in that arena.
Sounds good to me.