A rift seems to have developed of late between those who see the race for the DNC chairperson job as the most important decision the party could possibly make vs. those who see the race — and the job — as fairly meaningless. I don’t usually care for a split-the-difference approach, but I find myself somewhere in between.
Slate’s Chris Suellentrop, for example, implores people to “stop pretending the DNC can change the party.” Indeed, Suellentrop calls the post, “Washington’s political eunuch.”
Ed Rendell was so frustrated with his job as DNC chairman during Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign that he complained to the New Republic, “I basically take orders from 27-year-old guys in Nashville who have virtually no real-life experience. All they’ve done is been political consultants living in an artificial world, and basically their opinion counts more than mine.”
Terence Samuel, writing for The American Prospect, takes the opposite position, arguing that the next chair will force Dems to “decide just how left — or right — they’ll go.”
These are two top-notch writers, who lay out compelling views, but I think they’re both off-base. Worse, they both misstate what the DNC chair job is all about.
Whether Dems are successful in stopping Bush’s agenda, and advancing an agenda of their own, has everything to do with Dems who are actually holding elected office. Dem representatives, senators, and governors will be creating a policy agenda in the coming years, as well as mounting an aggressive opposition to Bush and the GOP.
What does the next chair of the DNC have to do with this? Very little. That’s just not the DNC’s job. Who ever succeeds Terry McAuliffe, he or she won’t have the ability to pull the party to the left or right, but he or she will be able to bring about critically important institutional changes.
The Gadflyer’s Bart Acocella summarized the job nicely the other day.
When are people going to understand? The party chief is a strategist, a spokesperson, an institution-builder, a fundraiser, a nuts-and-bolts mechanic. Not an ideological figure and most definitely not a policymaker.
These are hardly the responsibilities of a “political eunuch.” Indeed, the next chair’s success in these institutional areas will dictate how well the party does in the coming years. He or she will be modernizing the party structure, recruiting candidates, keeping the party on strong financial ground, and making investments that will have a direct impact on campaigns nationwide.
Will the next chair decide how far to the left or right the party will go? Definitely not; that’s policy makers’ role. But the chair will help decide how well the party structure operates.
It’s why I’ve been frustrated a bit by accounts characterizing the race for the job as a division between ideological factions. Even for party leaders who oppose Howard Dean because he’s perceived as “too liberal” or Tim Roemer because he’s “too conservative,” ideology and issue positions don’t make a lot of difference. As Paul Waldman noted:
Ask yourself whether Terry McAuliffe is a progressive or a centrist — or whether Ken Mehlman is a conservative or an ultraconservative. Chances are you have no idea, and no one really cares.
The real question for these candidates is what sort of transformation they want to affect in the party, and what their chances of success are in affecting that transformation.
Exactly. If you’re wondering whether the party is going to be effective in protecting Social Security, look to the Hill. If you’re wondering whether the party will be modernized and reformed internally, look to the DNC chair.