I’d also like to mention that Hodes is a team player. Back in January, here in MA, he answered the call. In Lowell and Gloucester, that I know of for sure, his staff hit the streets for the big push. Imo, as Massachusetts activists, we should honor Paul’s answer to our call. Please take this into consideration.
This event will be held at Portsmouth Gas Light in Portsmouth on Sunday, March 7, from 5:30 to 6:30 PM. Tickets are only $20, but the space is limited so click here to register today!
I’m going just so I can ask Howard Dean, if he would consider being Obama’s COS? ;v)
If not, maybe take the helm of OFA?
_
Please share widely!
Name me three positive things that Tim Kaine has done as DNC Chair. Or two.
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p>I’d take one.
Why would Dean want his old job?
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p>Let’s think of a title with some POP!
Brokered differences between and among the various regional, congressional and socioeconomic iterations of progressive, populist and liberal factions within the Party. (Dean fans often forget that the Fifty State Strategy was based more on anti-Bush co-belligerency with conservative populism – e.g. James Webb – than progressivism per se.)
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p>Kept open civil war from breaking out between netroots and grassroots – as in Massachusetts we’re talking different constituencies – with the latter being much larger on the ground, while the former has more input with the MSM and other elites.
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p>And a third thing:
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p>Kept open a window of opportunity to do damage control.
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p>It was an essentially thankless job where successes (of political necessity) were not publicized, and Kaine deserves credit.
“Brokered differences between and among the various regional, congressional and socioeconomic iterations of progressive, populist and liberal factions within the Party. (Dean fans often forget that the Fifty State Strategy was based more on anti-Bush co-belligerency with conservative populism – e.g. James Webb – than progressivism per se.)”
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p>So the Blue Dogs are on board with the national party’s program? And the 50-State Strategy, only proposed by Dean and nobody else over the barking of Rahm and his DLC kin, is inherently progressive through replacing Republican senators in Alaska, Montana, Virginia, etc., with Democratic Senators.
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p>And now Kaine gets credit because people who type are too busy checking out of this Democratic government to yell at people who call? That’s ridiculous. I get that you’re a Kaine fan, but you may as well credit him for the fact that Democratic activists haven’t built roadblocks around DNC HQ.
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p>A few caveats:
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p>While Emmanuel did oppose the Fifty-State strategy, there was backing from field people within the DNC, DCCC and DSCC staffs; and field-literate outside players, such as Mudcat Saunders.
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p>The DLC reference is inaccurate: Emmanuel is a Chicago machine Democrat, with the hard-wired contempt for goo-goos inherent in player culture.
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p>The political cultures of Alaska, Montana, and Virginia are populist-libertarian, not progressive in the Massachusetts sense of the term. (Massachusetts isn’t progressive either, but I digress…)
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p>Exclusive of the D.C. suburbs, the political culture in Virginia is,in fact anti-progressive, as was proved in last cycle’s elections.
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p>Montana and Alaska are frontier-populist; and their progressive iterations reflect that fact, being largely libertarian. These local cultures have major differences with the bicoastal elitism indicative of progressivism here in the Commonwealth. If one makes an allowances for state-specific differences, a good example of western populist-libertarian-progressivism can be found in the Alaskan blog Mudflats
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p>While I’m hardly a Kaine acolyte, I have to give due credit to the difficulties of his job in today’s political environment.