The Dream Behind The DNC Election
by John Drury Not surprisingly, this blog has had its share of articles this
past week on Governor Dean’s election as Chairman of the Democratic
National Committee.
There’s
no doubt the party needed new leadership and while I think the Governor
has an outstanding ability to lead and will bring a fresh look to the
job, I think it’s more important to be ever mindful of his message.
Governor
Dean spoke of the people. He said that the people could stand up, take
back their country from the corporate giants and once again be a
government of the people. I don’t recall him saying if elected, that he
could do this alone. He always emphasized that the people have the
power to do this and I think that is what we should keep front and
center in our minds as we move to the mid-term elections in 2006 and
beyond.
Governor
Dean inspired millions of people with his message. The people in this
country do have the power to take back their country—but no matter who
leads our party, if we continue as we have been, it will not happen.
During
my campaign for the Iowa Senate, we made the case for a better north
Iowa. We made the case that we could beat an incumbent with a record of
inactivity matched only by five other Senators. We made the case that
we could win the election with strong grassroots campaigning and about
half the amount of money that is typically spent in an Iowa Senate
campaign. We knocked on thousands of doors, and we ran a positive
campaign on the issues. We did all of these things and yet we still
lost.
I can
remember the early days of the campaign. We held committee meetings and
only a few party faithfuls would show up. We expressed hope that Bush
and his scorched earth policies would certainly make this the year of
the Democrats down the line and with the idea that people would
eventually come out of the woodwork to help in this campaign. I didn’t
worry too much about the light attendance early on, but I can
remember saying that if we had this turnout at an October meeting, we
would be in trouble.
The
truth is, the people didn’t come out. In fact, we struggled to find
people to hold key positions in the campaign. Darrell Lewis was
campaign chair, treasurer, and webmaster all wrapped into one very
efficient package.
Don’t
get me wrong, the support we did have was very much appreciated, and I
met a lot of great people. And I suppose it could always be said that I
didn’t rally the troops. But in retrospect, I don’t think a Democrat
had a chance of winning this seat. I never believed that Kerry was our
best choice of candidates, certainly not one that cared to win from the
bottom of the ticket up, anyhow. And Karl Rove driving the Republican
message of “be afraid, be very afraid” didn’t help our cause either.
But
that’s not the point, my point is this: Governor Dean’s message was
never about Governor Dean. It was about how a Democracy should be run.
It was about how everyday people like you and me can and should have a
voice in our government. It was about how people who get up to go to
work every day ought to have the right to join a union. The Democrats
have a strong, and yes, moral message and we must not run from it.
Again, he spoke of the people having the power to take back their
country from corporate America. (Perhaps if he’d only used the words
evil-doers instead of corporate America, but I digress …) We must
listen to his message and yes, take back our country.
But in
order to do that, we must start now. We must be organized, we must pay
attention to what our government is doing, we must comment on the
issues, and we must be ready to help our candidates in any way that we
can. It’s more important to know where we want to go than it is to be
the driver getting us there. Chairman Dean is our driver; let’s tell
him where we want to go and how to get there.
Blog For Iowa 
You make some excellent points there, John. The only thing I totally disagree with is that somehow people might say that, in your campaign, you did not rally the troops. I've never seen anyone work as hard as you did and inspire so many. I think the Dems had the same problem across the state – pre-caucus burnout which led to poor volunteer turnout. And, of course, the Republican incumbents crawling into little foxholes to avoid both public discourse and taking any kind of responsibility for the damaging policies they helped push through.
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I'm tired of the constant post mortems dealing with last year's election. Yes we have valuable lessons to learn. With that said. It's time we pick ouselves back up off the mat and go out fighting. I was glad to see Dean win the Chairmanship. Like a prize fighter He was the last man standing. However a prize fighter never goes in the ring alone. Therefore I suggest we help him in any way we can. We should help eachother out as well and have eachothers back. I watched the documantary “Bush's Brain”. If we think Karl Rove is bad. I have a feeling there will be someone worse than him.
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John, thanks for your post and efforts in this last election. While I am from Des Moines and haven't met you I heard lots of good things about you and your campaign from my sister who is from Forest City and helped on your campaign. It didn't surprise me to hear about the talents of Darrell Lewis either. My sister talked about his contribution and leadership on Gov. Dean and your campaigns.
So glad to see Gov. Dean as DNC Chair. We Still have the Power. Gov. Dean gave it to us!!
Keep up the fight John!
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Dear Ace of Spades–
Blog for Iowa rarely runs post mortems of last years' elections. I think you've missed the point. John is saying exactly what you are saying that we should do.
Rove is the architect to the foxhole like system his incumbents used in the past few elections. We'll be dealing with that again.
Not looking too far ahead, since we still need to deal with 2006, but we're going to have to find a way to not burn out during the 2008 pre-caucus presidential and then leave all our state and local candidates hanging like we did this time.
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Thanks for the comments Dennis. I appreciate the support. Darrell is fairly amazing and worked very hard for me as did many others. My column wasn't intended to be a post mortem on the election, more of a pep talk. You're right, we do have the power but only if we seize it and seize it we will! Thanks again.
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Have you served in the Iowa Legislature yet, where you in the House? The Iowa Democratic Senate is JUST itching and dying to get a majority, and another intelligent progressive in their ranks like Joe Bolkcom, Quirmbach and fellow Dean supporter Daryl Beall would be great. I don't know where you live but key Republican state senators that need ousting ones like Brunkhorst, Putney, IVERSON (surrounded by more moderate and left Democratic Districts of Quirmbach, Beall, Kibbie), McKibben, David Miller in the southern part of Iowa around Fairfield. Just thinking all the people who tried to run for a national congressional seat should easily get enough support, money, and infrastructure to unseat quite a few Repuglican state seats in the legislature, specifically the Senate.
Chris Butts
ex-Iowa Senate Democratic Research Staff Intern
(Public Relations)
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I ran against Thurman Gaskill in the 6th Senate District. Unfortunately we didn't get enough votes to pull it off. I won't comment on the Senate itching to get a majority.
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Bummer, sorry to hear that, I had forgot. I was under the wrong impression that you were running against one of the US Congressmen. Sorry to pick at a raw wound there. Were you one of the ones gutted by EX-IDP Chair Gordon's refusal to give money to Dean supported candidates? Those Republicans got their revenge on Sawtelle for running against McKibben and kept him from gaining a commission seat.
As a college intern this spring, I helped manage a Democratic senator townhall roadshow that traveled through Iverson's district, and the people seemed thoroughly receiptive and happy to have Senators Quirmbach, Beall, and freshman Frank Wood come by and give thier take and answers for issues and questions they had vs intransigent Iverson.
Let's just keep working on getting Iowa moving in a positive direction, in our own spheres. Atleast, legislation was passed that was in the right direction concerning part of the renewable energy and environment issues, education and health got a boost. If it wasn't for House Rants, all of what the Senate did considering the deadlock is good and should be passed, in that if you saw some of the possible bad it's a relief.
Daryl Lewis and I, got to know each other pretty well during the Boston DNC. I knew he was helping manage your campaign, but I didn't delve deeply into what he was doing exactly, because I was focused on my local stuff.
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Well, the reason for us not getting any money from the party is anyone's guess.
But only one person knows why the Senate Democratic leader announced to the press early on that they were targeting my race and going after Gaskill, when in fact they were not.
I'm glad you had a good time being an intern and there's no doubt Iverson is a no show at most events.
As far as the positive accomplishments this past session… there were some. But we passed a ridiculous seed bill that makes absolutely no sense, and we added more casinos to a low wage state.
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Oh I whole hardily agree about the GMO seed bill debacle, which split the caucus.
I sometimes look askance at a couple of the freshmen who got elected and beat Republicans in that I wonder if it was more due to being beholden to big ag money. I didn't understand why Sen. Rielly barely out of being elected was hard on trying to get the GMO bill created/passed. I did my best behind scenes, emailing all of the Ag Committee Senators info on GMO seeds to hope they wouldn't pass it out of the committee. It got to the floor, and of course most of the Republicans were for it. Some in trying to argue against it tried to frame it as undercutting local control to get the 'local control- states rights' type of Republicans to vote against.
That's another odd hinge point for progressives in that in some areas there's a point for local control, but then othertimes to keep from blatant regional abuse statewide regulation is needed. Some Senators who are well meaning liberals, get caught on the 'wrong' side of the fence, IMHO in situations because they decide it's an all or nothing decision concerning local regulation vs statewide standards.
Okay, this is my last post, won't bother you anymore.
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… and DON'T get me going about casinos and state supported gambling. It's volunteer taxes with a promise of a huge rebate at a chance of 10,000 or more to 1. And just like with anything else, those with more money get a better payoff at high dollar games.
Feed 'em bread and entertain with the Circus and gladiator fights.
Add the Nascar Welfare check to that, like as if because Democrats voted for it too, we'll win the Nascar-vote from Bush, right. I made jokes on the Senate floor, but you know those guys will use that vote in their next election as proof they brough economic growth and entertainment to Iowa. Those rich ba$tards had nore than enough to do it all with or without govt $$, and Sen. Kreiman's attempt to amend the bill to make sure the state got their money back if it became profitable was voice voted down. If Rantrs wants to poor his bleeding heart about watching out for the taxpayers, that's one bill of corporate handout he could've nixed on the House side.
Okay, that does it. I must sleep now.
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