Our Debt of Gratitude to Howard Dean
by Bob Johnson, Daily Kos
Howard Dean was a hell-raiser back in the last presidential election. He called the Iraq war what it was: one of the worst and most costly foreign policy mistakes this nation has ever made.He said the media monopolies needed to be broken up for the good of the country.
He said Democrats needed to “build a bench” of local and statewide office holders in all 50 states in order to compete with the bench the Republicans had created for themselves.
He noted that Democrats needed to focus on winning governorships and secretary of state offices across the country to prevent Republicans from pulling the kind of election shenanigans they pulled in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio and elsewhere in 2004.
He argued for competing in all 50 states; for building stronger state parties even in states that the old-guard, DLC “brain trust” the Clintons had assembled had written off in favor of focusing on “races we can win” and on the same old swing states.
Howard built the model for running a campaign from the bottom up, both in money donors and volunteers, rather than top-down like the campaigns being run by the same, old, tired Beltway consultants.
(more)
Blog For Iowa 