A Warning from the Architect of the Democratic Victories

I've been a Deaniac since 2003 and I'm telling you, Howard Dean is always right.

Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars:

Sounds like Howard is trying his best to warn the Obama administration that they have to actually do something about the economy if they want a second term. Since he's been nothing but supportive of the president, I hope this sinks into the minds of Obama's campaign advisors, who seem to think it's simply a matter of repeating the same uplifting rhetoric that worked the first time:

Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman who helped Democrats capture the White House in 2008, warns that Sarah Palin could defeat President Obama in 2012.

Dean says his fellow Democrats should beware of inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom that Obama would crush Palin in a general-election contest next year.

“I think she could win,” Dean told The Hill in an interview Friday. “She wouldn’t be my first choice if I were a Republican but I think she could win." Dean warns the sluggish economy could have more of a political impact than many Washington strategists and pundits assume.

“Any time you have a contest — particularly when unemployment is as high as it is — nobody gets a walkover,” Dean said. “Whoever the Republicans nominate, including people like Sarah Palin, whom the inside-the-Beltway crowd dismisses — my view is if you get the nomination of a major party, you can win the presidency, I don’t care what people write about you inside the Beltway,” Dean said.

That would be the same Beltway Villagers who have been diligently rewriting history to erase the fact that before Howard Dean became DNC chair in early 2005, Democrats were Smirky/Darth's bitches - unable to win even gimme elections.

After Dean took over the DNC and installed the 50-State Strategy - that would be the same strategy violently opposed by Obama's BFF Rahm Emmanuel - Democrats took back the House of Representatives AND the Senate in 2006, and ran the table in 2008.

But Barack Obama made it quite clear, when after winning the 2008 election he kicked the man most responsible for that victory to the curb, that he doesn't give a flying fuck what Howard Dean thinks.

And that - almost as much as his constant conceding to rethuglicans and refusal to address the jobs crisis - is what will lead him to fail.

Put Up or Shut Up: How to Beat the Obamacare Repealers

Via Zandar, a piece of legislative fucking genius:

And that brings us to GOP Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who along with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, have come up with a wonderful plan to fix health care reform.

If the states can come up with better plans, let them. Ezra Klein explains:

This morning, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) introduced the “Empowering States to Innovate Act.” The legislation would allow states to develop their own health-care reform proposals that would preempt the federal government’s effort. If a state can think of a plan that covers as many people, with as comprehensive insurance, at as low a cost, without adding to the deficit, the state can get the money the federal government would’ve given it for health-care reform but be freed from the individual mandate, the exchanges, the insurance requirements, the subsidy scheme and pretty much everything else in the bill.

Wyden, with the help of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), was able to build a version of this exemption into the original health-care reform bill, but for various reasons, was forced to accept a starting date of 2017 -- three years after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act goes into effect. The Wyden/Brown legislation would allow states to propose their alternatives now and start implementing them in 2014, rather than wasting time and money setting up a federal structure that they don’t plan to use.

In general, giving the states a freer hand is an approach associated with conservatives. On Wednesday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) sent a letter to the Republican Governors Association advocating exactly that. “The most effective path to sustainable health care reform runs through the states, not Washington,” he wrote. If it’s really the case that the states can do health reform better, Wyden and Brown are giving them a chance to prove it.

Do this. This is brilliant, and something that I'd expect all 41 GOP Senators (and Mark Kirk when Illinois gets off their asses) to vote for. If your state can come up with a better plan than Obamacare, then prove it. We'll give you the money to do it.

And it gets even better.

Because the state most eager to prove that it does, indeed, have a better idea is not as you might imagine Texas, but Vermont. That's right: Howard Dean's own liberal, single-payer-loving Vermont.

Be still my lefty heart.

Read the whole thing.

"We need a spinal transplant in the Democratic Party to play hardball."

Do I really have to tell you who said that? If you still don't understand the difference between Rahm Emmanuel's rhetorical fake-tough and the genuine toughness of Howard Dean, watch this:



Full transcript here. (Scroll down for Dean interview.)

Calling General Dean

Cenk Uygur has a little history lesson with some superb advice:

General George McClellan had built a huge army during the Civil War. It was known as the Army of the Potomac. The problem was he built it and built it. And almost never used it. It seemed as if his objective was simply to make his army larger rather than actually using it to win the war. Eventually Lincoln had to fire him.

The parallels are striking. Rahm Emanuel seems to think his job is to grow the Democratic Party larger and larger, but he’s forgotten that his real objective is to win the war. We’re supposed to be aiming for real policy changes in the end. If we don’t get those policies, then Rahm’s Army of the Potomac will be useless.

The Democrats had huge majorities in the House and 60 senators, but Rahm kept telling us it’s not enough. There are too many conservative Democrats in the Senate, we need more than sixty we were told. That if we just gave Rahm a little larger army then he could engage the enemy. Now we’re down to 59 senators and I can guarantee you, we’re going to get the same argument but even louder. Build my army, build my army!

Fifty-nine senators is a perfectly sufficient army. Go forward. Engage. Fire. You have a colossal 18 senator lead. If you don’t fight with that kind of lead, you’re never going to fight and obviously you don’t know how to win.

It’s a really sad day when you turn Mitch McConnell into General Robert E. Lee. Obama has to at some point come to the same conclusion that Lincoln did when he said, "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time."

At some point we have to fight this war. I hope Obama gets there a little quicker than Lincoln did. I also hope he doesn’t go through the same kind of generals for years on end before he realizes he should bring in a guy like Ulysses S. Grant who doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty, using his troops and winning the war.

So, who is our Ulysses? If you ask me, it’s General Dean. You might be thinking it’ll be a cold day in hell before the placid Obama brings in a real fighter like Dean. I agree, except if the war is almost lost and you’re desperate for someone who can actually get the job done.

How do I know Howard Dean can get the job done? While he was at the DNC in the 2006 and 2008 campaigns, he was the one that whipped the Republicans and built that Democratic Army of the Potomac in the first place.

I'd just add that if the wingnuts want a war for the hell of it, what could be more entertaining than Howard vs. Rahm?

Dean's Clever Move

Yesterday, Traitor Joe implied that his real reason for rejecting the Medicare buy-in part of health care reform was the enthusiasm for the plan on the part of liberals like Rep. Anthony Weiner.

This exposes and confirms two long-standing accusation from liberals:

• President Obama and Congressional Democrats lost the health care reform battle a year ago when they rejected their best negotiating point: single-payer.
• Traitor Joe wants to ensure a gargantuan taxpayer handout to his buddies in Big Insurance, but his real motivation is fucking over liberals, regardless of the consequences.
  

Then last night, Howard Dean advised Democrats to kill the Senate bill.

For the physician, long-time reform advocate and former Democratic Party Chair, who just last week strongly endorsed the Medicare compromise in order to save the bill, to recommend starting over, was stunning.

Dean is generally considered to be part of the "policy wonk" faction on health care reform, emphasizing getting even a flawed bill that can be improved later, rather than the "political activist" faction insisting that only a strong public option will prevent a Democratic bloodbath in the 2010 elections.

But this statement makes me wonder if Dean, the architect of the 50-state strategy that achieved Democratic victory in 2006 and 2008, might just be playing rope-a-dope with Traitor Joe.

But don't listen to me, President Lierberman. You stick to your principles. Whatever they may happen to be this morning.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

Dean: Wire Hanger has "a lot of explaining to do"

The man who orchestrated the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006-2008 by rejecting Blue Dogs in favor of the 50-State Strategy took aim yesterday at Kentucky's own Blue Dog Extraordinaire, Wire Hanger.

Former Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean said Thursday that he was “deeply disappointed” in U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler’s vote against health care reform legislation last week, adding that Chandler will have to answer to Kentucky Democrats for it.

Speaking to The Courier-Journal’s editorial board, Dean said Chandler had a responsibility to vote with the Democratic majority for the bill after supporting an amendment that would bar federal money from being used to pay for most abortions.

Chandler was one of just 39 House Democrats who voted Saturday against the bill, which was approved 220-215.

“I think if you’re going to vote on the anti-abortion stuff, that’s your business. But then you ought to turn around and vote with the party on the rest of it,” said Dean, a former Vermont governor and a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004. “… I was deeply disappointed that he didn’t (vote with his party’s leadership), and he’s got a lot of explaining to do to Democrats all across Kentucky.”

Read the whole thing, including Wire Hanger's sniveling excuses.

Health Care Reform In the Meantime: Medicare for Those 50 to 64

While the blogosphere is busy covering the full spectrum of opinion on the "opt-out" public option trial balloon, from DINO apologists insisting it's the only way to get to 60 in the Senate to Firedoglake going on the warpath against it, Digby reminds us of a more pressing issue: What happens to people who need health insurance coverage now, when any reform won't kick in until 2013?

After Obama's HC speech last month, I noted this:

SNIP

A promise to provide low-cost, bare-bones policies right away--merely as a stopgap, until full reforms kick in.

This could be huge because it will get a lot of people under some kind of coverage immediately and, combined with the insurance reforms, may show enough people some benefits right away so the rest of the plan can kick in before the Republicans can demagogue their way back into office.

(Howard) Dean has been talking about this problem too, and his solution is even better:

To address that problem, Dean said Democrats need to do something that will have tangible results by next summer. His proposal: opening up Medicare to people over the age of 50 so that a "certain mass" of people will already have benefited from health reform by the elections. "You need to have people sign up for this program by July 2010," Dean said.

I've heard this before but it never seems to go anywhere. I'd be first in line to sign up for that plan. Even if it is eventually phased out it would be worth doing right now. The people my age --- and they are a huge group --- are in real trouble with the current economic mess --- lost their retirement nest eggs, their property values are in the dirt and their health care costs are insane. This would be very, very helpful.

Read the whole thing.

How to Talk About Health Care Reform

Via Down with Tyranny, Howard Dean at Netroots Nation explains:

Countdown Alert: Guest Host Howard Dean

Rejoice, Deaniacs! Our very own Howard is going to guest-host Countdown on MSNBC this Tuesday and Wednesday at 8 p.m.

Granted, Howard Dean does not have the world's most melifluous voice, but he doesn't have to do much to improve on Richard "I don't speak American" Wolffe, who guest-hosted Countdown on Friday and if there's any justice buried his TV career for good.

Keith Olbermann kept me going through the Smirky/Darth Interregnum, and I will always worship him for that. If it were up to me, he'd never be allowed to take a vacation or a sick day, especially now that Rachel has her own show and can't guest-host for him.

But if I can't have Keith, I'll take Howard.

Cancel your dinner plans, turn off the phone, shut the kids in the basement with the dog, and for good measure set the DVR. It's a whole, entire hour of Howard - two nights in a row.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

Person of the Quadrennium

Almost four years ago, on a freezing January night, more than 400 Kentucky Democrats overflowed a meeting room in downtown Lexington to listen to the most infamous losing presidential candidate in a generation.

Howard "The Scream" Dean electrified the crowd that night. With the state and national Democratic parties flat on their backs after the 2004 electoral defeat, the pugnacious ex-governor was rarin' for a fight.

Make me your national chair, he told the crowd, and I'll rebuild the grassroots state parties that made the Democratic Party dominant for 50 years. I'll support candidates who are proud Democrats, and I'll make sure your voice is heard.

It may take a generation, he warned, but we will rebuild a national party. No one, not even Dean himself, would have bet a nickel he'd do it - albeit with the help of a once-in-a-century candidate - in just four years.

Ari Berman in The Nation tells how he did it, and why we owe Howard everything.

It's a week after the election and Howard Dean is speaking at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, giving an unusually full-throated argument for Democratic Party organizing in Oklahoma, the only state where John McCain beat Barack Obama in every single county. "I don't know when we're going to win Oklahoma, but we have a Democratic governor from Oklahoma, we have a Democratic Congressman from Oklahoma and what we need to do is go to Oklahoma, show up and explain ourselves in terms of the values that Oklahomans hold." Those values, Dean argued, aren't so different from those of New York City or anywhere else commonly thought of as Democratic territory. It just so happens that Oklahoma's aforementioned governor, Brad Henry, had given Dean a pair of cowboy boots, which he wore, to somewhat hilarious effect, throughout the Democratic convention in Denver.

The former Vermont governor and chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has become an unlikely advocate for Democrats across the country, particularly in so-called red America. His passion for showing up in unexpected locales is not based on wishful thinking or stubborn naivete but rather political necessity. Dean's favorite quote, which he repeats over and over, is Louis Pasteur's "Chance favors the prepared mind." The way he sees it, you never know when any state, even the Sooner State, might get a jolt of blue. After all, just look at what happened in 2006, when Democrats flipped both houses of Congress. Or this past November, when Barack Obama won Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia, along with three previously red Western states, and the party picked up Congressional seats in places like Alabama, Alaska, Idaho and Mississippi.

It almost feels like ancient history, but "four years ago the Democratic Party was in a very different condition," Doctor Dean says at the beginning of his talk at the Y. Republicans had just retained the White House, gained four seats in the Senate and three in the House, and held twenty-eight governorships. Bill Frist was Senate majority leader, Dennis Hastert was House Speaker, George Bush's approval rating was at a healthy 50 percent and Karl Rove planned a "permanent Republican majority." It was "not a fun time to be a Democrat," Dean cracks.

How quickly things change. Four years later Democrats elected Obama with 67 million votes. They picked up seven seats in the Senate (with Minnesota still pending at press time)and twenty-one in the House, and they hold sixty of ninety-nine state legislative chambers. Obama's extraordinary campaign and Bush's remarkable mishandling of the country's domestic and foreign policies deserve much of the credit for the Democratic Party's resurgence, but so does Howard Dean. Before virtually any major politician, Dean not only sensed that the era of Republican ascendancy could be stopped but also how to do it, first through his trailblazing though unsuccessful presidential campaign of 2004, and then through his forceful stewardship of the party as DNC chair since 2005.

"Dean gave the party a mission and a focus," says Paul Tewes, a top Obama strategist who ran day-to-day operations at the DNC during the general election. "That's a big deal when you're out of power." DNC member Donna Brazile calls Dean "one of the unsung heroes of this moment."

Dean's work is far from done, especially right here in Kentucky, but he's created a foundation on which we can build if we stay true to Democratic values and stop running fake Democrats like David Boswell.

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Paul Hackett for DNC Chair

Our good friend Blue Girl has launched a campaign to make Paul Hackett the replacement for outgoing chair of the Democratic National Committee Howard Dean.

He is the Marine who almost defeated mean Jeanne Schmitt in a house race in an extremely republican Ohio district. He is the Marine who called George Bush a "sonofabitch" and when outraged people demanded he apologize he said absolutely not. "Nope, I said it, I stand by it, and I would say it again," were his exact words. After that, when Rush "deferred from service for a pimple on his ass" Limbaugh called him a "staff puke" and denigrated his service, Hackett responded by calling Rush a "fatassed drug addict."

These are times that call for a strong leader, not that waste of skin (DNC Chair candidate Missouri Senator Claire) McCaskill, who will not be reelected to her Senate seat after rolling over for Bush immediately upon taking office.

Paul Hackett would bring military credibility to the DNC and a low tolerance for bullshit to the job, and if it was mine to offer, I would have him on the phone right now offering it and begging him to take it.

Kentucky Deaniacs know Paul Hackett well, having walked Cincinnati neighborhoods for him in his close 2004 Congressional race against Schmitt.

Deaniacs remember the ridicule we endured after the 2004 Iowa caucuses "Dean Scream," the abuse we took for supporting Howard for DNC chair, the insults and threats against Howard for "wasting" money on his "50-state strategy."

That would be same "50-state strategy" that snatched Congress away from the repugs in 2006 and carried Barack Obama to the White House last week.

We are not going to let some Smirky-fellating Blue Dog DINO like Claire McCaskell destroy Howard's legacy.

Send the DNC a message: Paul Hackett for DNC Chair!

Since the chair is chosen by state party committees, send the same message to your state Democratic Party. In Kentucky, that's here.

Cross-posted a BlueGrassRoots.

The Triumph of Howard Dean

From an early Deaniac who gave money I could not afford to Howard's campaign back in May 2003, to all the DLC cowards who swore Howard Dean would destroy the Democratic Party, let me just say this:

Nyah, nyah, nyah, NYAH, nyah. Toljaso, toljaso, toljaso. Howard was RIGHT! Deaniacs RULE! PHHTHHBBBTTT!

Of course Obama is letting Howard Dean stay on as chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Obama knows perfectly well that it was the DNC's human sacrifice of Howard Dean in Iowa in 2004 which -

led directly to Dean's election by grass-roots supporters to the chairmanship, which -

led directly to the establishment nationwide of Dean's 50-state strategy, which -

led directly to the Democrats' 2006 takeover of Congress, which -

led directly millions of new Democratic voters giving the presidential nomination to Howard Dean's metaphorical, if not actual, protege: Barack Obama.

Back in February 2004, after Howard Dean dropped out of the presidential race, the only thing that prevented mass suicide among Deaniacs was the hope of turning our passion and our anger and our determination to the long-term project of taking over the un-progressive, anti-liberal, Dean-hating Democratic Party.

After all, it took the neocons only 16 years from Goldwater's defeat to Reagan's election to wrest control of the Republican Party from its well-behaved Eisenhower-ites.

Who could have imagined it would take Howard Dean less than five?

Cross-posted at Watching Those We Chose.

Meet Mitch's Nemesis

Update Below

If you heard this morning’s Democratic Response to the latest blatherings of the Usurper, remember it. You may have heard the voice of …The Man Who Takes Down Mitch McConnell in 2008.

McConnell, Minority Leader of the U.S. Senate, has owned Kentucky since he beat two-term incumbent Dee Huddleston in 1984 with one of the original attack ads (bloodhounds searching the U.S. Capitol for Huddleston, who had a tendency to miss votes.)

But his star has been fading since his hand-picked Boy Guv, Ernie Fletcher, shat on the Governor’s Office carpet in 2004 by breaking state civil service laws to get his idiot cronies into state jobs.

Now national Democratic leaders have seen fit to reach deep into Kentucky politics to lift up Iraq War Veteran and retired Marine Lt. Col. Andrew Horne to give the Democratic response to Dear Leader’s weekly radio address today.

Horne lost the Democratic primary for Kentucky’s 3rd District Congressional seat (Louisville) last year to John Yarmuth, who went on to take down five-term incumbent Anne Northup, another McConnell protégé.

Yarmuth is now the heartthrob of Kentucky progressives, who hang on word of his Washington doings like prepubescent teens following Britney Spears.

But they also still carry a torch for Horne, whom they supported in the primary, before swallowing their pride after the primary loss and working their tails off for Yarmuth.

Horne was also endorsed in the primary by Change for Kentucky/Democracy for America, and I think I detect the brilliant hand of Democratic National Committee Chair and DFA founder Howard Dean in the selection of Horne for today’s response. Wouldn’t surprise me if Senator and Marine combat veteran Jim Webb had a hand in it too.

McConnell, who may be best known for his cast-in-stone opposition to campaign finance reform, has a reputation for campaign success second only to Karl Rove’s.

But we all know what happened to Karl in November.

And McConnell is up for re-election in 2008, at what will undoubtedly be his weakest point in 24 years.

Last week, we heard the first rumors here in Kentucky that Horne might take on McConnell next year. People leaped into action at the news, but one of his original supporters put a damper on it by saying Horne had made no decision yet.

I think we can start lining up campaign contributions now.

Update, April 1, 8:56 a.m.

Some choice excerpts from Horne's response to the Usurper:

" ... I am proud of my service, and very proud of those men and women currently in harm’s way who are doing their best in a terribly difficult situation.
...

"In short, the Commander-in-Chief has failed to properly lead the troops, and previous Congresses didn’t ask the tough questions, or demand accountability. The result is the mess we are in today

....

"... these bills both demand something that previous Congresses did not – accountability from the administration. Both bills demand that the President continue to verify that we are moving Iraq towards stability, and that we are on track to disengage our combat troops from the Iraqi Civil War by 2008.

...

"Accountability is something this administration has demanded of everyone else. Go to the website of the White House, and put in a search for the word “accountability.” What comes up is a list of nearly 2,000 pages on the site that mention the word.

...

"It's ironic that an administration that has touted its commitment to tying accountability to funding for things like schools or social programs is so opposed to any performance evaluation itself, especially with American lives on the line.

....

"Both Houses of Congress have done their jobs and will soon finish a bill that will provide for the troops. When they’re done, the only person who could keep funds from reaching troops would be the President. If the President vetoes this bill because he doesn’t want to formally demonstrate progress in Iraq, never in the history of war would there be a more blatant example of a Commander-in-Chief undermining the troops. There is absolutely no excuse for the President to withhold funding for the troops, and if he does exercise a veto, Congress must side with the troops and override it.

....

"As a loyal Marine who loves my country and my fellow troops and veterans, I ask you, Mr. President, please do not withhold funding from our troops because you are afraid to change course and show progress in Iraq."