Blue Spot

The Associated Press: Dean not to seek 2nd term as Dem chairman

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean plans to step down from his post when his term expires in January, wrapping up a tenure in which the party heavily invested in all 50 states for a payoff that helped elect Barack Obama president.

Dean, who was briefly his party's presidential front-runner in 2004, was elected DNC chairman in 2005 and has long vowed to serve only one, four-year term. At a postelection news conference in Washington last week, Dean indicated again that he didn't plan to stay on, aides said on Monday.

President-elect Obama, a Democrat, was expected to choose Dean's successor. Traditionally, the president selects the national chairman of his own party.

Dean was the architect of a "50-State Strategy," investing money and staff in every state — including those where Democrats had long fared poorly — to build party infrastructure and lay the groundwork for electoral gains. The Obama campaign, working with DNC organizers in all 50 states, won several states that had not elected a Democratic president in decades, including Virginia, North Carolina and Indiana.

State party chairs were generally thrilled with Dean's approach, while some Democratic leaders in Washington complained early on that the party's money would be better spent helping candidates who had a real chance of winning.

The disagreement broke into open warfare in 2006, when Dean clashed over money and strategy with New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who ran the party's successful effort to win back control of Congress. Last week, Emanuel accepted the job of White House chief of staff in an Obama administration.

Some of Dean's most vocal detractors were former advisers to President Clinton. They include strategist James Carville, who once called Dean's leadership at the DNC "almost Rumsfeldian in its incompetence."

During Dean's tenure, Democrats regained control of Congress in 2006, and captured the presidency in 2008 while increasing their numbers in the House and Senate.

Dean proved tough in enforcing party rules when he punished Florida and Michigan earlier this year, stripping them of their delegates for holding primaries ahead of schedule. The issue was eventually resolved at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August, with all the delegates restored.

Labels: DNC, Howard Dean

Morgan: Why Should Hillary Clinton Supporters Be Happy, Now? - Bonnie Erbe (usnews.com)

My colleague Morgan Felchner got a torrent of response to her blog posting of last Friday asking, "Hillary Clinton supporters: Are you happy now?"

I also posted on Sen. Barack Obama's decision (yes, the DNC was part of the negotiating team, but the Obama campaign in essence runs the DNC these days) to allow Clinton's delegates to vote for her when her name is placed in nomination at the Democratic convention next week.

But I would like to respectfully report on the perspective of former Hillary supporters who disagree with the tone of the question: "Are you happy now?"

No one can report on how all 18 million Clinton voters reacted to the decision. Clearly, overall they must have been at least somewhat pleased with the decision. But to ask, "Are you happy now?" carries with it an implication that Clinton supporters are a complaining bunch who won't be happy no matter what the DNC or the Obama campaign does to try to please them. I am in close touch with the PUMA folks and other Democratic anti-Obama bloggers as I will be covering their activities in Denver next week. To ask the question, "Are you happy now?" is to dismiss the seriousness of their concerns.

From where many of them sit, the Democratic Party blew a perfectly good opportunity to nominate a moderate (instead of liberal), seasoned (instead of inexperienced) party leader (instead of Senate newcomer) with a long track record in international relations. Clinton's "3 a.m. call" commercial is still resounding in blogs and media reports because when Russia invaded Georgia, Obama at first issued an appeasement statement, then the next day did a 180-degree turn, pressuring Russia to withdraw quickly. Such flip-flops on war policy are unacceptable but typical of what the party should have expected from a newbie. They also help explain why Obama is now tied with McCain in daily presidential tracking polls, rather than winning by double digits.

So instead of asking, "Are you happy now?" I'd ask y'all to respond to the question: "Why should we be?"

Labels: Democratic Convention 2008, DNC, Hillary, PUMA

On Sunday's "This Week w/George Stephanopoulos," Howard Dean blasts the main stream media on the "enormous amount of sexism in this campaign." He adds that there has been major networks that have featured "numerous, outrageous comments, that if the words were reversed and the comments were about race, the people would have been fired."

Labels: DNC, Election 2008, Howard Dean, Media, sexism

Terry McAliffe dicusses Sen. Clinton's crushing victory in Puerto Rico on CNN and blasts the DNC RBC's undemocratic decision to strip 4 of Clinton's MI delegates and hand them to Obama.

Labels: DNC, Election 2008, Hillary, Latino community, superdelegates, Terry McAuliffe

The Associated Press: Officials say Fla., Mich. delegates will get half-votes

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Party leaders agreed Saturday seat Michigan and Florida delegates with half votes into this summer's convention with a compromise that left Barack Obama on the verge of the nomination but riled Hillary Rodham Clinton backers who threatened to fight to the August convention.

"Hijacking four delegates is not a good way to start down the path of party unity," said adviser Harold Ickes.

Clinton's camp maintains she was entitled to four additional Michigan delegates.

The decision by the party's Rules Committee raised slightly the total delegates Obama needs to clinch the nomination. Clinton advisers conceded privately he will likely hit the magic number after the final primaries are held Tuesday night, but said the ruling threatened to dash any hopes of a unified party.

"Mrs. Clinton has told me to reserve her right to take this to the Credentials Committee" at the convention, said Ickes, who is a member of the Rules Committee that voted Saturday.

The resolution increased the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination to 2,118, leaving Obama just 66 delegates away from the majority needed to secure the nomination.

Clinton's camp insisted Obama shouldn't get any pledged delegates in Michigan since he chose not to put his name on the ballot, and she should get 73 pledged delegates with 55 uncommitted. Obama's team insisted the only fair solution was to split the pledged delegates in half between the two campaigns, with 64 each.

The committee agreed on a compromise offered by the Michigan Democratic Party that would split the difference, allowing Clinton to take 69 delegates and Obama 59. Each delegate would get half a vote at the convention, according to the deal.

The deal passed 19-8. Thirteen members of the committee had endorsed Clinton for president, so she wasn't even able to keep her supporters together.

Allan Katz, a Rules Committee member and Obama supporter, said the Obama campaign had enough votes on the committee to support the campaign's proposal to split the delegates 50-50 in Michigan. Ultimately, the campaign agreed instead to support the compromise negotiated by the Michigan Democratic Party as a way to resolve the matter.

"The ironic thing is Obama had the majority of that committee," Katz said. "The Obama campaign wants to move on and compromise. We did not muscle our way through it. It was a wise decision from a well run and wise campaign that will reverberate."

But the irate reaction from Clinton's campaign and her supporters in the sharply divided audience shows Obama will have a long way to go to bring the party together after a long and divisive primary.

"We just blew the election!" a woman in the audience shouted. The crowd was divided between cheering Obama supporters and booing Clinton supporters.

"This isn't unity! Count all the votes!" another audience member yelled.

Jim Roosevelt, co-chair of the committee, tried repeatedly to gavel it to order. "You are dishonoring your candidate when you disrupt the speakers," he chided.

There are three primaries left in the contest — Puerto Rico on Sunday and Montana and South Dakota on Tuesday. Obama should get at least 30 delegates in the remaining primaries, meaning he has to pick up no more than about 30 more superdelegates even if he loses Puerto Rico and South Dakota.

He will not clinch the nomination this weekend, barring a barrage of superdelegates Sunday.

The committee also unanimously agreed to seat the Florida delegation based on the outcome of the January primary, with 105 pledged delegates for Clinton and 67 for Obama, but with each delegate getting half a vote as a penalty.

Proponents of full seating continuously interrupted the committee members as they explained their support of the compromise, then supporters of the deal shouted back.

"Shut up!" one woman shouted at another.

"You shut up!" the second woman shouted back.

Obama picked up a total of 32 delegates in Michigan, including superdelegates who have already committed, and 36 in Florida. Clinton picked up 38 in Michigan, including superdelegates, and 56.5 in Florida.

Obama's total increased to 2,052, and Clinton had 1,877.5.

A proposal favored by Clinton that would have fully seated the Florida delegation fully in accordance with the January primary went down with 12 votes in support and 15 against.

Tina Flournoy, who led Clinton's efforts to seat both states' delegations with full voting power, said she was disappointed by the outcome but knew the Clinton position had "no chance" of passing the committee.

"I understand the rules. ... I can tell you one thing that has driven these rules was being a party of inclusion," Flournoy said. "I wish my colleagues will vote differently."

Alice Huffman, a Clinton supporter on the committee, explained that the compromise giving delegates half votes was the next best thing to full seating.

"We will leave here more united than we came," she said.

Some audience members heckled her in response. "Lipstick on a pig!" one shouted.

Associated Press writer Stephen Ohlemacher contributed to this report.

Labels: DNC, Election 2008, Florida, superdelegates, voting rights

Just a quick note, there's a recurring talking point coming from the Obama side regarding FL, and that is that we should respect the voters who did not show up for their election. Donna Brazile brought this up while questioning State Sen. Arthenia Joyner after Joyner's presentation and plea to count every vote cast. The flawed insinuation is that only Obama supporters stayed home. How can they be sure Clinton would have not turned out even more votes if they were allowed to campaign.

Labels: DNC, Election 2008, Florida, superdelegates, voting rights

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Pro-Clinton protestors make their way to Washington « - Blogs from CNN.com

WASHINGTON (CNN) — After weeks of planning by unions, women’s rights groups and others supporting Hillary Clinton's push to seat Florida and Michigan delegates at the Democratic convention this summer, supporters of the New York senator's presidential bid arrived in the nation’s capital by the busload Friday in advance of rallies outside Saturday's Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting.

“I’m hoping we restore 100 percent of the delegates from both Michigan and Florida and the popular vote will also be restored,” said Karen Feldman, an organizer of the “Count Every Vote” rally. “…I firmly believe that in Florida that was the purest election we’ve ever had, and I think that those votes should stand where they are and should be counted the way they are.”

Florida Demands Representation, another sponsoring group pushing for the January 29 vote to be recognized by the national party, said Friday it was expecting 400 to 500 supporters to arrive by Saturday. “The Democratic party is in danger in Florida,” said organizer James Hannagan.

The seating of the Florida and Michigan delegations is a priority for Clinton, who won both unsanctioned contests and is currently trailing frontrunner Barack Obama by 202 delegates in the latest CNN count.

Hannagan said that if Clinton is not the Democratic nominee, some members of his forum will vote for McCain, write in Hillary’s name or not vote at all.

The Clinton campaign has tacitly encouraged pressure on RBC members meeting to resolve the controversy, but has denied any role in protests planned for Saturday.

Labels: DNC, Election 2008, Florida, Hillary, superdelegates, voting rights

Little Isis: My Correspondence With Donna Brazile

Hi Donna!!!!
I am emailing you on behalf of many people. I am, as you may know, a Hillary Clinton Supporter. You have probably gotten a lot of emails from her supporters, and I understand from the blogs I often frequent that you have responded to many of them.
I want you to know that I read bits and pieces of your autobiography, Cooking With Grease, and thought it was wonderful and well written. I came to understand from your book and from a lot of what I have witnessed in this election cycle that to simply put groups of people in Demographics and Exit polls is a misunderstanding of both America and the Democratic Party.
What I have learned is that people often vote based on their experiences. You, as an Undeclared Obama supporter, probably identify strongly with his candidacy because of the struggles you went through during a time when race relations in this country were in turmoil. I voted for Hillary Clinton, not only because I relate to her strongly as both a person and a woman who is very spiritual and devoted to her family and to helping others, but also because she is the greatest candidate to lead this country out of the mess we're in, and because her policy proposals have been phenominal and close to my heart, because it proves to me that she is not simply talking and promising change, she is telling me how she is going to make it happen. It proves to me that she actually cares.
As a young person, I have a big future ahead of me, and I also have dreams and ambitions, and strong opinions and many other things. CNN tells me every day that I should be supporting Barack Obama, because his freshness and newness should appeal to my fickle nature. But I support Hillary, and like many of her supporters, I feel sad and dissappointed and hurt and many other things by what I see, based on rationality and facts, as the poor and undeserved treatment she and her husband have received by the DNC party elite and the Chicago Style Campaign tactics of Senator Obama's Campaign that I have witnessed with my own eyes and heard a number of stories about.
I understand that many of the emails you have received by Clinton Supporters urging you to do the right and ethical thing by seating Michigan and Florida delegates have been angry and often probably obnoxious. But you cannot possibly understand how frustrated they are. And while you may say that they are "the reason" Hillary is losing, whatever her supporters have done or said pale in comparison to the abuse and mistreatment we have suffered from some supporters of Senator Obama.
You may use Roe V Wade as a trump card for accusing them of being petty in their vows to not support Senator Obama, should he be the nominee, but I assure you that using something like that as a threat will not work, because there are few (actually, no) politicians I have seen that are as devoted to a woman's right to choose than Hillary Clinton, and you know that as well as I.
Ms. Brazille, I urge you not to disclude and disenfranchise millions of voters from every walk of life from this nominating process simply for the sake of one candidate, because doing so would be an awful mistake. I have respect for you as a person, Ms. Brazille, but I would implore you to make the right decision and seat Florida and Michigan . I would also implore you to stop encouraging super delegates to force Senator Clinton out of the race, because the more they do this, the stronger she gets.
Ms. Brazille, I cannot pretend to understand what you have gone through in your life, nor what you are going through now. It would be ignorant of me to try. But many people feel angry when they are stereotyped or put in a box because if what candidate they support. I support Hillary Clinton, and I love all of my friends. Including the great African American friends I have that I adore. and all of the African American women at my mother's church who embrace me and always tell me how "pretty" I look every time I see them. I also love my Latino friends, my Italian friends, my Jewish friends, my Catholic friends.
As I said, I cannot pretend to understand your experiences, but nor can you understand mine. Just because a person's skin may be paler that yours, does not mean their lives are without suffering.
I, for one, cry at night wondering what my republican mother will do if anything happens to her, because she doesn't have Health Insurance. And because of this, my mother may just support Hillary Clinton over John McCain come this fall. She is a Republican who supports Hillary Clinton not because Rush Limbaugh told her to, but because she believes that Hillary Clinton is a Candidate that may actually care about her.
So Ms. Brazille, I would yet again urge you to do everything you can to seat Michigan and Florida properly, and also, I would ask that you stop saying you are "undeclared" on CNN's panels when clearly you know which candidate you support.
Thank you very much for reading this email. Like you, I am very emotionally invested in this Campaign, (as is Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a Congresswoman from the district next to mine who also supports Hillary :D) and wish you all the luck in the world.
respectfully,
A young female voter from Ohio

I urge all of you to go to Natalie's site, Little Isis. Here was the response from Donna Brazille to Natalie Bryan's beautifully worded, polite, carefully measured letter:

Thanks Natalie,

As of today, I am not going to respond to any more anti American, Anti Democratic emails. Have a nice day.

I am sorry because you are sincere, but the Hillary forces are uncivil, repugnant and vile. When you come up for air and would like to email a person who cares about America and not just a personality, I will respond.

Thanks for your time and your interest.

Donna

I'm sure Donna must know how uncivil and vile Obama supporters are toward Hillary supporters throughout the blogosphere. I can't imagine she is unaware of the antics of many Obama supporters at caucuses all over the country. I think her response is disingenuous at best and totally reckless. Is this how Obama supporters intend to bring unity to the party? Despite the fact that Brazille has worked hard for the Democrats, and she feels that she is a valuable asset (if you check out some of my YT vids, you'll see the arrogance in full display), there are very few people I can think of that have done more to destroy our party this past year. Her hyper-sensitivity, which unfortunately is getting all too common throughout this country, makes her react by pointing the finger at the Clinton's and accusing them of race baiting. For saying some simple truths, like the fact that White middle-class voters are still an important constituency in the Democratic party, she is practically branded a racist. And Brazille has led the charge against the Clinton's on this point. Her and other party fat-cats, as well as the rest of the fawning media are not only trying to shut her bid down, but they are trying to completely destroy the Clinton's. We can't let this happen.

Let's make CNN at the very least, force Brazille to finally declare her support for Obama.

Labels: Comment, DNC, donna brazile, Election 2008, Obama supporters

On August 25th, 2007, during the DNC Rules & Bylaws Meeting, in Washington, D.C., plans for the Florida 2008 Democratic National Convention were reviewed. They voted to invalidate FL delagates at the 2008 convention despite a compelling argument from Florida Democratic Party Chairman, Karen Thurman, that they were not in non-compliance due to Republican politicians' actions.

When you get to about 14 minutes, it's astonishing to see how determined Donna Brazile is to see the voters of Florida punished for moving the primary date up. She actually yells out, "I'm going to send a message to everybody in Florida".

It looks like she's going to land up sending a message to the whole country.

Labels: DNC, donna brazile, Florida, voting rights

DNC chairman Howard Dean explains the "super-delagate" on The Young Turks.

Labels: DNC, Election 2008, Howard Dean