Wordcruncher

DNC Musical Chairs

Some items of interest are popping up regarding the new DNC chair, to likely be elected in February of next year. By way of Kos, ABC News has the best rundown I’ve seen on the behind-the-scenes goings-on.

First, Harold Ickes doesn’t want the job. Being a former staffer for President Clinton, he was thought to be promoted as a way to advance Sen. Hillary Clinton’s ’08 presidential candidacy. Many Republicans I talk to seem to think her ’08 candidacy is a done deal. I’m not so sure, although I think she’d be wise to keep her options open.

She hasn’t made any kind of public announcement of the sort, and I’m not sure she has the party muscle so many think she has. Yes, she was Bill Clinton’s First Lady, but otherwise she’s a one-term senator.

I read a personal profile of her some time back in The New Yorker. She’s building a reputation for working with key GOP senators to enact legislation. She’s taken lessons in freshman humility from Sen. Robert Byrd. She’s earned respect and high approval ratings from her constituents. And by all accounts, she seems to be truly enjoying herself in the Senate. But I’m straying off the topic. I’ll write more about Sen. Clinton in coming days. It’s a sure way to get readers to fire up some comments.

Former Georgia Governor Roy Barnes is also mentioned (I’ve seen his name in other sources besides the ABC News piece). That, in my opinion, would be unwise. Whatever his accomplishments, his lasting legacy will be that of the last Democratic Governor before a historical, sweeping tide of Republicans into the Big House in Buckhead.

It will be a long time before there’s another Democratic Governor of Georgia. That will primarily be attributed to surging Republican strength outside the urban areas. But it will also be because the Georgia Democratic Party lacks, for whatever reason, the organization and infrastructure to be a viable power.

He’s understandably out of politics now, and that’s fine. But if he were truly interested in the DNC chairmanship, shouldn’t he have practiced it first on the Georgia Democratic Party?

And looking at this within the context of my last few posts, I am most concerned about Gov. Barnes because he could not effectively combat the confederate battle flag issue in the last gubernatorial campaign (for non-Georgian readers, the Republican candidate promised a statewide referendum on whether we should include the confederate flag on our state flag).

How could he possibly be effective against Republican wedge issues on the national level? And there’s this from the ABC News article:

Roy Barnes, the former governor of Georgia who is now a lawyer in Atlanta, "would have the ear and the awareness of key Democrats all over the county," said Joe Erwin, the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party.

"He's not going to get pulled into one camp or another or offend one camp or another," Erwin said of Barnes.

Since when should a DNC chairman’s job be to walk on eggshells?

This is all based on the misconception that Democrats are still the fractured bunch of special-interest groups that pulled the party apart in the 80s. Don’t fall for that. It’s a Republican media plant, and so were the rumors during the campaign that Sen. Kerry wasn’t doing well among his base. Divide and conquer.

It was the Democratic base that got Sen. Kerry the second-highest presidential vote total in U.S. history. Democrats were united as never before in 2004 – at least, not in my lifetime. The time is past to create an apparatus to heal fissures and placate groups.

The DNC chair will need to recognize the new reality: Democrats are united in the wilderness, huddled together for survival. We’re waiting for someone to lead, not appease.