Credit Where Due

Finally, somebody is understanding that while no one person decided the fate of Democrats in the 2006 elections, one person charted the course to victory:

Dean ran for chairman on a platform to devolve power and spending authority to state parties. Dean believed the national party committees were too closely aligned with – and therefore only serviced – the interests of the Washington establishment. He redirected the flow of money and responsibility outward to his patrons in states. He legitimized the grievances and complaints of the party’s grassroots army, who had grown frustrated with their status as outsiders looking in. The RNC pioneered a ground-game first approach in 2004; Dean became the first Democratic chairman to validate the work of volunteer ground warriors.

Whether Dean was right, in the normative sense of the word, is irrelevant. He did what he did, and the consequences speak for themselves.

Three years ago, Howard Dean-style politics was too outré for the Democratic Party to bear. Today, arguably, Dean Politics is Democratic politics. Embedded within Dean's campaign theme was a broad critique of the Republican approach to power. Iraq was simply its worst manifestation. But Dean also evinced his distaste with Republican "corruption." He talked about how Democrats - and independents and even Republicans -- were interested in results, not ideology. In his eyes, Americans wanted a fresh approach. He urged, first Democrats, then Americans, to take their country back. He also urged the party to overlook interest group apostasy; remember that Dean got an “A” rating from the NRA as Vermont's governor. He clumsily endorsed an outreach to "the guys with confederate flags on the back of their pick-up trucks."

Leave the Internet aside: the architecture of Dean Politics has become the de mode style for the entire party. Dean promoted a vocal, confrontational style of campaigning, one that did not cede an inch to Republicans. His primary campaign was predicated on a 50 state strategy. He urged Democrats to adopt issues that would drive wedges between the Republican base and the party’s weaker adherents (mostly in the suburbs). He rejected the politics of inoculation, pronouncing himself proud to be the talisman of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. He intuited that the party (and voters) wanted the Democrats to be the opposition party.

This is some really good analysis by Marc Ambinder. Dean's entire mantra has been to decentralize to win. Instead of the top-down approach, where every candidate in the country gets a set of DC-approved talking points and doesn't bother with the details of individual districts and states, Dean empowered the grassroots and the state parties to set their own agenda. He essentially allowed them to do their own party building, rather than basing it from Washington. He also proudly proclaimed his status as a member of the opposition party and made the case for change.

Essentially this win in 2006 has its roots in the Sleepless Summer tour of 2003. That's when Democrats saw some hope for their party, that they understood the country was being driven into a ditch and that the only way to change it was to announce your opposition boldly, and to give everyone the tools they needed to fight back. As a result, three years later, one party has a 50-state strategy while the other is largely confined to the South. I expect the Republicans to ape Dean's strategy of mobilizing the grassroots and the state parties to fight it out on the ground. I know that the Labour Party has taken notice - that's right, Tony Blair's Third Way, Clintonite Labour Party, who has hired Dean to be a consultant advising them on strategy.

Everybody deserves some credit for the election and its victories. Howard Dean deserves credit for resurrecting the Democratic Party and exponentially expanding its reach.