The idea that you would even entertain the notion of dispensing with a DNC chairman who has just presided over the Democratic party regaining the House and Senate while also putting us strongly on the path to be able to contest and win the next presidential election in a vastly wider playing field is just dumb.
I love that James Carville is one of the great advocates for the Democratic party in the media, but he’s just wrong. If Hillary Clinton – someone I know Carville supports – becomes our next president it will be thanks to the foundation of our party that Howard Dean is building.
Period.
Not to mention that even if Howard Dean deserved to be forced out (which he clearly doesn’t), engaging in a truly divisive fight immediately after gaining power is sheer idiocy.
Carville sleeps every night with one of the more repulsive cons. Remember that. People like Howard Dean put has-beens like Carville out of business.
Heck, we almost won in WYOMING. Carville would have given up on seats like that one or the ones we won in Kentucky.
I think Mary slipped James a mickey or something. This is just crazy talk. It’s almost as crazy as the RNC’s almost done deal to make Homeless Exploiter Steele the new Mehlman.
Maybe Carville was joking, and Ryan Lizza missed it completely. I’m not a Carville fan, but even I can’t imagine he’s suggest that seriously within days of a historic sweep.
The DLC and Carville have become less important to the Democratic Party as it’s become obvious that we no longer have to try and woo the old Dixiecrat South. That’s their political theory and also the rationalization behind Nixon’s Southern Strategy that worked for the GOP until Tuesday.
2006 has shown that a winning coalition can be built around classic Northeast Democrats, Midwest Populists and Western Libertarians. And you know what? I’m a lot happier with this coalition than trying to appeal to the social conservatives of the old Confederacy. How about you?
Speaking as a liberal from Tennessee, it makes me sad, but it makes sense, too. Though there’s a very strong populist tradition in the South that cuts across race lines; maybe John Edwards is a sign of things to come. I believe the South can change, even if our conservatives can’t.
There are plenty of liberals in the South. I say we go after everybody, not immediately start deciding who we can cut safely. Dean’s strategy put money in the south too, you know. The thing about Southerners is loyalty runs deep. Once you’re in, you’re really in. Worth pursuing.
Agreed; let’s be charitable: Carville was joking.
If you’ll pardon my language, he fucking better be joking after all the shit we’ve been through.
I don’t think we give up totally on the south – especially not swing states like FL that aren’t “really” southern – but if push comes to shove I’d much rather throw money into the west than the south. A Democrat in Alabama faces the same challenges a Republican in Maryland or Massachusetts does.
I don’t think we should give up on the south, but we shouldn’t spend much time bending to their anachronistic thinking. I wasn’t exactly upset when Harold Ford Jr. lost because he moved so far to the right to get that state to consider him that he would end up holding back a moderate agenda.
When the South wants to join the 21st century with the rest of us, they are welcome. However for the meantime let’s keep our values together. We don’t need them if we can hold the East West and Midwest. Let the Republicans become a regional southern party.
Actually, Carville’s string is pulled by the Clintons. If the Big Dawg wants Dean’s head, will he get it?
We probably should, for the time being, not concern ourselves with the rural, white parts of the South. Keep our bastions down there, keep running statewide candidates, not abandon Florida and Texas, but all-white areas? It’s hopeless.
Absolutely nothing wrong with Ford succeeding Dean. Did Carville say anything about booting Dean? Ford would be a great choice as a follow up. He did, after all, get 40% of the White vote in TN. That’s about 39% more than most of you lot thought he’d get. So you don’t have to worry too much about alienating White Southerners.
The problem is some of his national luster has worn off as a result of the loss and taken him out of the VP running (the race he was in was not only with his opponent Corker but with Patrick and Obama). So perhaps he wouldn’t be the huge rainmaker Carville pictures him to be.
Some progressives will be pissed off at his choice but some remain in that state constantly. You can’t please some people.
Right now he’s looking at the next Senate race and the governor’s race in four years. I think he’s going to have a tough row in both of those races. Not only did his race affect him in TN it was his family name, which more than a few White Tennesseans associate with scandal and uppity n*****-ness, which is a shame.