It's Like, "No Duh!"

Obviously there's a hell of a lot of political news going on this week, and I'm finding it hard to resist holding out for my weekend What Stood Out posting. So there's one separate-but-related item I'd like to point out.

Some of you may remember the 2004 presidential candidacy of Howard Dean. I was an early Dean supporter. I'd stop short of calling myself a Deaniac, but his was the first political campaign I donated to. So when it became clear his candidacy wasn't going to come of anything, and we were going to be left with Mr. Personality as the Democratic nominee to face off against the most dangerous presidential administration in history, I feared that Dean would disappear into the background of politics never to be heard from again.

Instead, Howard got himself elected Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, much to the chagrin of party establishment insiders. It turns out that this is a perfectly good place for him to be. He had ideas, you see. Rather than shifting the entire party to the middle to reach out for Wall Street bucks (like, say, Terry McAuliffe), Dean thought maybe we should actually compete and organize locally. Like, in all 50 states.

Before Dean, the DNC didn't even have paid staff members in every state. I'm going to repeat that: The fucking Democratic Party national organization didn't have people in every state. But under this new idea, rather than focus on a few key battleground states every single election and pour millions into those places and ignore everyone else, Dean and the DNC would offer every state resources to put up a good goddamn fight.

Now, to most of us, this seems about as logical as arriving to a job interview on time. Dean had to fight for it. My own senator Chuck Schumer thought Dean was an idiot. Most of Bill Clinton's money people (who really did a hell of a job fundraising, I admit) thought Dean was flushing money down the toilet. All sorts of in-fighting took place, some private, some public.

Then the 2006 midterm elections validated Dean's approach. Or so you would think. But a movement persisted to try to stop Dean wasting time and money in places like Mississippi that Democrats will "never win" and go back to the old way that served President Clinton so well.

Meanwhile, Dean's 50-state strategy has continued to work. The Democrats recently won a special election in Mississippi, where Democrats never win.

And yet, still, there was talk about ousting Dean. Some people speculated that the primary would determine Dean's fate. Many of Hillary's supporters (including Terry McAuliffe, of course) still think the strategy is crap. If she'd won, Dean's tenure as head of the DNC could well have ended.

Of course, she didn't. And Obama was a community organizer, as we now hear so often. So he understands the value of a genuine local grassroots base and heartily supports Dean's 50-state strategy.

Today, Obama confirmed it: Dean stays. Obama's also gotten the DNC to agree not to take lobbyist or PAC money. This shit was unheard of four years ago (under Terry McAuliffe).

Dean's 50-state strategy was intended to be a long-term strategy. Even Dean expressed surprise that the 2006 midterms were so successful, and perhaps other factors were at play (people's dislike for Bush finally reach a tipping point?). So it's not clear exactly how much affect the strategy will have on this year's general election.

But there's no doubt in my mind that Obama's the candidate to test it. Although he still needs to convince a large part of the Democratic Party base, he's proven that he's got massive independent appeal, which potentially puts a lot of new states in play. Virginia's the most obvious possible red-turned-blue state, but just about everything out west could be on that list and even a few places in the south.

And remember: Barack Obama hasn't really started running against John McCain yet.

I've been burned on numerous occasions when I've raised my expectations of the American people. But today I'm still cautiously optimistic.

And seriously, Dean's 50-state strategy is as obvious as Dick Cheney's sense of humor. The Democrats have a long history of fucking up good things, but hopefully this one stays around for the time being.