UPDATE: I wonder if you wouldn't mind recommending this diary. Since the news flow is a bit slow, it's a good time to be introduced to people in the party.
I don't have a dog in the fight for Democratic Party chair--at least not yet. I do agree it's an important post. The Dems face a series of obvious challenges and, of course, the unknown challenges that mere mortals (such as us) cannot foresee. The party chair--as the face of the party--has to convey the party's uber-message (whatever that may be) constantly and consistently. He or she will have to continue to maintain the high level of fundraising the party achieved this past year and build further upon the party's Internet advances. The DNC's top official must come up with ways to stem the party's recent losses among women and Hispanics and to sell the party in the fastest growing parts of the country, which have trended Republican. The party chair will have to figure out--and this may be the toughest part--how to match (and surpass!) the Rove Republicans' successful mobilization effort that was based in the grassroots but directed by GOP HQ. And whoever is in charge of all this will have to fare well on Crossfire.
...after reading the January 10, 2005, issue of The New Republic, I'm ready to send a cheer or two in the direction of another contender: Simon Rosenberg. He is president of the New Democrat Network. This is a political action committee that spun off the Democratic Leadership Council. Waitaminute! Does that mean Rosenberg is one of those corporate-funded, the-Party-must-turn-right DLCers? Not necessarily. When I appeared on a C-SPAN show a few weeks ago with DLC commander-in-chief Al From, From told me apres the show that Rosenberg's operation was totally separate from the DLC. In all ways, he said, making this point quite deliberately. In fact, From gave me the strong impression that he was not at all enamored with the idea of Rosenberg taking hold of the party's reins. So Rosenberg does not seem a stalking horse for his old friends at the DLC. Most recently, his NDN focused on the Hispanic vote. And advocates of Internet-based politics talk fondly about the fact that Rosenberg "gets it." It's easy to point out that the Dems failed with the Hispanic voters and all the attention devoted to Internet politics failed to do the trick on E Day. Still, Rosenberg may have the necessary experience in these areas to have a sense of what more must be done.
A close friend of mine who works among progressive Democrats calls Rosenberg "an opportunist" and maintains Rosenberg has sucked up money from progressive donors that might have gone to better operations. That may be so. But let me tell you why Rosenberg deserves brownie points, and this is no endorsement from me.
Three weeks ago, Peter Beinart, the editor of The New Republic, wrote a provocative cover story in which he argued that liberalism ought to have as its number-one priority defeating the threat of Islamic jihadism. Beinart derided much of the left as "soft" on this threat, noting many on the left fail to see the danger at hand because they are overly obsessed with Bush's mistakes and miscalculations (such as the Iraq war). His main whipping boys were MoveOn and Michael Moore. Beinart proposed that accepting anti-Islamofascism as the most crucial task of the moment "should be the litmus test of a decent left." In other words, if you're not right with Beinart on the so-called war on terror, then you ought to be purged from the hallways of liberalism. There was much wrong with Beinart's essay. Responding to a personal invitation from him, I wrote a critique. Others weighed in as well, and TNR published a series of responses in the January 10 issue. The mag particularly reached out to contenders for the DNC chairmanship in soliciting replies. So Donnie Fowler, a telecom executive and son of a former party chair, Martin Frost, a former Democratic congressman from Texas, Wellington Webb, the former mayor of Denver, and Rosenberg each contributed a short piece (as did Wes Boyd and Joan Blades, the founders of MoveOn, who scored several strong points against Beinart.)
The DNC chief wannabes generally took the occasion to both hail Beinart for sagely observing that the Dems must perform better in communicating their position on national security and to note that the Democratic position on national security is indeed strong. (Too many voters just don't realize that.) They ducked the main point of Beinart's article, which was his proposal to excommunicate "soft" lefties from the great liberal movement, just as the anti-communist Americans for Democratic Action booted out the communists from its ranks five decades ago.
Rosenberg, though, showed no such politeness. He entered Beinart's living room and in a respectful manner suggested Beinart was dead wrong. Here's how he put it:
So 2004 is not 1947. The war against Islamic extremism is not the cold war, and Bush is not Roosevelt nor Truman. Our choices are different now. Yes, we as Democrats must articulate and embrace a muscular response to the threat of Islamic extremism and a twenty-first-century version of Kennan's vision of a United States that lives up to its own best traditions. We are also morally obligated to acknowledge that President Bush's record is deeply worthy of skepticism, and we can no more ignore those in our party who have rightfully voiced dissent than we can forget how we won the war against communism. Â
Our urgent goal as a party should be to work with those who have led the fight against Bush's dangerous policies and, together, to craft a new and compelling vision that is rooted in the very best of the United States and utterly defeats the threat of terrorism. Ultimately, Beinart's framing of our current moment as 1947 redux is instructive, but it is not an accurate description of our time.
In other words, Beinart (Meant Rosenberg here) shoved a big cigar in the lovely artichoke dip that Beinart had spent so many hours concocting. Rosenberg showed that he understands that searching for differences and establishing loyalty tests is not the path toward electoral victory. He also recognizes that Bush's misguided war in Iraq has fundamentally undermined US national security. The war in Iraq is one helluva problem for the United States. And Osama bin Laden and the rise of bin Ladenism is indeed a pressing threat. Neither negates--or trumps--the other. Dealing with both ought to be top priorities for liberals and Democrats. Beinart wants liberals to salute his monochromatic flag or risk expulsion from the "decent left." Rosenberg wants to lead a coalition. For intelligently thumbing his nose at Beinart's attempt to divide and weaken, Rosenberg gets a thumb's up.