Yeeeaaaarrrrgh!
Karl Rove has agents everywhere;
Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are privately bristling over Howard Dean̢۪s management of the Democratic National Committee and have made those sentiments clear after new fundraising numbers showed he has spent nearly all the committee̢۪s cash and has little left to support their efforts to gain seats this cycle, ROLL CALL reports.
Congressional leaders were furious last week when they learned the DNC has just $5.5 million in the bank, compared to the Republican National Committee̢۪s $34 million.
And to think that one of Howard Dean’s assets in his quest for the Democratic nomination was a proven track record of fiscal responsibility and 11 straight balanced budgets in his home state of Vermont.
I suspect that Dean has found enough compensation from the DNC that he has a balanced budget for his own home. The democratic senators would think that the purpose of the DNC was to elect democrats and not provide support for democratic consultants and a bully pulpit for Dean to demonstrate the many ways to insert a foot into a mouth.
Well, I think this can happen when you pick a chairman that still has strong, unrequited personal political ambitions.
Actually the money is accounted for and spent exactly as Dean said he would spend it: on rebuilding state level parties that had been neglected by the DNC, by finding good candidates to run in areas abandoned by the DNC, and by supporting campaigns in areas the DNC was ignoring. The DNC is infested with beltway insiders who have no idea how to campaign outside a safe district. Dean has done a phenomenal job fund raising and has spent the money where it needs to be spent. The Democratic party would be better off if the DNC all dropped dead.
I beleive you are right. Under Dean’s leadership, the Democratic Party has raised more money than the republicans have so far. Dean has spent it on hiring full time staffers for both state and county organizations and on other party building functions. He is doing exactly as he promised.
Consider the source. Drudge? Get real.
To be fair, balancing a state budget isn’t the same thing as raising money for a Party, which is what his job is now. On the other hand, if he can’t successfully run his own Party, where almost everyone has the same goals, why did anyone think he could run the whole country with all its competing interests — internal and external?
Kevin Drum & “my cat” are on the same page.