I confess to being baffled by the entire "Dump Dean" campaign which surfaced immediately after the Democratic mid term election victory. Why would a Democrat want to create a wedge in the party immediately after successfully pulling it together? It's beyond me. If, as this story implies, Carville was on his own in attempting to oust Dean, shame on him.
Rather than get all puffed up over differences in political strategy, Carville would better spend his time demanding investigations into voting machines across the country which skewed a fairly consistent 3% in favor of Republicans -- once again denying the Dems their due -- and once again, indicating hacked elections and the necessity for comprehensive elections reforms.
Cut the ego antics, kids. We won. Let's congratulate each other and get to work securing our elections, among other things ....
Hil's no dump Dean fan
BY KENNETH R. BAZINET
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Photo credit: James Carville. (www.autographedtoyou.com)Her camp sez Carville on his own in coup bid
"WASHINGTON - James Carville's attempt to topple Howard Dean as chairman of the Democratic National Committee failed after state party officials and even a vocal critic of Dean crushed the coup, officials said.
Insiders from the Clinton camp winced at Carville's untimely remarks last week calling for Dean's ouster in favor of unsuccessful Senate candidate Harold Ford of Tennessee.
'It was not coming from [Sen. Hillary Clinton] and they made a real effort to distance themselves from James' comments,' said a source close to the Clintons.
The Clintonistas don't want an undeserved backlash from the activist wing of the party that overwhelmingly supports Dean, especially because some anti-Clinton Democrats have blamed Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) for the attack by Carville, a longtime Clinton insider. Those forces claimed Carville's motive was to topple Dean in favor of a chairman more favorable to Sen. Clinton's bid for President.
Carville's remarks last week came as House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) bungled the race for Democratic majority leader. Party operatives acknowledged the Carville and Pelosi sideshows were detracting from their election victories.
'We applaud Chairman Dean for his commitment to ensuring Democratic candidates and state Democratic parties have the resources and tools needed to compete and win, and we remain committed to the hard work of rebuilding our party for the future,' said Mark Brewer, president of the Association of State Democratic Chairs.
Brewer's organization endorsed Dean's $30 million effort that helped win six new Democratic governorships and control of 10 more state legislatures. Dean is credited with launching a '50 state program' to rebuild the party at the grass roots, as the GOP so successfully has done for the past 25 years.
'No question Dean can survive because this is a mathematical equation: He has the votes on the DNC because he has been investing in the state parties,' said party activist David Sirota.
Carville did not respond to attempts to contact him.
Even Dean-basher Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and an exadviser to former President Bill Clinton, called Dean last week to say Carville was acting alone, and one-time DNC Chairman Don Fowler referred to Carville as an 'ill-advised' voice.
'Why do the Washington people think that they have a special prerogative to dictate what the Democratic Party needs?' Fowler wrote in an e-mail to the party faithful. 'Why should anyone want to mess with the team that won these remarkable [election] results?'"
Technorati tags: New York Daily News, Kenneth R. Bazinet, Washington, Politics, Howard Dean, James Carville, Hillary Clinton, Rahm Emanuel, Democratic Party, news, commentary
2 comments:
carville, as an establishment dem, beholden to most of the same powerful corporate, monied interests his other dlc bretheren, cannot abide the thought of democratic political power passing to the grassroots... that dynamic is precisely what sunk dean in his 2004 bid for the dem nomination, but dean wisely undertook to reform that same corrupt power structure that slammed the door in his face... and, just because hillary didn't stand behind carville doesn't mean she isn't part and parcel of that power structure... she, as is her specialty, is simply sticking her finger in the wind and deciding that getting crosswise with the grassroots right now would be a mistake, but don't think for one second she has our interests at heart...
and, by the way, that pic of carville is perhaps the most hideous thing i have seen all year... comparing him to gollum would be an insult to gollum...
You are, of course, exactly right on all counts, Professor. My comments above suggest a temporary bout of Pollyanna-itis, a benign disease that strikes when frustration with reality is transformed into childlike wishful thinking.
Glad you liked the Carville pic. Click on it and you can actually pay to get it autographed. Yiiiiikes.
Scarey stuff....
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