2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThe Man Who Bought the Clintons: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe
McAuliffes implacable loyalty to Clinton was soon rewarded. Later in 2001, Bill Clinton engineered the ouster of Joe Andrew as head of the DNC and installed McAuliffe, who only months earlier had offered to purchase the Clintons a house in Chappaqua, New York for $1.3 million, as the chief of the party. As the head of the DNC, McAuliffe was now in a position to protect the Clintons legacy, reward loyalists, punish party dissidents and select the next presidential nominee.
When Gore began to flirt with the notion of challenging Bush in 2004, McAuliffe went to work to kill off his campaign before it even started. He went straight to Gores top political sponsors and advised them to withhold funds from the Gore campaign chest. He was tremendously persuasive, convincing even some of Gores most loyal backers, such as financier James Tisch, to deny money to their old friend.
The sabotage of the nascent Gore 2004 campaign was just a run-up for demolition job McAuliffe directed against the unauthorized campaign of Vermont governor Howard Dean. The Dean threat had almost nothing to do with any perceived ideological heresy from the Vermonter. After all Dean was a run-of-the-mill neoliberal who pretty much aped the centrist economic policies of Clinton. The real threat posed by Dean came from his determination to raise millions in campaign contributions outside of the precincts of the DNC. McAuliffes control over the party stemmed from his role as the prime dispenser of campaign cash, the elixir necessary to keep political recipients loyal to the party leadership and its policies. Dean showed another way was possible and he had to be put down.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/23/the-man-who-bought-the-clintons-the-political-business-of-terry-mcauliffe/
underpants
(182,819 posts)Unfortunately his legislative agenda is mostly dead for the rest of his time because the Repubs kept the state Senate in this off year election.
Will read the article later.
FSogol
(45,487 posts)I have no complaints about his performance.
UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)like Al......
FSogol
(45,487 posts)Clintons and picked Joe Lieberman as the anti-clinton. All huge mistakes by the Gore campaign.
UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)Al decide to do that, let's not beat around the bush........
FSogol
(45,487 posts)Orangepeel
(13,933 posts)The essay gives a reason:
While most Democrats blamed Katherine Harris or the Supreme Court for the loss of the White House to George W. Bush, McAuliffe pointed the finger at Gore. The fundraiser believed that Gore ran an inept campaign, misspending the precious millions he had worked so diligently to raise. McAuliffe detested the way that Gore distanced himself from the Clintons and refused to allow the president to campaign for him even in key southern states. Even worse from McAuliffes perspective, Gore had subtly dissed Clinton on the campaign trail, suggesting that he himself was a man of firmer moral sinew than the embattled president.
Personally, I wouldn't put the lion's share of the blame on Gore, but a lot of democrats (and DUers) do. It's not a unusual opinion.
What the essay doesn't explain is how McAuliffe supposedly scuttled the Dean campaign, although it implies that helping to set up Democracy for America was somehow shady
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)I think he can still win there, but the party is totally in the tank for Hillary.