It is a power shift away from DC. It may not work. It may work quite well. It won't be pretty to watch, it hasn't been pretty the last couple of days. But it will most definitely be interesting to see how it plays out.
From February 4th of last year...just before the DNC elections.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050214&s=lizza021405The DNC chair race has exposed deep fissures within the Democratic Party. Some of these are ideological, but the real story of the race is the diffusion of power away from Washington and to new people and entities that have rushed to fill the power vacuum at the top of the party. When the Democrats control the White House, the president can simply pick the chair of the party. But, even when out of power, Democratic pooh-bahs traditionally rally around a consensus figure and present him to the DNC members as a fait accompli. An open process with all the trappings of a modern political campaign--including a seven-candidate field, fund-raising, regional debates, and smear campaigns in the press--is unprecedented in the party's history. To many Washington Democrats watching the circus-like contest from afar, it has been an embarrassment. "I think it's pathetic," says James Carville. "It's so indicative of the Democratic Party. Now we're just playing into every stereotype: We're weak, disorganized, flopping around. ... Somebody should have fixed this damn thing in November. I wish someone would have taken charge and three or four people would have gotten together in a smoke-filled room. ... They're not running for president! They are running for party chair. This is supposed to be a rigged deal. You think the Republicans would do it this way?"
But every attempt to rig the race failed, revealing that the levers of power in the Democratic Party have shifted out of Washington's hands. From the congressional leadership to the governors to the Clintons, top Democrats were all terrified of a Dean victory. They believe he will turn what is essentially a low-key fund-raising and management position into a lightning rod for GOP attacks, eclipsing other voices and emphasizing exactly the elements of the party that weeks of postelection soul-searching had determined the Democrats needed to play down (e.g., its liberal stance on cultural issues and its weakness on national security). And yet none of them could stop him.
There is a lot to this article, written just before Dean was elected. It is not exactly a fun one to read. This last paragraph tells what is still going on, what Dean must face. He is after all, as those of us who supported his campaign know.....a real outsider. He may have been a centrist governor, he has often more moderate views than some...but it is more that he is opening the party up to us. That is what it is about.
But reform is also the new buzzword in the party's idea factories and among its elite as well. Much of the Democratic Leadership Council's recent advice for the party is to retake the mantle of political reform from Republicans using issues like redistricting, ethics, and electoral reform. Similarly, Carville tells anyone who will listen that Democrats must embrace the label of reform. But they are not talking about party-wide revolution. (Carville, after all, was appalled by the open process of the DNC chair's race.) They are talking about issues Democrats can use to defeat Republicans. Dean's first hurdle as chairman will be to erase the cartoon image of him that is seared into the minds of most Americans. But, beyond that monumental task, Dean will somehow have to mend the insider-outsider cleavage in the Democratic Party, a cleavage that he, perhaps more than anyone else, is responsible for creating--and which finally brought him to power.
Ryan Lizza is a senior editor at The New Republic.
It may or may not work, this experiment. It if does we will all benefit from it. There are signs that the entrenched power brokers are very strong in getting airtime, getting their words before others. That may in the end either slow it down, or even kill it.
But there are other options, after all that.