DNC Date & more poll info

by Jerome Armstrong, Mon Nov 22, 2004 at 12:41:38 PM EST

The date has been selected for the DNC meeting that will elect the Democratic Party's national leadership. The meeting will be held the 10-12th in DC, with the election of the Chair occurring on the 12th of February.

Here was the breakdown among the 155 members of the DNC that were polled 11/15-19 by the Hotline:

Who are your top 3 preferences among the following candidates [rotated]: Tom Vilsack, Harold Ickes, Howard Dean, Jim Hodges, Simon Rosenberg, Jeanne Shaheen, Wellington Webb, Ron Kirk, Brad Carson, Leo Hindery, Joe Erwin, Roy Barnes or someone not mentioned on this list?

Dean         45
Vilsack      37
Shaheen      27
Ickes        13
Webb         12
Barnes        9
Carson        7
Hodges        6
Hindery       4 
Rosenberg     4
Kirk          3
Erwin         0

Separate from the Chair position is the Vice Chair. If the Chair position is a contested race, the DNC is considering allowing someone who runs for the national Chair to also run for one of the Vice Chair positions. The current rule does not allow anyone to run for Chair to then run for a Vice Chair position, unless they file for both positions.

With Vilsack dropping out, the no-vision stop-Dean establishment is in a bind for the moment. It's still too way early for Dean to step forward. I think he learned a lesson about becoming the target way ahead of time. Ickes wants to be a candidate; and Shaheen has been a candidate-in-waiting for a while now. Hindery is another disaster being pushed... still a long ways to go, but an interesting day.

Tags: Democrats (all tags)

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Barnes looks good as Second in Command, to Me

I think Roy Barnes can win you 16 electoral votes.
I know this is a radical proposition, but Barnes
can negotiate with Zell and cut into the Red State
Phenomenon. Barnes and Zell get along, but Barnes
is much more moderate and also quite frankly he's
got good organizational skills, very good
executive skills. I think Barnes should
run Vice Chair.

And I think we should put our money where
our mouth is, as a party, and embrace an Instant
Run off Vote for our own party chair!!

Rosenberg has been spoken highly of.
Vilsack out, means that the votes will divide
for the rest. Dean is in front whether he likes
it or not.

by turnerbroadcasting 2004-11-22 12:53PM | 0 recs

4a2fab88-ed3b-47a4-8f14-3ec8a24504ac_normal

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Re: Barnes looks good as Second in Command, to Me

Barnes already dropped out, about a week ago.

by Jerome Armstrong 2004-11-22 02:48PM | 0 recs

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Shaheen becomes #2 w/ Vilsack out.

Nobody having anything to do with John Kerry should be allowed to lead the DNC...no way!!!!

by cpa1 2004-11-22 01:02PM | 0 recs

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Re: Shaheen becomes #2 w/ Vilsack out.

I agree. Shaheen is definitely Kerry's pick now. Had Kerry won, she likely would have been installed as his choice. She is wildly popular among NH Democrats and would likely push hard to keep the NH primary where. No vision, no Dean, vote Shaheen.

by ply739 2004-11-22 01:37PM | 0 recs

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Wildly popular?

I'm interested to know what makes you say Shaheen is wildly popular with NH dems. I'm a NH Democrat and I don't think much of her at all. (No snark here - I'm asking honestly; I'm a fairly new dem and I don't have a strong sense of what local establishment-oriented Democrats think.)

Shaheen in my view is very conservative (small-c) by temperament and is chiefly appreciated for having gotten elected at all in NH, and then not screwing anything up during her terms.

by cerebrocrat 2004-11-22 01:50PM | 0 recs

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Let me clarify

When I say wildly popular, I mean among the establishment Dems in NH. I'm a college student in NH origninally from MA and personally I think very little of Shaheen or her husband, Bill. Every elected official or longtime political player/activist seem to regard the Shaheens as political royalty. She was the last Democrat elected statewide in NH until this year, so I'm guessing that's why.

Among people my age, she is relatively unknown. Every time we went to a Kerry/Edwards event this fall, her reception was lukewarm and I had to explain to my friends who she was.

If it came to the NH/Iowa delegations supporting Dean vs. Shaheen, they'll support her because she'll support the current systems.

by ply739 2004-11-22 02:36PM | 0 recs

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Re: Shaheen becomes #2 w/ Vilsack out.

I think you misunderstood. As I wrote earlier, the Shaheen candidacy was only a stand-by incase Kerry & Establishment were not able to float and finalize the Vilsack boon, that's now bust. Shaheen is a Kerry-camper, and that would be his next logical choice, but it's also just another "anyone but Dean" bankrupt of vision candidacy.

by Jerome Armstrong 2004-11-22 02:51PM | 0 recs

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Establishment Choices

I have also heard that Alexis Herman is being backed by the people on the consulting gravy train who don't want to change the status quo (i.e. the people who are 0 for 3 in the last 3 national elections).

by Flatiron Dante 2004-11-22 03:13PM | 0 recs

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Re: Shaheen becomes #2 w/ Vilsack out.

I don't know much about Shaheen except what I saw during the election. When she appeared as a spokesperson for Kerry on news programs prior to the convention, she was defensive and abrupt and, well, a little whiney. She was so horrible I wrote a useless and, I'm sure, unread email to the Kerry campaign begging them not to use her as a spokesperson. I can't imagine such a flustered person being DNC Chair. K

by ksh 2004-11-22 08:11PM | 0 recs

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Re: Shaheen becomes #2 w/ Vilsack out.

I agree with your poor assessment of Shaheen on the campaign trail. The republicans mopped the floor with her on the news shows. She's probably a good person...but not ready to whip the republican machine during a sound bite. The DNC chair must be telegenic and very fast on his/her feet.

by xpat 2004-11-23 01:08PM | 0 recs

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Who are Hodges/Carson/Erwin?

I'm guessing that Carson is Brad Carson from Oklahoma, our Senate candidate this time around. Who are the others, Jerome?

by ply739 2004-11-22 01:39PM | 0 recs

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Re: Who are Hodges/Carson/Erwin?

Jim Hodges is the former Governor of South Carolina.

In 1998, he beat the darling of the religious right, David Beasley. He ran a campaign based on improving education and allowing a vote on a lottery. However, the number one issue that put him over the top is that he wasn't David Beasley. (Let's put it this way, in the GOP Senate runoff, Jim DeMint was the moderate compared to Beasley) In 2002 he lost his re-election bid to Republican Mark Sanford.

It's hard to say how strong or weak Hodges would be. Beasley was an unusually weak candidate, and Sanford an unusually strong one. His 1998 campaign focused on Beasley's greatest weakness, education. His 2002 campaign was a disaster, most notably the infamous "trailerschooling" commercial, which managed to offend everyone in South Carolina who is homeschooled, lives in a mobile home, or is named "Bubba". (Which is a LOT of people)

Hodges can neutralize the social issues. He actually got the NRA endorsement with an A+ rating. (Sanford had an A, so it didn't help much.) He was also, quite literally, the candidate of the guys with the confederate flags on their pickup truck in 1998. On the other hand, he wasn't exactly a very popular Governor.

Joe Erwin is the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party. Although Tenenbaum lost Hollings' seat, DeMint needed the coattails of Lindsey Graham, Mark Sanford, and George W. Bush to win. On the state level, the Democrats did manage to pick up one seat in the state house and one in the state senate.

That being said, being chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party is like being the head football coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks: you don't have to win too often to be considered successful.

The bottom line is that South Carolina is red and getting redder. The DNC should look somewhere else.

by wayward 2004-11-24 01:46PM | 0 recs

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Rosenberg

Kos was talking up Rosenberg today and I think he would be a good choice. I am not sold on Dean. I think his reputation, undeserved as it is, proceeds him no matter where he goes. The entire DNC could be tagged with that reputation if he were made the Chair. And I was a big supporter of his until I saw the results from Iowa (and jumped ship prior to "The Yell").

We do need someone with vision, but also someone with smarts and skill. As we know, a President requires none of those...

by Long Haul 2004-11-22 01:45PM | 0 recs

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Re: Rosenberg

I think his reputation, undeserved as it is, proceeds him no matter where he goes.

Dean's gone a long way to burnish his reputation by campaigning vigorously for Kerry, being willing to debate bloviates like Blackjack Bill Bennett and Ralph Reed the Giant Toddler, and hitting the Sunday Talk Show circuit. He can defuse whatever concerns people have and do it well. (And it's precedes, not proceeds.)

And I was a big supporter of his until I saw the results from Iowa (and jumped ship prior to "The Yell").

No, you're fairweather and were willing to bail at the smallest sign of trouble. You probably fell for the electability meme.

We do need someone with vision, but also someone with smarts and skill.

Dean's got that in spades. Vision: The Dean Dozens helped raise the visibility of downticket candidates that people would not have otherwise heard of. Smarts: Dean is smart and his instincts are dead-on. He was very deft in debating the Sunday talking head crowd. Skill: He's got years of experience as a legislator and executive.

by KimPossible 2004-11-23 04:40AM | 0 recs

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Glad no one thought...

...that losing control of every branch of govenment was worth bumping up the speed of the selection process so that the "building of the new" could start ASAP.

We're angry, we're not going to take it anymore, and we're going to start the new Democratic revolution right...

...after this nap.......ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz....

Political Physics

by cgilbert01 2004-11-22 02:08PM | 0 recs

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Re: Glad no one thought...

OK... take a nap...

but then... FIRE ZEEEE MISSILES!!!! ;)

--sam

by samizdat 2004-11-22 07:02PM | 0 recs

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Rosenberg

I endorse Simon Rosenberg for chair.

The KY Democrat
http://kydem.blogspot.com
Proud DLC Member

by kydem 2004-11-22 06:45PM | 0 recs

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Susan Turnbull for Vice Chair

If my memory serves me correctly the vice chair must be a of the opposite sex of the chair. I do know that DNC member Susie Turnbull (Currently a Deputy Chairman and leader of the Women's Leadership Forum in the DNC) is running. I believe she would be open to reform. As a DNC member from MD she has always been willing to listen to me whenever I had a question/suggestion for her (and I'm just a lowly county/state central committee member, the youngest in the state). Her openess contrasts quite a bit from many party leaders.

by Lavoisier1794 2004-11-23 05:23AM | 0 recs

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Re: Susan Turnbull for Vice Chair

I saw her at a Jews for Kerry event.

The KY Democrat
http://kydem.blogspot.com

by kydem 2004-11-23 06:54AM | 0 recs

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Dean/Hillary Clinton

These two fight together. If you want to lose the next two elections nationwide endorse Dean and Hillary. He had his moment, he earned it, but it has passed. He helped our party learn to strongly challenge the Bush administration. We need someone who has a profile that is moderate and telegenic. Dean is disliked by so many people including so many people in our party. His image is not one that should be our first step towards trying to rehabilitate our party. The only thing bigger than the stop Dean movement will be the stop Hillary movement which we will see in 2008.

by optimist 2004-11-23 01:43PM | 0 recs