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Dean and his coalition have is a competitive party in every state and a party that works for Americans even when there are no national elections. And how are they going to achieve this? By enacting the "50 State Strategy." As described in an article reviewing Dean's first 100 days as head of the DNC: "His plan was to focus on all fifty states, cultivate candidates at all levels of government, and get paid grassroots organizers on the ground immediately." [2]
Communicating the change vision - check
Dean and the party activists have been very effective in communicating their vision for the party to Americans. They are using the mainstream national media, the local media, the bloggers, the internet, and the radio. And communication is reinforced by numerous meetings, conventions and speeches.
Empowering broad-based action - check
Howard Dean has always been a Democrat, but after his run for President with the People-powered campaign, he now believes even more in democracy with a small "d." His goal is to empower all levels of the party to act.
"I'm not much of a Zen person," he remarked upon accepting chairmanship, "But I've found that the path to power, oddly enough, is to trust others with it. That means putting power where the voters are." [3]
And this year, articles show how the changes are being spread deep into the party.
"Over the past year, the DNC has hired and trained four staffers for virtually every state party in the nation--nearly 200 workers in all--to be field organizers, press secretaries, and technology specialists, even in places where the party hasn't been competitive for decades. "It's a huge shift," Dean tells U.S. News. "Since 1968, campaigns have been about TV and candidates, which works for 10 months out of the four-year cycle. With party structure on the ground, you campaign for four years."" [4]
Generating short-term wins - check
2006 will go down as a wave election year (where the majority changes hands) if the current polls hold which show that Americans want Democrats to take control. After the 2004 election, the conventional wisdom was the Democrats would have a very difficult time in taking over the House because there were so few competitive races - especially with the mid-decade Texas reapportionment devised by Tom DeLay which gave an additional 10 seats to Republicans. However, as the year has gone by, the number of competitive races in both the Senate and the House has increased significantly as voters have become angrier with the direction of our country under Bush. Because Dean has focused on making the local parties stronger, now everywhere a race can be contested, the party was able to find candidates to field.
"Waid and other state-level operatives say their beefed-up parties have also helped in candidate recruiting. "If you can show a candidate you have the support infrastructure to get them elected, he'll run," says Jerry Goldman, party chair in McCormick County, S.C., who now works closely with his state party. "You have to show a candidate that he's not out there by himself." In Arizona, Democrats have candidates in every legislative district for the first time in a decade. "Successful candidates for Congress come from winning offices at the county or municipal level," says Arizona's Waid. "We build that farm team, and it enhances our chances for taking back Congress.""
Of course, November 2006 will be a critical test on whether power will shift to the Democrats in the next Congress, but without the 50 State Strategy, the focus on a few select races would have precluded being strongly competitive this year.
Consolidating gains and producing more change - tbd
If Democrats can reclaim the House and (with a strong wind) the Senate, it will be time to build on their success at the ballot box by continuing to drive change with further reforms. The next major goal is to take the Presidency, and to reclaim the government so it is accountable the people. After the disastrous Bush administration, many enormous challenges remain to turning our country around and putting it on the right track. An energized and engaged citizenry can be the key to producing the change needed for the long run.
Anchoring new approaches in the culture - tbd
The final challenge for making this change endure will be to make sure that all Americans are welcome to be part of the solution and not just observers who show up once every two years. And perhaps a Constitutional Convention could help fill the holes that allowed too much power to be put in the hands of one group. This stage is extremely important as the price of sliding back to the today's status quo would allow the bad ideas and bad governance that have been the hallmark of the Republican government to come back and haunt our Constitutional democracy once more.
[1] Leading Change, by John P. Kotter, The Harvard Business School Press, 1996, pg 21.
[2] "100 Days and Counting", Sam Graham-Felsen, Alternet.org, June 2, 2005, http://www.alternet.org/story/22136/
[3] ibid.
[4] "Dean's List", Dan Giloff, US News, July 16, 2006, http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060716/24dems_2.htm
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