Note: I am usually a wait-and-see kind of guy. But some things are worth freaking out over. I may be freaking out over nothing at all, but I'd rather suffer the embarrassment of that than suffer the embarrassment of Republicans getting a toehold on us if we make such a serious mistake.
New report from The Hill: "The 50-state strategy is now and forever what Democrats do," Kaine told DNC members at the party’s winter meeting in Washington, D.C. The plan to seek to compete in all states was put in place by Kaine’s successor, Howard Dean.
OK. So we've had a pretty good discussion of what Bowers had to say earlier. I said at the outset here that it was very possible I was over-reacting, and it looks like I was.
Even so, I'm going to be keeping one good eye on the upper-management types to be certain they're not going to revert to the same old, top-down strategy that has failed us again and again.
I'm not a political strategist, but I know what works, and the 50-State Strategy works. That's worth defending.
We now return to our regularly scheduled diary.
According to Bowers' report:
1. Increasing Centralization: The shift in resources away from paid media and toward on the ground organizers will continue. However, these resources will be more directly controlled by the DNC itself, rather than by state parties. In other words, the SPP program where the DNC pays for organizers chosen by the state parties themselves is, as previously reported, done. Instead, the DNC will likely hire and assign organizers themselves. State party grants will also likely be transformed into more centrally directed expenditures by the DNC.
2. More swing state, less fifty-state: Many, if not most, states will have more resources spent on them during the next four years than during the previous four years. In addition to increasingly centralized control over how these resources are spent, there will also be a return to a swing-state focus for 2012. However, it is important to keep in mind that the Obama campaign's version of a swing state strategy was broader than either the Gore or Kerry incarnations.
No. No. No.
Look, I know what you're thinking. Obama is a great guy, and a talented politician. But if you talked with him, you'd realize that he didn't win this thing all by himself. He had a strategy that he put into action. It wasn't all big speeches and filled-to-the-top arenas. It was ground game. It was boots on the ground. It was taking the fight to the GOP where they live.
Obama is a great fundraiser and a brilliant tactician. Maybe the best our party has ever seen. But that's not enough. It's a mistake to put the entire party's fate on one person's shoulders, even if they are extremely talented.
You are making an Okie cry with this move. And I'd really be crying if I were a Texan, or a Floridian, or a North Carolinian -- because I'd know that my state was that much closer to turning reliably blue.
Dean gave you victory. He gave you the House and the Senate. He gave you a majority of governorships. He gave you stronger local parties. He gave you the goddamn White House, and this is how you thank him? A gold watch and a fucking toodle-oo?
The 50-State Strategy is the one thing that has given me hope for a better country over the past 4 years. Everything is tied to it. Even Obama's victory. It drives everything we do here at DKos, if you ask me. There'd be no better way to hamstring the entire Netroots than to abandon this strategy.
Somebody please tell me I'm wrong. Someone tell me I'm overreacting. I want to hear that. Tell me Bowers has it wrong. Lie to me if necessary.
I simply can't believe that a group of people would be so stupid as to take what works and send it spiraling down the drain. This is the most moronic decision you could possibly make right now.
There was a time when the wisdom of the strategy could be argued. That time is passed. Look at the maps. I don't need to speak for them. They speak for themselves.