Via HowieInSeattle, The Hill reports today, “Three top fundraisers at the Democratic National Committee have resigned at a time when its chairman, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, has come under fire from fellow Democrats for controversial comments and his Republican counterpart has raised more than twice as much money.”
More below + my comments:
A third top DNC fundraiser, Nancy Eiring, the director of grassroots fundraising, has also resigned, citing strategic differences with aides to Dean, according to a report yesterday in ABC News’ “The Note.”
Siegel told The Hill that she remained at the DNC for the first few months of the year only to help with the transition to leadership under a new chairman and that “Dean is moving the party in a great direction.” Siegel will raise money for Andrew Cuomo’s race for New York attorney general.
Kreloff has set up her own consulting firm, LBK Consulting Inc., and has signed on Maryland Senate hopeful Rep. Ben Cardin (D) as a new client. She said Dean is “doing a wonderful job building the grassroots.”
Eiring did not return a call for comment.
Democratic fundraisers say that there is growing concern over what they call Dean’s lack of attention to major donors and that donors are much less likely to give money if they don’t have sufficient opportunity to meet with the party’s leadership.
“When you don’t have the chairman to fundraise with, or any principals of the leadership, you can’t get major donors to help you,” a veteran Democratic fundraiser said. “You want the leaders of the party to sit down with them so they can discuss their plan.”
“It’s frustrating to be the staff person in charge of that group,” the fundraiser said. “No one wants to stay in a job in which they’re not successful.” The fundraiser added that New York is a competitive place to raise money and that donors often demand detailed explanations of how the money will be spent.
I always said that they put Dean in charge of the DNC to placate party activists like you and me. I.e., his election wasn’t the result of a sincere desire to work with Dean in Dean’s own way. It was to string us along.
These criticisms might be valid. I don’t know. What do YOU think?
Something smells fishy to me…we have the fundraisers praising Dean, but the “Big Donors” whining. My first reaction is that the Dems are being very self-destructive, going public with this shit. Dean is doing what he needs to do…where have the “Big Donors” got us up until now? Completely out of power, that’s where. And now they are complaining publicly…it stinks…people need to support Dean, because his efforts are going to win for us in the long run. I think we need to let Dean know we have his back…
I just set up a donations page on DNC. Go to my link
here:
Here is what I wrote:
We’ve got Dean’s back!
I hope I can edit this message because I wrote this out of emotion. I am open to some suggestions on what changes I should make.
Hausfrau, I can send this to Howie in Seattle who’ll send it on to his oh-so-connected mailing list. Let me know if that’s okay.
YOU’RE GREAT!
I would LOVE it! Here is the email that I have made up to send to my friends and family.
Done. I’ll let you know more later.
Howie e-mailed this to his hot list of Demo insiders + to two blogs, including http://howieinseattle.blogspot.com/ and http://www.seattlefordean.com/
Susan Hu cross-posted our link to the story from The Hill, “Fundraisers jilt Dean” on Booman Tribune and Jill Lehnert aka Hausfrau has set up a donations page at the DNC. Here’s what she says in an email to her friends and family:
“I want to show the politicians in DC that they answer to us, the American people, not the lobbyists inside the beltway. Republicans, the media, and yes, even some of the “established” democrats are bashing Dean at this very moment. Dean is out on the road building a democratic party from the ground up. The people inside the beltway want him to drive around in a limousine and cosy up to them. We have to fight back NOW. Please make a small contribution to show your support for Howard Dean and make sure you add that penny to show that this contribution is for clean government.”
Howie is a BooTrib member, btw. And his e-mail address is howieinseattlefordean@yahoo.com
Thank you Susan and Thank you Howie! I love you guys!
Wow! Way to back up your words with action. I bookmarked your page, and will contribute when we get the okay!
Cheers!
you’re right and that we, the very people he has been so strongly supporting all along, need to continue to be strong in our support of him through this continuing transition. Things like this were bound to happen. The old guard is having spasms and they’re going to make sure to have them in public to try to make him look bad. Which doesn’t mean he can’t also learn some things, if need be, and I hope he will.
I think the fundraisers only care about themselves, not the democratic party nor the American people. If democrats want to win, we have to stand for something, a clean honest government. The elected officials should be looking out for the interest of the American people, not the big whigs in DC.
Do they want to spend more time with Dean? Then I suggest they join him in canvassing the whole country and getting more people involved in the democratic process.
I think this is a scam to get Dean out of the DNC chair. I think the rich fat cats in DC should hungry for a while (a long while). This is why independents and people on the fence do not vote for the democratic candidates nor any candidates for that matter. They see right through the bullshit.
Hausfrau:
what an excellent suggestion!!
“Do they want to spend more time with Dean? Then I suggest they join him in canvassing the whole country and getting more people involved in the democratic process. “
Who are these “big donors” anyway? I betcha that most of them are just pissed off becuase they’re not getting what they want from Dean in return for their “support”. Fuck ’em, I say.
I do agree that Dean is going to have to do more than gather Internet support, but I think that what he’s trying to do…I would really like to see him reach out to the HUGE blocks of people who just don’t vote, and with more than a rousing chorus of “Help is on the Way” — if dems want to gain anything in the upcoming elections, they will need to make the non-voters, and disillusioned voters think that someone gives two shits about what they do all day….
Here ya go: Top Donors, and Geographic Areas. [Reference: OpenSecretsOrg.]
Thank you so much for those links. Let’s use language appropriately and call these “Big Donors” what they are: Corporate Influence Buyers. The spin on this story looks bad but this is exactly what I hoped Dean would do — look to real people for support instead of pandering to the moneyed elite. The Dem Party can’t honestly represent the best interests of working Americans if they owe favors to Time-Warner and Goldman Sachs.
I think many of these corporation gave equal or even greater donations to the Repubs so they could own both sides. I kinda doubt they are going to stop supporting the DNC just because Dean won’t have a power lunch with their rep. If they did so, the nakedness of their bribery would be too apparent.
There were 79 million people who didn’t vote.
They were the plurality.They need to be targeted in the next election.
who are these hoards of Big Money Donors who are lining up to give to a defunct party.
I always understood that the “big ticket” donors doanted to buy influence…. What influence does the Democratic PArty have to offer???
I mean the only corporate donors that I saw this year were the credit card corporations that paid Democrats to sell off bits of the farm…
I think these mysterious BIG DONORS can be found in the same place as the illusive “Swing Voters”…. in Al From imagination.
Parker – Do you happen to have a link to your recent diary regarding Dean’s fundraising accomplishments? That would seem to go nicely with the flow.
Waaaaaaaa…damn those grassroots, who do those “people” think they are? Demanding that the govt. be of and for the people? What’ll they think of next?
If the fat cats, ie: corporate interests, are whining, you can bank on the reality that there is a “sea change” coming in the Democratic party. Frankly, I see this as a positive sign <fingers crossed>
He just sent this:
Tuesday, June 07 @ 00:56:13 PDT by howard martin
More from my new best friend blogger, David Sirota: “There’s a lot to be encouraged about from high-profile Democrats lately – and there’s also a lot to be pissed off about too. The dichotomy shows that the party is in the throes of something big.
Let’s start with the good stuff. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D) is showing some real spine in calling President Bush out for what he is: a liar. Some in Washington’s cocktail party circuit may cringe at that characterization, but that’s only because the Beltway Establishment has pathetically accepted the fact that the White House blatantly lied to the public about the war – and now has deemed those lies off limits for criticism.
Only when someone as high profile as Reid brings up the honesty question is the establishment forced to listen – and we should be happy that the new Minority Leader is showing his fighting spirit, because no matter what the Beltway culture says, ordinary Americans don’t like to be lied to.
Another good development – DNC Chairman Howard Dean is getting all over the country in pursuit of his “50-State Strategy.” I got to sit with Dean at dinner while he was visiting here in Helena, Montana for the Western Democratic Caucus meetings and he was as pugnacious and aggressive as ever. He’s on a record-setting fundraising clip (despite the party’s fat cats complaining), and he’s putting that money where his mouth is, investing in red states where the party has been absent. Good for him.
Unfortunately, that leads us to the bad news. Delaware Sen. Joe Biden (D) is – as usual – using any opportunity he can to promote himself to the detriment of the rest of the party. This time, he publicly attacked Dean for Dean’s harsh rhetorical attacks on the GOP. Biden grandstanded on ABC’s This Week by saying Dean “doesn’t speak for me with that kind of rhetoric.”
The nerve of this guy to undermine the party by attacking his own chairman is really stunning. The fact is, we should be glad Dean is speaking for people like Biden – because if he was, he wouldn’t be speaking for most other Democrats or Americans. Biden, you may recall, was key in helping pass the credit card-industry written Bankruptcy Bill, at the behest of his credit card/banking-industry donors. He’s also the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, yet has been noticeably unwilling to take a serious position on the War in Iraq, other than to advocate sending more U.S. troops and spending billions of dollars more.
Then there’s Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (D), who patted himself on the back during his campaign for “loudly and vigorously” opposing the war in Iraq. Yet, in his first six months in office, he voted to confirm Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State, despite her lies leading up to the war. He could be making waves about this, especially considering he serves on the Foreign Relations Committee. But, like Biden, has been almost completely reticent about opposing the war, even in the face of polls which show most Americans think the war was not worth it.
I did a brief check of Obama’s Senate website, thinking that someone who “loudly and vigorously” opposed the war would have that opposition splashed all over the place. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find any reference to him opposing the war, much less “loudly and vigorously.” And remember, his war position comes along with a series of other Obama votes on critical economic issues where he sided with the Republicans.
Is this the same Barack Obama who wowed the Democratic Convention and is supposedly the next great progressive hope?
Clearly the party is in the throes of something making a big decision. Will it follow the likes of Reid, Dean and others and transform itself into a conviction party that is motivated by principles? Or, will it continue in the “triangulation” mode with calculated, watered-down positions that continue telling America Democrats simply stand for nothing? Polls show the former has the support of millions of Americans, while the latter might get Democrats the support of out-of-touch pundits like Joe Klein and Tom Friedman. Can the party listen to the American public, or will it continue genuflecting to the self-consumed Beltway culture that has driven it into the minority?”-from his latest on The Huffington Post.
So, in this world, invading a country that didn’t attack us and posed absolutely no threat to us is no big deal. But Howard Dean overstating his distaste for Republicans is an enormous deal. In this world, lying about Saddam Hussein’s connections to 9/11, his WMD capabilities and misleading us into a highly destabilizing preemptive strike against another country is a tiny issue. What Howard Dean said last week is a giant issue. Tom DeLay’s ethical violations aren’t an issue, what Dean says about them is an issue.”
-from the post by Cenk Uygur.
Of course, the real obscenity in this whole discussion is that it is necessary, in this supposed democracy, to raise enormous amounts of money to buy access to the voters. And that the money to buy that access is given in large chunks by people who are buying access to the politicians who are buying access to the voters and the offices. </rant>
I think Dean is doing OK. He’s on a strong course, but it’s largely uphill just now, building at the local level (which from many accounts is what cost us the election) working against inertia, party dysfunction over loss and insiders who live well off the proceeds, self-promoting small people like Biden, and other usual suspects. Can people like us, bloggers in our jammies, donate enough to make up for the supposed loss of “big donors”? Very possibly.
And thank you to your pal Howie in Seattle, for spelling “throes” correctly.
So right you are. He got my bloomers in a bundle on one of the Sunday morning shows this week. Sitting there with an all too familiar smirk on his face – exuding smugness to and fro – saying Dean’s comments are bad for the party and do not reflect Biden’s personal position. Go pontificate somewhere else and get the heck off my TV screen. (Click – changed channels)
Are Big Donors pissed because they can’t direct the party’s platform or hand-pick candidates? I like the direction that Dean is taking the DNC — build up local party infrastructure and develop candidates at all levels.
Maybe I’m speculating a bit, but do the Big Donors not understand that electing Democrats at every level of government is important? Do the Big donors just want to focus on the big offices, while letting Republicans take over state and local governments?
And while letting those same local and state elected Republicans rise to prominance for national elections in the future?
Money: New York and California contributed a total of 65+ million in the ’04 cycle, followed by a distant Mass. @ 11.4. Kerry’s campaign put in 26 mil. OpenSecrets has compiled stats from the election and it’s worth taking a close look.
While you’re at it, take a look at the party website. Of the ten stories front-paged on the DNC website, six are negative. Top is the “50 State” logo, next is a big shot of DeLay. Three different links requesting contributions, “Resources” includes links for dem gear for sale, link for media takes you to web forms. No positive message, nothing inviting the public in. That’s leadership?
Granted it takes time to transition to new leadership in any large organization. But the lack of any clear message, and the intense focus on negative slams at reeps will not endear democrats to those voters the party desperately needs to attract. Republicans aren’t the enemy, they’re the opposition party. The criticisms are valid. To me leadership means being able to unite and strengthen, not scatter and split.
If I had Dean’s ear, the first thing on my agenda would be to move party headquarters to the middle of the country. (I hear land’s pretty cheap in Nebraska these days.) Just get the hell out of D.C. And like a newly-elected President, and pink-slip the entire staff and re-interview them.
Twenty years ago, a friend of mine worked as a programmer for a company called Sperry (later Unisys). His team’s specialty was designing secure systems for banks. They eached lived in different parts of the State, and in other States.
We have the technology – have had for quite awhile now. What we need is leadership with the intestinal fortitude to initiate radical structural change. Maybe next time…..
Which is why I so desparately want them NOT to use a picture of Terri Schiavo in future campaign ads against Delay and the Republican party. The mere thought of such an initiative really got under my skin.
If, in the fat cats’ opinion, Dean isn’t raising enough money then the fat cats can always write some frickin’ checks to the DNC.
What’s really going on is that they aren’t bitching about the money, they are bitching about the loss of influence. That’s fine with me.
So…who are the major donors? Maybe the grassroots needs to have a little chat with them.
I went over to their story and saw that they were repeating these talking points,
This is completely biased reporting. As Bill Scher points out, Dean was rattling off a list of insoucient policies of the Bush Administration towards workers. Then he said,
By taking Dean’s quotation out of context and changing the wording slightly, the Hill makes it look like Dean is dissing Republicans.
Furthermore, today on One America, John Edwards says he agrees with Dean and that the talk of a “flap” is “Nonsense.”
What are the “Big Donors” going to do with their money now that the “Big Fundraisers” have left the DNC? Give it to the Republicans? Buy stock in Walmart?
This is another fabricated Republican media moment.
“Democratic fundraisers say…” and “a veteran Democratic fundraiser said.” Why are Dean’s critics almost always unidentified, but nearly always attributed to his own political party?
who is reporting this?
My second question is,
who is reporting this?
My third question is,
are any of those reporting this also running stories on the Downing Street Minutes? Torture? The Ohio Coingate Scandle? The Enron payoff? Halliburton’s Bonus? Or, any of the 10,000+ other stories about the DeLay/Mehlman Republican and BushMart graft, corruption and general filth?
Probably not; but you can bet they are running other negative stories about Dean. And John Kerry. Hillary. John Edwards. Reid. Pelosi…
And, you can bet they have a magnifying glass on everything Democratic Party. They are the paid-for-press after all. The rotton-to-the-corp paid-for…
I think it’s fairly common for staff shake-ups when a new chairman takes over. They might have chosen to leave for greener pastures, or because their skills don’t translate well to the new fundraising directions and they see themselves as having less clout in a Dean-led DNC.
Or, they could have been asked to leave.
We don’t know, and frankly I see no point in hand-wringin g over an article in the Hill. It’s inside baseball, and while it might be interesting that’s not the game that wins elections.
What kind of coverage is DNC Dean getting in the local papers across the nation? I think it’s been mostly rave reviews, and that’s the game we need to be watching.
Howie just e-mailed me this comment from SusieMadrak:
“Good! Glad to hear he’s weaning the party off the corporate teat. It’s hard to do the right thing when you’re completely beholden to the same people who are screwing the country:”
Good news, everyone! Governor Dean’s discovered a cure for deadwood!
Seriously, I think that this is a lot of fuss being made over nothing. Their discontent doesn’t seem to have affected the good governor’s performance – so far, he’s outraised McAuliffe, and doesn’t show any sign of showing down. And the state parties adore him. Whether these guys left because he was doing their jobs better than they could, or because he was changing the rules of the game, or because they felt it was the time to move on… It doesn’t matter. Dean’s doing great work.