Well, this article points to the possibility that the Democrat's unified front may be cracking. Thomas Edsall, in today's Washing post reports a very contentious meeting between Howard Dean and Representative Rahm Emanuel, who heads the party efforts to gain seats in the elections. Edsall reports That Emanuel left the meeting "leaving a trail of expletives". Doesn't sound like Howie's making friends.
The disagreement is over Dean's 50 state strategy and Emanuel's more traditional (these days) idea of focusing on competitive races. Dean's approach has been very expensive to date and the Democratic coffers are rather low with only $10 million on hand.
The blowup highlights a long-standing tension that has pitted Democratic congressional leaders, who are focused on their best opportunities for electoral gains this fall, against Dean and many state party chairmen, who believe that the party needs to be rebuilt from the ground up — even in states that have traditionally been Republican strongholds.
Emanuel's fury, Democratic officials said, was over his concern that Dean's DNC is spending its money too freely and too early in the election cycle — a "burn rate" that some strategists fear will leave the party unable to help candidates compete on equal terms with Republicans this fall.
This is going to be a long six months.
I have written a tiny bit about the DSCC’s interference in local grassroots politics here in Minnesota… I would be excited to here that the DNC is giving back some of what it is taking in criticism.
It seems like at least in this cycle the two strategies could cancel each other out, but I haven’t obviously seen DNC money coming into the state to build grassroots campaigns, unless it is going into the Native Vote organization.
The native vote focus should be getting more voters to caucus here, two years from now, and training that deals with the format of party meetings like endorsing conventions, as well as how to build issue advocacy campaigns. If DNC money came in to stimulate that constituency, I think it wasn’t early enough. More can still go into strategic investments. I hope the DNC doesn’t pile on to the campaigns of candidates the DSCC picked for us, foisted upon us. That would be insulting, at this point.
The DCCC has been slightly less obtrusive, but I’ve read about their requiring staff members on the campaigns they help fund be picked by DCCC and tat is just to remeniscent of the K Street project, and unlikely to lead to new and more efficient strategies, to doing more wih less.
It wil just feed the same old consultants who have been getting fat losing races and making big commissions on media buys.