HE KNOWS NOT WHAT HE DOES:

The Inside Agitator (Matt Bai, 1 Oct 2006, NY Times Magazine)

In just a few hours, Dean had nicely demonstrated why so many leading Democrats in Washington wish he would spend even more time in Alaska — preferably hiking the tundra for a few months, without a cellphone. It’s not that Democrats in Congress don’t like the idea of building better organizations in the party’s forgotten rural outposts. Everyone in Democratic politics agrees, in principle, that party organizations in states like Alaska could use help from Washington to become competitive again, as opposed to the rusted-out machines they have become. But doing so, at this particular moment and in this particular way, would seem to suck away critical resources at a time when every close House and Senate race has the potential to decide who will control the nation’s post-election agenda, and when the party should, theoretically, be focused on mobilizing its base voters — the kind of people who live in big cities and listen religiously to Air America.

It’s true that adding a second organizer in Alaska will cost the national party only a modest sum, maybe $35,000 this year, but that same money could pay the salaries for canvassers in Pennsylvania or Connecticut, where a few thousand votes could mean the difference between swearing in Speaker Hastert or Speaker Pelosi next January. Overall, Dean’s investment in state parties could cost the D.N.C. as much as $8 million this year, every dime of which could be crucial when you consider that the Republican National Committee says it will pour as much as $60 million into local races to defend its Congressional majorities. (The D.N.C. has pledged to spend $12 million on this fall’s races.) With the president’s approval ratings stuck around 40 percent, and polls suggesting that the Democrats may have a real chance of rolling back 12 years of Republican rule, numerous Democratic insiders are privately and, at times, publicly deriding the 50-state strategy as an indulgence that could cost them their best and last opportunity to sweep away the Bush era, once and for all.

What the article doesn't mention, and this is the real significance of what Dean has done, is that within the next few years, the apparatus he's created is going to demand an actual platform with actual policies. What are the Democrats going to do then?

Posted by Pepys at October 1, 2006 11:02 AM