Howard Dean, who crashed out of last year’s race for the White House with his now infamous ”I have a scream” speech, was poised on Tuesday for a political comeback as chairperson of the Democratic national committee.
Just months after being reduced to a running joke on cable television and a codicil to the Democrats’ defeat, Dean has emerged as the man charged with ensuring the party’s future after the last of his six rivals bowed out of the leadership race on Monday.
Balloting of the DNC’s 447 members for a successor to the current party chairperson, Terry McAuliffe, takes place on Saturday.
Dean blazed across the political map in 2003 before his spectacular flameout in the first Democratic primary, and his rise to the chair of the DNC represents a victory not only for his personal powers of reinvention, but for the Democratic grassroots over the party establishment.
”Many of the DNC members feel that once the election of the chair is concluded they are cut out of process. Their support of Dean is a signal to the Washington DNC apparatus that they want a little bit more democracy and a little bit more consultation,” Harold Ickes, a key aide to Senator Hillary Clinton and a Dean supporter, told The Guardian.
Dean’s imminent victory was also seen as a victory for the more liberal wing of the Democratic party. ”It’s a signal that the progressive agenda of the Democratic party will be at the forefront, which suggests there is going to be a battle over social security and other aspects of the conservative agenda,” said Robert Shapiro, a politics professor at Columbia University.
The former governor of Vermont owes his comeback to his prowess as a fundraiser, and to his ability to mobilise the Democratic base. However, the very passion that swayed his supporters nearly blocked his rise to the DNC chairmanship.
Some party notables feared the kind of emotion that erupted after his defeat in the Democratic caucuses in Iowa, marked by the image of Dean shouting at his audience that he would fight on.
Footage of that scene, replayed countless times on TV, made Dean an easy target for the Republicans. It cemented his image as a north-eastern liberal — against the war in Iraq, and for civil unions for gay couples — even though, as governor of Vermont, he was a pro-gun, budget-balancing centrist.
Even Dean’s supporters agree that that fiery image may haunt him in his new role, and that the Republicans will be working overtime to lure him into a misstep. ”Dean’s proclivity is to take positions very quickly on issues,” said Ickes. ”He is no longer a governor, no longer a presidential candidate. He is the steward of the party in a very broad sense, and before he takes position he needs to consult.”
Dean appears to have listened, and has said he will focus his efforts on rebuilding the party at the local, state and national levels, leaving party positions to elected officials. However, Democratic insiders said that Dean’s proven ability to connect with voters made it likely that he would play a far more active role in politics than previous DNC chiefs.
Dean has already said the party needs to reframe its position on abortion to broaden its appeal. He also has the credentials to weigh in on the other hot button issue: gay marriage. Under Dean’s governorship, Vermont was the first state to recognise civil unions, although he has said he is opposed to gay marriage.
For the moment though, it appears that Dean has set aside his personal political ambitions. He gave the first indication of his change of heart during the election campaign when, despite the humiliation of his primary defeat, he used his newly founded Democracy for America platform to raise funds for local candidates overlooked by the DNC.
By the time the final tallies were counted, Dean had raised $5,5-milion for Democratic candidates, including those contesting unwinnable seats in the South and Midwest. That won Dean supporters and persuaded some within the establishment that it was worth taking a second look at him.
Meanwhile, his reputation as a money maker was assured. During the Democratic primaries, he built a grassroots fundraising organisation that was the envy of his rivals, using the internet to discover a network of small donors.
That success was crucial. ”Now that Howard Dean is at the helm, I think internet fundraising and low-dollar fundraising is really going to explode, and at the same time he is going to hang on to major donors,” said Claire Lucas, who was a national finance chair during John Kerry’s election campaign. – Guardian Unlimited Â