DNC Chairman Dean frustrates those wanting more outreach
National party chairmen Howard Dean and Ken Mehlman have the same job titles but different jobs. One is
on a mission to rebuild, the other to expand.
Their itineraries tell the tale.
Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, is courting black and Hispanic voters on a regular
basis. Beyond the usual run of speeches, fundraisers and meetings with donors, he has visited Latino neighborhoods and historically
black campuses. He has attended black-oriented receptions and ceremonies, spoken to minority chambers of commerce and raised
money for Otto Banks of Harrisburg, Pa., a black City Council candidate new to the GOP.
Dean, who reaches Day 100 as Democratic National Committee chairman Monday, is for the most part speaking
to diehard Democrats who are the backbone of their party. He has addressed Democrats in nine states dominated by Republicans,
such as Kansas and Mississippi, and in party strongholds such as California and Massachusetts. He has spoken to labor unions,
gay rights groups and state party chairs — all pillars of the party.
Some Democrats are frustrated by the contrast between the two approaches, even as they praise Dean's efforts
to revitalize flagging state parties. “Democrats should be stirring things up, roiling the waters on (the GOP) side
the way Mehlman is on ours. He's playing in our sandbox,” says Steve Rosenthal, CEO of America Coming Together, a group
formed to energize and turn out Democratic voters.
Will Marshall, president of the centrist Progressive Policy Institute, agrees that Democrats need to “go
raiding behind Republican lines.” He says his group and the affiliated Democratic Leadership Council will be doing “some
missionary work of our own” in Republican states this year.
Rosenthal, Marshall and others say Democrats — led by Dean — should be reaching out to groups
and areas where Republicans have done well: military families, Catholics, evangelical Christians, business leaders, people
who live in the “exurbs” beyond even outer suburbs, and people who live in small, “micropolitan” cities.
They also say Democrats should focus on black and Latino voters, even though majorities of both voted for Democrat John Kerry
for president last year.
Dean declined to comment for this story. His spokeswoman, Karen Finney, says that “we will have an
aggressive outreach,” including to the faith community, “but we're focused on doing our strategy — not talking
about it.” She adds: “I'm glad to hear the Republican Party is finally reaching out” to minorities. “It's
about time.”
Though Republicans still win only a fraction of the black vote, the trend is up: President Bush gained last
year among blacks, rising from 8% to 11%. More worrisome for Democrats as they look at future swing states, Bush went from
9% to 16% among black voters in Ohio — the state that gave him the presidency with a 2-percentage-point win. Among Hispanics,
the fastest growing part of the electorate and once reliably Democratic, Bush went from 35% to more than 40% nationally.
The numbers behind the Republican push are stark. Given birth rates and other population trends, GOP strategist
Bill McInturff says, “you can't be a majority party as a party of white America.”
Simon Rosenberg, president of the centrist New Democrat Network, says his group spent $6 million in nine
states last year to reach Hispanic voters, but “winning with Hispanics is a much higher priority” for Republicans.
“They're doing the math,” he says.
Dean, a former presidential candidate, won his current job by pledging to revive weak state operations,
and that is his top priority now. In April, he gave $500,000 in DNC money to parties in four states dominated by Republicans,
and plans to dispense cash to several additional state parties this month. He has started placing organizers in all 50 states.
A DNC team is helping state parties develop customized rebuilding plans.
More than three months into his tenure, Dean has yet to name a political director, typically the person
who stays in contact with state parties and decides where money should go. However, he has won praise for making diverse appointments,
including a communications director and lead pollster who are African-American. He's kept his profile relatively low but is
set to break out Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press. [transcript]
Mehlman, manager of the 2004 Bush campaign, played a crucial role in the Republicn Party's two-year drive
to build up grass-roots operations and pinpoint potential supporters. The result: Republicans outperformed Democrats in turning
out voters, and Bush won.
The Republican Party recently set new goals — register 4 million new voters, identify 19 million new
potential supporters — to make sure it keeps growing over the next four years. At the same time, Mehlman has turned
to minority voters. “It certainly is a very big priority for me, this president and this party,” he said in an
interview.
In talks to minority groups, Mehlman promotes Bush's “opportunity” agenda: home and business
ownership, education and individual Social Security accounts. He says he and his party share his listeners' love of country,
family and God. “Give us a chance and we'll give you a choice,” he urges.
Republican strategist Matthew Dowd says Mehlman is building on his party's 2004 gains, while Dean is shoring
up traditional support — not a strong position. “A party trying to win elections and expand the electorate would
much prefer to be speaking to the other side's base than its own base,” he says.
Jim Jordan, a Democratic strategist and Dean adviser, dismisses Mehlman's forays as window-dressing. “Mehlman
has a huge luxury,” he says. “He's running the same organization he's been running for a long time. It's in good
shape. It's well funded. So he can do things like make PR points.”
Dean is offering Democrats his trademark red-meat rhetoric along with guidance on outreach...
Last weekend he said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, whose associates are under investigation
but who has not been charged with anything, should go home to Houston to “serve his jail sentence” at Texas expense.
At the same time, Dean tells Democrats they need to “respect people in all 50 states” and try
to win them over...
That includes changing the way Democrats talk about abortion, he says. Forget “pro-choice” and
“pro-life,” he tells groups across the country, Democrats should talk about who makes the decision — the
woman, a politician such a DeLay or, as reported by the Lawrence Journal World in Kansas, “some right-wing pastor.”
Dean told California Democrats he is visiting conservative states because “how are people going to
respect you if you don't show up and ask for their vote?” He is counting on that message getting out beyond his Democratic
audiences. As he says, referring to the limited turf fought over last year, “You have seen the last 18-state presidential
campaign in America.”
