It’s official! Howard Dean will take the reins of the DNC and Mr. McAuliffe will head into retirement.

No offense to the outgoing DNC Chair, but his fundraising skills, which are spectacular, could never possibly make up for his lack of leadership skills. In essence, former President Clinton and the DNC made the same mistake so many other organizations, companies, and corporations have made, they mistook a particular talent — in this case, Mr. McAuliffe’s phenomenal ability to raise the kinds of funds needed for national campaigns — for leadership ability.

Haven’t you seen it before? A salesperson in the company who outsells everyone, promoted to Sales Manager, only to find that s/he has no clue how to lead an entire organization? I think, unfortunately, this is what happened in Mr. McAuliffe’s case; a phenomenally talented person asked to do something for which he was not fully prepared.

I’ve blogged often regarding statements from Mr. McAuliffe and other party leaders which were, simply put, undisciplined and unprofessional. And in many of those same articles, I’ve expressed confusion over how such an organization could act in such a confused and disoriented fashion.

The fact is, since Bush’s 2000 inauguration, the Democratic Party has become the party of “NO!” Really, it reminds me of my favorite TV ad, next to the GEICO ad where the Gecko does “The Robot,” in which David Spade is a customer service rep who constantly says “NO” to customers.

I’ve heard many times that “NO” is not a strategy, or that “NO” is not a plan. Actually, it is. But, it’s a losing one.

It’s a losing strategy because you can never win if you are always playing defense. “NO” is a purely defensive posture and, thus, always a losing one. Let me offer a relevant example.

Before Bush became President, Clinton, Daschle, and other Democrats were gung ho to reform Social Security; and quite a few of them offered ideas related to the partial privatization of SS. But as soon as the recently elected President Bush echoed his support for this kind of plan, Democrats have given an unequivical NO.

Ted Van Dyk, a staunch Democrat who was an active party member for fourty years underscores my point:

The party’s visible leaders and voices are pursuing an entirely different strategy today. It generally amounts to angry opposition on all issues all the time…

For many years Democrats, more than Republicans, pointed to the need to reform Social Security for the long term. Social Security, after all, was a Democratic invention and a cornerstone of the party’s commitment to economic security. Yet, in the face of the Bush reform initiative, many senior Democrats have chosen simply to deny the need for change. That is not a viable policy or political position…

Memo to Democrats: It is time to return to the old-fashioned way. Ask the questions: What are the needs of our country? What are our constructive proposals to meet them? How can we best push those proposals forward? If Democratic leaders and candidates ask those questions, and try seriously to answer them, voters may once again be prepared to let them govern.

There is much more to this article and I urge everyone to read it in full. This is not an article intended to compliment Republicans but rather to spur Democrats in Washington to change their approach and meet Republicans head-on with their own vision, their own strategy, and their own dreams for a better nation and safer world.

So, will Howard Dean answer this call and work to move the DNC to a more moderate position? What will Democrats stand for over the next 10 or 20 years? What are they FOR rather than against? What is their vision?

While I have my doubts as to whether the new DNC Chair will have the ability to leave his ultra-partisan politics behind, I guess we’ll have to wait and see how Dean shapes up as a party leader. I wish him well while, at the same time, I would urge my fellow Republicans not to underestimate him.

Competition is a good thing, even in politics. I hope Howard Dean will make his party more competitive.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com