Begala had it wrong about the 50 state plan and about those "nose-pickers" in MS

[madfloridian]

I will never forget when Paul Begala made his world famous "picking their noses" comment in regard to Dean's 50 State plan. It was such an awful thing to say. When those folks in MS got their victory last night it came to mind.

From Zach Exley at Huff Post at the time:

Begala's obsession with just a few states

"Yes, he's in trouble, in that campaign managers, candidates, are really angry with him. He has raised $74 million and spent $64 million. He says it's a long-term strategy. But what he has spent it on, apparently, is just hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose. That's not how you build a party. You win elections. That's how you build a party."
- Paul Begala on Howard Dean and the DNC's 50 State Strategy,
CNN - May 11 2006

Exley responds to Begala:

Yes, Paul, we have to win elections. But a myopic obsession with squeaking through in a few high-profile races is not party building, it's suicide.

I've read your books and I know you've been fighting the good fight up there on TV every day. And so it was with complete dismay that I listened to you on CNN savaging the DNC's "50 State" program organizers.

Your comments came as part of a series of attacks on Dean and the DNC from big-name members of your Clinton Class of '92. A whole generation of new Democratic activists finds these attacks totally bewildering and appalling.

You should be up there on TV celebrating that we finally have a DNC who understands that winning means building real power and standing for something. Your entire career has been about teaching Democrats to "stand for something." But, coming from a communications background, maybe you just don't understand the "building real power" part of the equation.

It wasn't just Begala. Rahm and others had a whole lot to say about the strategy.

Denver Post: Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy paying off

When Democratic Chairman Howard Dean sent Idaho Democrats the money to double the size of the state party’s tiny staff, it seemed a vainglorious gesture. Silly. Stupid, even. Few states are as Republican Red as Idaho.

Dean’s critics, and there are many here, call his “50-state strategy” to direct a chunk of the party’s treasury to states that don’t routinely elect Democrats a colossal waste of resources.

Rahm Emanuel, the debonair Chicagoan who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, threw a well-publicized tantrum over Dean’s insistence on nurturing Democratic grassroots in backwoods places like Idaho.

Emanuel’s buddy, Democratic consultant Paul Begala — who once knew a little something and cared a bit about folks who live outside the Washington Beltway — said contemptuously on CNN that Dean was wasting precious money “hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose.”

Paul Begala later "apologized", if you want to call it that at all.

Apology?

I am deeply frustrated with a party establishment that does everything except tell people what we stand for. They spend millions on voter files, field work, phone banks, staff, consultants, etc...and yet people don't know what we stand for. I am not opposed to hiring organizers. I'm opposed to pretending that hiring organizers is in any way a substitute for having a message.

Well, it sounds to me like MS had a message and delivered on it yesterday.

[LisaM]

1. I'd call Dean's strategy a 48-state strategy. n/t

[madfloridian]

2. Of course you would, Lisa. Of course you would.

Let the foot stomping commence.

[Larkspur]

5. Hillary ran the "Discount all states after Feb. 5" strategy

She lost the nomination when Obama's campaign went on an 11-0 streak in February and Clinton's campaign was out of $$$.

Hillary's amended strategy is "Discount all states Obama won and seat all MI delegates for me because Obama's name was not on the ballot even thought I signed a statement agreeing not to recognize MI and FL primaries."

[IronLionZion]

10. awwww

[madfloridian]

12. Okay, you did it.

You made me LOL

[IronLionZion]

13. glad to help!

:hi:

[KSinTX]

18. That's a great one! nt

[Warpy]

3. Dean was right and the (DLC) party establishment was wrong

but I think most of us already knew that.

[madfloridian]

4. The old talking points, the old ways sound so out of place now.

It's so odd to think back to the things Begala and Carville have said and done. It does not seem so funny anymore.

[Ken Burch]

6. Remember, if the party was run the way Bill, Hill and Nose Pickin' Paul ran it

We'd STILL be in the minority in both houses of Congress. Which is the kind of Congress HRC wanted to work with.

[madfloridian]

24. You are right.

:hi:

[madfloridian]

7. Begala's on Ed Schultz right now.

Says he doesn't want it to end.

[progressoid]

8. Hey Paul, here's four words for you...

[BlueCaliDem]

14. Of course, *after* he apologizes to Howard Dean for that elitist remark of his. eom

[progressoid]

16. Oh. Yeah. Right.

And if the media would stop inviting him on their shows, that would be great too.

[IronLionZion]

9. Begala and Carville may have outlived their usefulness way back in 92.

They were hot shit when they elected Bill Clinton (and Bob Casey and then-liberal Zell Miller) but now they seem to be washed up has-beens.

[Raster]

15. "may have"?

Begala and Carville's 15 minutes are over--LONG OVER!

[WillyToad]

32. Both of them have worked tirelessly for the democrats

Obama supporters want to abandon everyone who isn't instantly in lockstep with them. They need to start living unity and hope and not just talk about it. They need to look within themselves and find some tolerance and ditch their bigotry against anyone in the democratic party who disagrees with them.

[IronLionZion]

37. What are they doing now?

The 50-state strategy helps Democrats win seats across the country and be a national party again. Speaking out against it hurts the Democratic party. Why is this difficult to understand?

[Shipwack]

39. You made a spelling error...

"Both of them have worked tirelessly for the democrats DLC"

There... fixed it for you.

They have both worked constantly to undermine Chairman Dean, and continue to do so.

"Unity" does not mean we have to hug a pit viper that claims it is our friend and constantly tries to bite us...

(my apologies to the herp fans out there; pit vipers are prettier than Begala and Carville)

[HCE SuiGeneris]

40. Hey...

AX10 WillyToad, do you ever post ANYTHING but smears against Obama supporters.

[bbgrunt]

11. Howie for Veep!!

[Uncle Joe]

17. I believe the corporatists would rather the margin always be 51/49

between the two major political parties. This way corporations can continue to play both parties against the people's best interests, sort of a good cop/bad cop strategy to divide the people.

The real message they're promoting is corporations rule, the American People are to serve or be sold. I believe Begala and his ilk are afraid of a Democratic landslide, because if that happens, they can't blame the Republicans anymore for the American People getting screwed.

P.S. Someone should tell Begala, you can pick your nose, you can even pick your friends, just don't pick your friends nose.

[KSinTX]

19. Dean is really proving himself with these special election victories

All of this talk about blue states vs. red states on the electoral map may prove to be as obsolete as discussing Czechoslovakia today.

[Wetzelbill]

29. you can say that again

He's really stepped it up since he became DNC chair.

[The Wizard]

20. The DLC is playing 1990s politics

in the 21st Century. What they were doing didn't work all that well back then if anyone remembers the 94 GOP rout of Congress. That same Congress had a jihad against the Clintons. They should know better.

[bvar22]

21. K&R

As usual, mf, you are right on the money!

Begala is irrevelant.
His comment "You need more than eggheads and AAs to win" was deeply offensive.

[madfloridian]

22. Thank you. The days of talk like this should be long over.

Maybe someday.

[madfloridian]

23. From Zach's post....he tells the Clinton 92'ers to visit those states...

and get on board.

"I'll tell you what this onslaught by Clinton '92ers looks like. It looks like you guys are stuck forever thinking about that one big election you won. And it looks like you haven't noticed that, ever since then, your way of approaching elections has kepts Democrats in a tailspin. I know the way you see it: candidates aren't getting exactly the right spin, aren't making exactly the right ads. But it's time to take a deeper look and understand the consequences of your generations' total neglect of the grassroots.

You guys are still held in high esteem by this massive, new generation of Democratic activists. Keep it that way: Go to DNC headquarters, go to Utah, go to Mississippi -- go see what they're building and be a part of it."

Amen, Zach.

[Hidden Stillness]

25. This is the Way Their Snide Little Corporate Club Must Inevitably End

The strange, totally incompetant campaign of Hillary Clinton for President, to now its downfall, shows nothing so much as that the "D"LC has finally reached its inevitable end, and will die of its own overriding traits. It had to end this way. After an organized campaign lasting all these years since the early 1990s, to get all the actual people out of the highest levels of the Democratic Party, and replace them all with corporate advertising consultants and lobbyists, they finally reached a point, when they had to go out into the world and meet the American people, that they didn't know anything about them except to throw slogans at them, like Bush and Cheney, and try to manipulate what can only be fairly won--the support and the votes of the people.

When they had all the power, Republican-like, they kicked everyone in the teeth, threw their weight around and gave orders. How recently was it, just a few years ago, that Hillary Clinton and Tom Vilsack were still telling all Democrats that the "liberals" (which means everybody, to this type) are not going to decide anything, that the "D"LC will give the orders, and "you people" can stay or leave. "Too liberal for America," "a new kind of Democrat, not so closely associated with unions," "business-friendly," "reaching across the aisle to work with Republicans," "re-branding," all their disastrous corporate-takeover of what once was the Party of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, whom they hate, to something that never addressed us at all anymore. Gradually losing the American people completely, over the '90s, as a Republican shadow and imitation, losing the Congress, all you ever heard was the derisive laughter of all of US treated as "losers," cut out of our own Party.

Clinton never even sounded like an actual woman, relating to anything women hoped for as the possible First President; she always sounded like a corporate male, giving slogans for corporate males. Their whole "D"LC has just become so disconnected from the non-rich people, that they never got a clue as to what was wrong, right up to the end. It might have been so easy for her, but they had her reciting conservative corporate lines that actually repulse people and do not work.

Some of the worst legislation ever passed has been bi-partisan, as some of the worst legislators ever, have been term-limited, yet all you ever heard, like a cult, was "bi-partisan," "reaching across the aisle," no matter how bizarre and false it is. What we need is a strong Democratic majority again, to get any progress; all the great eras of modern history have been because of overwhelming Democratic majorities in the Congress, and generally a Democratic President. They never wanted to legislate, only to increase the corporate encroachment on everything that once was an area of Government, and to cut the people out, until finally there is no way at all for you to fight or stop anything.

Thank God for Howard Dean, who came along and put a stop to all this, and revived the Democratic Party. This is a strange--but welcome--end for a horrible group, that cut itself right out of the whole process of the country, by trying to cut the whole population of the country out of their operation.

[madfloridian]

26. Good post. And the funny thing is in my mind...

that Dean was a real centrist who governed that way in VT. He honestly believed in the tenets of centrism. I believe Obama to be pretty much that way as well.

BUT...here's the difference. Dean and Obama are "inclusive" in their ideas for growing the party. They reach out to those in all states, not just a few. That is what sets them apart from the Clintons and the DLC methods.

The openness, the inclusiveness.

[krkaufman]

27. Great post, as always, mf.

What Begala seems to have missed is that you can't communicate what you're about if you don't have a mechanism to get the message out, and the 50 State Strategy has helped with that.

[rocktivity]

28. Six months later, the Dems retook Congress.

And a year an a half after that, they're in the driver's seat for the next Presidency.

The DLC (Hillary is an officer) have never forgiven Dean for being right (Obama being his biggest success story). The fifty-state strategy has cost the DLC power because it's cost them corporate largesse and consulting fees. It is why Hillary keeps chirping about only big states counting in primaries. It is why there will not be a Clinton-Obama ticket--he'd never be able to turn his back on her. And it's what rooted in the MI/FL delegate fight--an attempt by the more conservative Dems to vanquish him for good.

:headbang:
rocknation

[Wetzelbill]

30. Yeah Dems took Congress and if you remember

Carville and Co. tried to take credit for it and made it sound like they did it in spite of Howard Dean's crazy little strategy.

[rocktivity]

34. I remember it well--Carville said that Dean should be replaced by Henry Ford

inspiring me to run this DU poll!

:rofl:
rocknation

[IronLionZion]

38. Carville and Begala were blasting it angrily AFTER the Dems took congress too.

They believe in "no you can't" but the winners believe in "yes we can" and "hell yeah we already did! YEARGH!!!"

[Wetzelbill]

31. I like Paul Begala

but, man, he was dead wrong about this. I remember when he said it I was floored. And Carville was on tv dismissing Dean's strategy after Dems resoundingly won in '06. I read one of their books, very good stuff, really good, everybody should read their work on marketing a candidate and so on, they're good at it. But the Clinton Crew has never been good for anybody except their own candidates. Their strategy and style worked for one person in the 90s. Bill Clinton. A man of already extraordinary political gifts. During this time they lost the House for the first time in decades, they lost the Senate, everything. The triangulate bullshit strategy plus only focus on a few states set the stage for the Bush presidency and the subsequent ass kickings that Dems took until the 2006 midterms.

Louisiana. Mississippi. It's all a trend. Dems are working at building something big, while Movement Conservatism is imploding all around us.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[NewJeffCT]

35. A local Republic radio host here in CT praised Dean's 50 state strategy

after the 2006 election victory. He said that Dean got a lot of criticism over it when he implemented it, but he should be praised now that the Dems took Congress by winning some seats in "red" areas that would not have been contested in previous elections.

The guy is Ray Dunaway on WTIC AM 1080 in Hartford.

[Ian_rd]

36. Begala and Emanuel are of the old school lose-at-all-costs wing of the Democratic Party

To think that a strategy of surrender across vast swathes of the nation is somehow effective should be cause for them to wear neon "I'm a drooling idiot" signs around their necks. Without Dean, these victories would probably not have occurred. They're just pissed off that Dean refuses to join their Pompous Losers Club.