The Fruits of Our Labor...

Until 2003 I was like many other Democrats I know. I regularly voted for Democratic candidates. I even was a nominal member of my local party committee, but I never got too involved in a campaign - except once when I did some phone banking for Chuck Robb when he ran for governor of Virginia.

All of that changed in March 2003 when I saw an Internet video of  Howard Dean speaking to the California State Democratic Convention. Dean articulated what many of us had been thinking. Why in the world were so many Democrats in Washington blindly following the wrong-headed and dangerous policies of George W. Bush?

I had found my candidate for the presidency in 2004, but his long-shot campaign meant that those of us who were for him had to get active - and fast. Using the Internet, the Dean campaign and its campaign manager Joe Trippi, found new ways to organize the grassroots: Meetups, email lists, web sites, blogs, etc. The campaign also decided to try to compete in every state.

I was hooked on Dean Democratic politics. Like so many others, I became part of the Dean Nation, working at the grassroots level to get my country back. That activism continues to this day.

On Tuesday, November 4, I was overjoyed - not just at the election of Barack Obama, but also at Virginia voting for a Democrat for president for the first time since 1964. That's our pay-off for Dean's 50-state strategy implemented through his leadership at the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Dean's passion and determination for change may not have landed him in the White House, but as Roland Martin said recently on CNN, "All of those Democrats who ripped Howard Dean's 50-state strategy over the last four years should call the head of the Democratic National Committee and offer a heartfelt apology."

Alexander Bolton of The Hill also noted that, "Should Barack Obama win the presidency and Democrats expand their margins in Congress... Dean will walk away from this election as one of the unsung heroes."

Howard Dean knew from his own political experience in Vermont that Democrats could build a solid, winning operation in a state that is was once considered reliably Republican. He envisioned the party building grassroots organizations in places like Virginia, which national Democrats were used to writing off as solidly Republican strongholds.

When Dean used the contacts he had made in his run for the presidency to become chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2005, Washington Democratic insiders howled about how bad he would be for the party. Instead, working with state party chairs, Dean built the party's political machine from the grassroots up.

Now, even Harold Ickes, longtime supporter of Hillary and Bill Clinton and the man who ran against Dean for the chairmanship of the party, is willing to say that 2006 and this year's electoral results are "partial vindication" for Dean's efforts.

The 50-state strategy meant that the DNC paid for national-party staff in all 50 states. It also developed a single national voter database for every Democratic candidate to use, something the Republicans have had for years.

The fact that these efforts were in place allowed Barack Obama's campaign to quickly add to the DNC operation, to use it as a starting point for efforts in such usually-neglected states like Idaho, Nebraska, North Dakota, Missouri, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Imagine how tough it would have been for Obama's army of volunteers to move quickly to states where they were needed without a base to work from or without that one database.

Alexander Bolton quotes Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University professor who specializes in politics: "He [Dean] was reviled, and this is his ultimate triumph over Rahm Emanuel, who was one of the most vocal opponents of the 50-state strategy."

Dean originally saw the need for a 50-state strategy as he campaigned all over the country. He saw how there was no party structure to speak of in states like Texas, Florida, Mississippi, etc. For instance, Texas had only one Hispanic person working for the state party back then, and that was in a position that did not work with the public.

Dean became more convinced of the need for a national strategy after John Kerry's campaign aides told him after the 2004 election that the weakness of the party infrastructure was a major reason for the loss to President Bush, as was the DNC's hoarding of cash until the final weeks of the campaign, instead of spreading it around the country.

The attitude that money spent on get-out-the-vote efforts in non-congressional elections was futile ended with Howard Dean. He understood something that is just common sense: If Democrats are going win on the national level, they have to have enthusiasm at the grassroots level. People are hard to motivate if they don't see a get-out-the-vote operation working every year their locality has an election.

Let's remember, too, that Barack Obama used to be a community organizer. Of course, he was going to see the inherent sense in competing everywhere you have the resources to, starting at the grassroots level.

Fortunately, another tool pioneered by the Howard Dean campaign helped him get those resources: campaign contributions by millions of people, not just from big money donors.

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