There are no entitlements in American politics.
No one has a right to a Cabinet position.
But the Obama Administration needs people to sell and administer its policies. It helps, as Judd Gregg showed, to have people who agree with the policies. It helps, as Tom Daschle showed, to have people whose exclusive focus has been on the good of the whole, and not self-enrichment. It helps, as Bill Richardson showed, to have people whose need to raise money does not cause a strategy of appearing to be for sale.
Howard Dean has been a passionate advocate of Democratic policies in his Presidential campaign, his Democracy for America founding, and his extremely successful Democratic National Committee Chairmanship stint.
He has made extra money by writing books promoting his ideas, and since leaving the national chairmanship, by giving speeches. But he has hardly engaged in the conflicts of interests that undermined Daschle's re-election to the Senate and his HHS candidacy. And his fundraising has been targeted at audiences of the civically concerned, not those who seek to make an investment for special interest purposes.
As I have written before here at length on January 5, 2009, Dean as Secretary of Commerce could help revive a sense of purpose in and towards the American business community, and articulate the legitimate needs of business without getting trapped in the swamp of special interest pleading.
One of the big needs of business today is affordable health care: a higher percentage of business revenues are going to it than ever before. And there would be no question that a Dean Secretaryship at Commerce would guarantee that every eligible American would be counted in the 2010 Census, something vital for Democratic influence in state governments and the U.S. House of Representatives.
Dean is most obviously qualified for Secretary of Health and Human Services, and his absence there is the most conspicuous. It has been said that he is not the man to negotiate a health-care settlement. But there is no reason that the HHS Secretary has to be the negotiator. Hillary Clinton, for instance, did not hold a cabinet position when she failed to win her health care battles.
As Secretary of HHS, Dean would rally healthcare advocates around the country, and help formulate policies that are both sellable and effective.
He would also rally its huge bureaucracy to do the best possible job in delivering services.
There's a place in government for technocrats. There is a place for pragmatic men of affairs with conservative records or conservative ties.
There's also a place in government for people who truly believe that government can do great things, who take on difficult projects and achieve success far beyond that which had been predicted, who mobilize people on the sidelines and convert some of the participants.
There's room in the Obama Administration for Howard Dean. There's room in the Obama Administration for a man who has repeatedly stuck his neck out, and who has a national constituency. There's room in the Obama Adminstration for a man with both a record of working with Republicans as Governor, and a record of mobilizing Democrats in the year's since.
It's been widely said that politics in general is a contact sport. It is certainly clear that Cabinet appointments are a contact sport on steroids.
The Republicans will try to discredit whomever Obama places in positions of power. Sometimes, they will succeed. The Cabinet needs a man with a demonstrated ability to fight back. The Cabinet needs Howard Dean.