DNC Chair, Washington's Political Eunuch

This has probably been diarized about already, but I haven't seen it.  

Slate has a very interesting article up (a short one) regarding the myth that the DNC chairmanship is somehow an important or "direction-setting" position.  The last couple of months, a lot of people have suddenly become interested in the position, but even the candidates and voters themselves don't seem to have any idea why.  Outside of canned phrases regarding "reform vs status quo", nobody seems quite sure what the DNC chair would be able to actually DO.  

Is this all smoke and no fire?  Or is it a self-fulfilling prophecy, by which our acting like it's important may MAKE it important?  Or something in between.  Snippets below the fold.

If establishment Democrats still fear Howard Dean, they ought to elect him chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Not because becoming DNC chair would make Dean, as a member of the establishment, moderate his criticisms of Washington Democrats--though that's certainly true--but because Dean would exert far less influence over the future of the Democratic Party as its titular head than he would as a 2008 presidential candidate.  Ed Rendell was so frustrated with his job as DNC chairman during Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign that he complained to the New Republic, "I basically take orders from 27-year-old guys in Nashville who have virtually no real-life experience. All they've done is been political consultants living in an artificial world, and basically their opinion counts more than mine." That's the cry of the DNC chair, Washington's political eunuch.

For those looking to move the Democrats to the left or the right, it doesn't much matter who becomes DNC chair in February. The truth is that presidential candidates, not party chairmen, define the policy agendas of political parties. Steve Rosenthal, the CEO of the Democratic 527 group America Coming Together, told me the idea that the DNC chair can define the Democratic agenda was "a crock." In 2003 and 2004, Dean exerted more control over John Kerry's platform than Terry McAuliffe did. Likewise, the Democratic Leadership Council led a successful reinvention of the Democratic Party in the 1980s and early '90s without ever controlling the DNC apparatus.
[.....]

It's not clear, after all, what Dean, Fowler, Harold Ickes, Martin Frost, Simon Rosenberg, Jim Blanchard, Ron Kirk, Wellington Webb, the professor, and Mary Ann are running to do. "That's true, and it's probably not clear to them," said Charles Manatt, who held the job from 1981 to 1985. Kate Phillips, a spokeswoman for Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (general chairman of the DNC from 1999 to 2001), had a good-natured retort: "They raise money, and they travel. See, you don't need the interview now."

The article goes on a bit to talk about how that might be changing, but nobody is really sure why or how.

I've been thinking on this recently, and I'm still not sure in what way Dean or anybody else would be able to actually control much of the party agenda through the DNC chairmanship.  At its best it's a totally subservient position, I've never known it to set policy or even to markedly change things (the notion that Dean is going to do away with the Iowa caucuses in particular is pretty wishful thinking).  It seems that the job of the DNC chair is just to shake hands, kiss ass, and do interviews.  

Kind of a funny story, my grandfather was the chairman of the Kansas Republican Party in 1972-74, the same time that Bob Dole (who was in the KS legislature at the same time my grandfather was and who was also an old law student of my grandfather's) was the chairman of the national party.  This was of course also the time when Watergate was really gearing up.  When my grandfather died this past year, we ended up finding a lot of letters from that time, between the two and others.  Being the political junkie that I am, I went through them thinking "Kick ass, correspondences from leaders of the Republican party during Watergate!  What a coup!" So, I went through them all, and ended up a little disappointed.  The letters were very interesting, sure, but contained absolutely nothing important.  It was all talk on how the whole thing was a crock of shit but something they needed to handle carefully, and by far most of it was just relating to what should be said in the press.  It basically looked like memos from a PR firm.  "I think you should say this and this, and make sure such and such a donor understands that, and call that guy from the Post about the misquote" etc etc etc.  It occurred to me after reading them that these guys weren't power brokers (Dole and my grandfather included).  They were spokesmen.  Thus ended their influence.

Is that what people want out of Dean?  I have no dog in that fight, so I'm curious as to why people want to serve him up for a seemingly self-induced castration?  Or, are we convinced that the position, under Dean, would change into one of actual influence?  I'm making no argument here, as I honestly don't know, so I'm more interested in the role of the DNC chair as you guys see it now, and in the future.  

Because, maybe Dean WOULD better serve the party by running again, from an agenda-setting POV.  People keeping saying "we need a REFORM Democrat in the position" but I'm unclear on what reform, if any, the DNC chair would actually be able to orchestrate.  Sure, I know what we'd LIKE the chair to be able to orchestrate, but that's a different question entirely.  What can the chair ACTUALLY DO, is the real question here.  Absent idealism, absent wishful thinking, absent all that, what sway does the chair actually hold over the party, her agenda, and her organization?  

Like I said, I have no answer to that question myself.  But it's one worth asking.      

•  I would venture to guess that

  the reason the DNC Chair has never really shaken anything up in the party is that all its recent incarnations have a) lacked the will to do so, and b) lacked any independent source of power outside of their holding the office of DNC Chair.

  On both counts, Dean differs.  Clearly he wishes to change the way the party runs, which is why he's interested in the position.  
  But he would also be much more CAPABLE of flexing executive muscle in the position, because he has a national reputation and a national organization to put behind his will.

  Being party chair is comparable to being CEO of a huge corporation, but one in which none of the executives and almost none of the workers report to you, and you can't fire anyone.  Not to mention they've all got tremendous egos, independent agendas and think you suck.  You end up with a lot of duties and some titular authority but no real power.  If you don't have political power beyond the office, you're ineffectual at best.

  But that's why Dean can actually do something with the post: he DOES have political power beyond the office.  He's a big player in the national party, when he talks people listen, and he's got DFA on his side.  And since the Dems are the minority party, he won't have many rivals in higher positions to cast a shadow over him.  Terry McAuliffe can tell big Dem politicians and party chiefs what to do, but they can tell him to piss off, so he chooses just to shut up in the first place.  Not so with Dean.  If party functionaries and politicians ignore pressure from Dean, they're courting a serious political contest.

  The premise of the Slate article seems to be that because DNC Chairs have been ineffectual in the past, it's an ineffectual post.  I think that's simplistic.  The post is what you make of it, and those with resources can make more of it.  Dean has those resources through his political power base in the party; McAuliffe and Rendell lacked those resources and only enjoyed them on a more limited basis, respectively.  That's what made them eunuchs, not some mandatory castration once you assume the post.

  by Woodhouse on Tue Dec 14, 2004 at 01:18:59 PM PDT

•  As a Dean supporter ...

  I'm not exactly sure what to make of this.  

  We definitely need to bury the McAuliffe-era thinking and behavior of the party, just shovel dirt over it and forget it, leave it there to decompose, while we forge a winning new coalition of party interests and candidates in the post-Republican Lite era of the party's future.

  OTOH ... I'd love to see a Dean Presidency start on 1/20/09; failing that, ASAP afterward.   The godo doctor/Governor has said he can't run for the White House and helm the DLC at the same time.

  So this leaves me puzzled and anxious.  I know that Dean is a thousand percent better choice for the presidency than any of the "electable" closet conservatives he faced last time (Nov. 2 only confirmed what I suspected this time last year: that Kerry could't beat Bush if his life depended upon it).  

  by Spindizzy on Tue Dec 14, 2004 at 01:25:50 PM PDT