This was orginally a post I made to Blogswarm's diary regarding the DNC Chairmanship, and how thinking in terms of long term strategic thinking may work versus tactical advantage alone. A quick example, I would give, is that a long term strategic move would have the Chairmanship go to someone like Dean or Rosenberg or any other reformer as Chair versus a tactical move of deciding now who will be the Presidential nominee in 2008. I argue that long term strategy shapes short term tactical advantage.
More below:
In other diaries, I have made the point that leadership is many things- one of the most important things is "perception." The Republicans right now are benefiting from long term strategic moves that they have made to build their brand on leadership that someone like Bush can use for short term tactical advantage over any Democrat X who has lost branding value. My point has been that strategically, Bush tactically helped his case by coming out firm, even when he was wrong, because of the Republican's long term advantage of building up their brand as "tough" leadership. As a comparative, I gave the example of the mayor of SF, and what we as Democrats and progressives can learn from "leadership with a backbone" for rebranding, and promoting long terms strategic rather than single election victories.
Another example that you might want to consider is that if the progressive wing of the party truly wants to win long term strategically in terms of 2008 and 2012 for the Presidential nomination, it must field and win offices both in the party leadership and the mid-term election of 2006. Both will go a long way to showing that we have the power to borrow the phrase of Dean (who by the way I am not sure I am the biggest fan of, but see his value as a potential agent of reform).
The short term think of the Democrats is who will win in 2008. That's a checkers move because again it assumes only one move at a time. There is 4 years betweeen now and 2008, and a lot moves need to be made between now and then to determine the landscape by the moves choosen. These moves are chess moves.
If Dean or anyone else wants to affect the landscape, the time is now because the party is demoralized and open to new blood. Waiting 4 years will allow power to consolidate with other players on the board, ie, the DLC will be playing its moves to consolidate power behind a Hillary Clinton run or Evan Bayh run. Also, strategically speaking now is the time because the Republicans are showing signs of cracking. In a perfect world, we would be the swift army ready to take advantage of the faultlines, but being progressives we are not. This being said- one can always hope for discipline, and a return to the strength that allowed the party to become the majority power. Not by placating the values of the other side- but by clearly branding ours among other things.
The game of chess means trying to find someone who will begin reforming the party today so that 4 years from now we will be in a better position to, if not gain the presidency, at least regain or gain more state and federal offices. Remember the Census is 2010, and we need as many state houses as we can get to reshape redistricting in our favor (again long term thinking rather than the shiny bauble of the Presidency) would say that we need this to determine the make up of the Congress.
Dean (or other reformers) will do more for his party to reform it along the lines of a Goldwater movement that is longer term in thinking than he will as President, which looks great but long term may have the same impact as Clinton winning if we aren't thinking long term about how to brand the party, control the narrative, reshape our leadership and obtain control over the message by owning radio, tv and newspaper outlets. These moves are chess moves- focusing on any one office 4 years from now without figuring out more than a lot of the other moves needed is checkers.
Incidentally, the 4 things I mention, brand the party, control the narrative, reshape leadership, control media are all things that are crucial to a revival of our power. Without all of them we face an uphill battle. We can certainly win any given election with one or two, but for long term strategic, rather than short term tactical advantage, we need all 4. When looking at a candidate, I hope we are all asking who is thinking about these issues, what will they do about them and, this is my personal pet peeve, are they willing to get into the mud to achieve them? As I said over at Mydd.com, are we willing to make certain that the Republicans get caught with a dead hooker in order to win? This is a short term tactical thought process, but the questions of "what is at stake, and what are we willing to do about it" is absolutely crucial to anyone who seriously wants to create reform and long term strategic value.