How Democratic Party insiders and big donors controlled the primaries

Last night David Jones of Americans for Jobs, Healthcare and Progressive Values was on a C-SPAN program called "527s in 2004: Did They Make A Difference?" C-SPAN is often quite dull but Mr Jones description of how he, 20 big money donors, and his 527 torpedoed Dean was stunning. You can watch for yourself at (use Real Player, David Jones starts right before the 3 hour mark):

rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/c04/c04120604_report.rm

The most disheartening thing to me about "Americans for Jobs, Healthcare and Progressive Values" was Mr Jones admitting it's $600,000 was raised from only 20 donors, all Democrats. That's an average of $30,000 per donor. This hit squad intentionally quit running ads early to avoid disclosure rules though Mr Jones does say the money was from Kerry and Gephardt backers.

I've sure this has been discussed on Kos many times before, but the C-SPAN program really hit home for me. While there are thousands of small donors and volunteers to the Democratic Party and Democratic Candidates, the party is controlled by insiders and big money donors. If a Presidential candidate gets traction that they don't like, this cabal stops them with the political equivalent of a drive-by shooting (Joe Trippi's description of the Americans for Jobs, Healthcare and Progressive Values ads that Mr Jones admits is accurate).

I saw other posts on Kos's thread about Leo Hindery claiming that if $600K could destroy Dean, then so could have Bush. The majority of that money was spent on two ads about Dean being too moderate because he received an A rating from the NRA, supported NAFTA and backed cutting Medicare as Vermont's governor. I don't think Bush would have run ads about the NRA's support for Dean or NAFTA.

Granted the largest impact ad was the Bin Laden ad which got most of it's air play through news programs re-running it because Americans for Jobs, Healthcare and Progressive Values only had about $20,000 left when it ran that ad. Considering Kerry muddled message on Iraq, I doubt Dean would have faired much worse on the terrorism issue. I didn't support in Dean in the primaries so this is not sour grapes from a Dean-iac though I think I'm well on my way to becoming one after the election.

Unless a Reform Democrat takes over as DNC chairman, they've seen their last check from me. DLC'ers that have been running show have failed to win too many times and they shown contempt for both party activists and rank-and-file members of the party.