Democrats Vie for Party Chair

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11, 2004 — -- Former presidential candidate Howard Dean -- without a public office but with a cadre of enthusiastic supporters and lingering presidential ambitions -- has emerged as the highest-profile Democrat to seriously consider running for the party's soon-to-be-open national chair.

Dean, the former governor of Vermont who juiced up party activists last year by taking an uncompromising stance against the Iraq war, is among several Democrats who have begun to survey the more than 400 members of the party's national committee who will choose its next leader.

Terry McAuliffe, the current party chairman, has yet to officially call an election, but it is widely anticipated that the vote will happen in early February at the party's winter meeting.

Another prominent Democrat who has expressed an interest in the job is Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. His allies worry that a Dean chairmanship would damage the party's ability to project a more acceptable image to skeptical independent voters.

Others say Dean's candidacy might harness the energy of Democrats to expand their base of support and to steadily add new and younger voters to its rolls.

Dean declined to comment on a potential bid today. Thousands of of e-mail petitions from Dean supporters encouraging him to run have been sent to his political organization's headquarters in Burlington, Vt., and Laura Gross, his spokeswoman, would only say that he was listening to what Democrats of all stripes have to say.

Internal Challenges

McAullife, an ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton heralded for his fund-raising prowess and efforts to expand the party's data collection and voter lists, is stepping down after a four-year term. Whoever emerges as his successor will confront serious challenges. The party does not control a single branch of government, and Democrats say their choice of a new party leader should reflect the direction Democrats want to take in the next 3½ years before choosing their 2008 presidential nominee, who would then become the standard-bearer. Democrats say the party needs an effective and credible spokesperson for their message and issues.

If John Kerry, the 2004 nominee, decides to mount a bid for DNC chairman himself, he would be in a strong position to win. But Kerry aides say that is unlikely. The Massachusetts senator is more likely to position himself to endorse the candidate he prefers.

Two party conferences in December will influence the chairmanship race: a meeting of Democratic governors in Washington and an annual gathering of state party chairs in Orlando, Fla. Democratic Party of Michigan executive Mark Brewer, who heads the association of state Democratic Party chairs, has asked his colleagues to hold off endorsing candidates until that meeting.

Lots of Potential Candidates

Dean's selling point, according to several of his allies, is that he could leverage his popularity among liberals to raise money and employ his experience as a former governor to whip the party into shape.

Dean remains popular with several wings of the party that will have their say before the chair election.The political director of a top labor union said Dean's name was mentioned often by labor leaders at Wednesday's AFL-CIO executive council meeting in Washington.

But AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who is himself up for re-election and who is not a historical ally of Dean, told ABC News that "there are a number of good names being mentioned, including Dean," and that "a number of active governors" were seeking the nod.

Building a 'Moderate Majority'

Matt Bennett, a Democratic strategist who is raising money for a new think tank to shape the party's ideology from the center, said anointing someone who is perceived as avowedly liberal would damage efforts to frame a new Democratic agenda.

"The Democratic Party has to build a moderate majority," he said. "And we can't do that if the leader of our party doesn't fit comfortably into such a majority."

A name Bennett and others like is Vilsack, a two-term governor of Iowa who was on Kerry's list of potential vice presidential hopefuls.

"If he could advance the interests of the Democratic Party, he would be happy to consider that role," said Matt Paul, Vilsack's spokesman.

Other governors are popular with congressional Democrats. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, the incoming Senate minority leader, both plan to influence the selection of the new party chair.

Roy Barnes, the former governor of Georgia who is now a lawyer in Atlanta, "would have the ear and the awareness of key Democrats all over the county," said Joe Erwin, the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party.

"He's not going to get pulled into one camp or another or offend one camp or another," Erwin said of Barnes.

An Array of Daunting Tasks

Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, who will complete his first term in early 2006, has also been urged to run, particularly by congressional Democrats concerned about the party's prospects in the South, associates say. But he does not want to give up the chairmanship of the bipartisan National Governors Association and has not indicated a willingness to accept these entreaties.

Former New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, who was Kerry's campaign chairwoman, has also been asked to run by several of her associates in the party, but a close friend said she would rather serve the party in other ways.

Several top party strategists are in the mix. Simon L. Rosenberg, the president of the New Democrat Network, has the support of many of the younger party fund-raisers and is seen by some as a hands-on manager who could correct the party's problems over the long term. Some Democrats partial to Rosenberg believe he'd make a great behind-the-scenes facilitator for a party chair like Dean.

Two in the party's highest echelon of strategists, former Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile and former Clinton aide Harold Ickes, have told associates they do not want the job.

Other names floated by Democrats include Los Angeles City Council member Antonio Villaraigosa, California state party chairman Art Torres, former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential nominee.

Among the daunting tasks facing the new party chief:

reforming dilapidated state parties in many of the battleground states, which are incapable of years-long voter registration efforts and which pale against much stronger GOP organizations in those same states;

curing disaffection by fund-raisers who are inclined to spend to keep the Democrats competitive but want bang for their buck and need benchmarks, like election victories, to keep them engaged;

bringing together a fractured base, combined with worries that a once-solid hold on Hispanics has slipped;

dealing with the 2008 primary calendar and serving as an honest broker between Iowa and New Hampshire, which would like to keep their first-in-the-nation status, and states like Michigan, which want to sunder the old calendar in favor of more influential regional primaries;

dealing with labor unions, which face internal struggles to reform how they operate and hemorrhage hundreds of thousands of workers to nonunion contracts every year.

And more pressing for the short term: "We really do need a voice at the level of the DNC that is going to be closer to heartland America and to the South," said Erwin.

"When we run races here, our candidates for Senate races did much better than John Kerry but still got beat because George Bush just blew the doors off," he said.

"There's only so much you can do about that within the state. If it turns into a national election, we are a pretty decided disadvantage."

Rosenberg believes the root of the party's current problem can be found in how it evolved over the past 20 years. Republicans, he said, "made a transition to a data-based driven party in the 1970s.They were in the minority, and they were always asking how they could add new voters" to their coalition.

By contrast, Democrats, he said, based their party structure on a model that won elections when enough voters in their majority coalition stayed put.

Since Democrats are now the minority party, he said, they need a massive, demographic and geographic strategy to attract new voters into their camp.