Why Democrats Worry About Howard Dean

June 8, 2005 -- -- When Howard Dean speaks to Democratic members of Congress on Capitol Hill on Thursday, will anyone up for re-election in 2006 join him at the traditional post-meeting press conference?

If not, does that mean that the chairman of the Democratic National Committee is too hot for his own good?

Dean's defenders said today that the former Vermont governor was elected precisely because the activists who make up the committee revolted against the power structure that led the party to minority status.

And it's this power structure -- members of Congress, strategists, ad makers, and big-dollar fund-raisers -- who sit as Dean's daily audience as chair. So there is bound to be, his advisers say, a little bit of friction.

Three Fundamental Stereotypes

Dean tries to accommodate his critics, his aides say. He struggles to avoid discussing legislative specifics. That he leaves to the policy makers in Congress and in the states. He tries to focus on the big picture. That's what a party chair usually does. The job entails keeping the machinery of national politics humming and the base happy and angry until a presidential candidate is nominated a few years hence. The goal is to produce a product -- in this case a coherent national image for Democrats and a strong grassroots base to hawk it -- and hand it off to the right presidential candidate in 2008.

But there has never before been a party chair who came to power as well-defined as Dean is -- one of the most well-known political figures in the country.

And because voters tend to associate a product with its seller, Dean's critics worry that by choosing him as their de-facto standard bearer, the party's liberal activists confirmed three fundamental stereotypes Americans hold about the party: that Democrats scorn an uncompromising defense of American strength in the world; that Democrats are aggressively secular in a country that is moderately religious; and that they are seen as, in the words of pollster Harrison Hickman, the party of contrivance: they make it up as they go along.

The scrutiny -- from the press, from the media and from Republicans -- magnifies Dean's utterance. The confident physician and state government executive has never been inclined to check himself before he speaks, and his attempts at political shorthand -- saying "Republicans" when he means the "Republican leadership," for example -- cause fumbles.

Warning Signs

It is dangerous for Dean that two prospective presidential candidates, Sen. Joe Biden and former Sen. John Edwards rebuked him specifically by saying he doesn't speak for them -- rather than returning fire at Dean's critics.

Dean professes not to care about the friendly fire. By his own criteria, Dean's success or failure hinges on his ability to rebuild the party's field infrastructure -- the enormously complex set of programs and procedures that identifies candidates, runs races, targets voters and gets to the polls.

But his advisers know that he needs the help of the Democratic elite to get this done. And he needs their money.

Since becoming chair in early February, he's raised about $1 million a week. This compares favorably with previous off-off years and Dean is certainly on track to best the amount of money raised by demoralized Democrats in 2001.

But the Republican National Committee has done much better. In the first four months of the year, it has taken in more than $44 million and received contributions from nearly three times as many new donors as Democrats have. RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman has spent his tenure doing two things in the main: donor maintenance with high-dollar contributors and minority outreach.

Dean's troubles with fund raising have been proved publicly embarrassing. Two weeks ago, a big event in New York City scheduled for a big convention hall was moved to a small ballroom in a hotel because the DNC couldn't fill the room. Dean's top grassroots fund-raiser, Nancy Eirling, resigned over strategic differences. And the DNC's top New York and California fund-raisers have also departed in recent weeks.

An Object at Rest Stays at Rest

The worry among Dean's allies is that his perceived distance from the fund-raisers will self-perpetuate, and when raising money really matters -- just before the congressional elections in 2006 or during the presidential cycle of 2007 and 2008 -- donors will sit on their on hands because they perceive Dean's tenure to be a failure. It's a version of the psychological principle of social cues. If the DNC successfully raises money, more fund-raisers will deem the DNC as worthy of their own checks.

Dean has tried to keep the party's traditional fund-raising base happy and does his own "donor maintenance" events -- usually off-the-record briefings where he listens to their complaints -- but he hasn't been as effective, and donors need solid evidence of progress before they open their wallets and flip through their Rolodexes.

The early reviews of Dean, who has a knack for getting small contributions from lots of people, are mixed, at best. Republicans have even given smaller contributions to their party on average -- by about $5.

If these complaints about Dean stay inside the Beltway, then the long-term danger to the party is minimal. If they're mainstreamed; if folks Dean tries to attract to the party on those "red" states he visits hear about them, then his own agenda may become a victim of how he is perceived.