(Note - I've started and scrapped this article too many times, but deadline looms. The situation discussed is extremely fluid, and by the time you see this, let alone the time the events in question occur, everything I know, or think I know, may be wrong. But this is my view as of January 5, 2005, and deadline looms...check that. Deadline loomed awhile ago. Now I've just got to go for it.)

In over three decades of activity in Democratic Party organizations, I've never seen so much interest in the selection of a new Democratic National Committee Chair. The Party ranks usually swell with volunteers and hangers on of various sorts during Presidential election years, but the tide of new faces typically subsides with the passing of the election, leaving reorganization matters to the relative handful of Party regulars, the cadre that keep the organizational structure intact between elections.

[Pictured: Joe Trippi (L) and Howard Dean (R)]

This year, though, things are different. Credit Howard Dean. The Governor's campaign, under the guidance of consultant Joe Trippi, chose to take on the Party establishment, personified by DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe, with as much, and sometimes more, vehemence as the Republicans. It was a strategic effort to make Dean, a career politician of generally moderate disposition, into the 'outsider' choice for the nomination. In the end, his voice was perceived as perhaps a bit too outside for the Party loyalists that show up for caucuses and primaries, but he did shine a light on and provide a focal point for what might be called the Party irregulars, people who'd never really come out before, or those who typically only appear for the quadrennial campaign for the Presidency.

They've stayed together, continuing to communicate and organize through the network of blogs and Meetups that grew from the Dean For America effort. They've adopted the mantle "Reform Democrats" and among the announced candidates for DNC Chair there are at least two, Party fundraiser Donnie Fowler and the New Democrat Network founder Simon Rosenberg, who are making a direct appeal to them for support. There's a third, of course, in the person of the Governor himself, but Howard Dean has yet to officially announce his candidacy.

That reluctance to openly enter the ring, in fact, is somewhat problematic for Dean. While Democracy For America, the organization formed from the residue of his Presidential campaign, has repeatedly promised his grassroots supporters that they'll be the first to know when he makes a decision, Dean is nonetheless running a full blown campaign for the position without making any announcement. If that seems contradictory, well, there are a number of contradictions surrounding Howard Dean's presence on the national political scene, and they don't seem to cause any particular distress among the faithful. They do, however, lead to continuing doubts among the unconverted, which is why, in the end, I think Fowler or Rosenberg are likely to fare better among the Party regulars that Dean devoted so much negative attention to just a year ago.

That's important, because while the election of a DNC Chair is a highly small 'd' democratic process that springs directly from the Democratic Party grassroots, there's a difference between the Party's regulars and the Reform's irregulars. The regulars are the people who've been showing up, month after month, year after year, in the church basements and Legion halls that host local Democratic Party meetings. They've suffered the hard chairs, long debates and lukewarm coffee, and along the way formed friendships and alliances that give them the credibility to get elected to local Party office, and it's the local Party officers that tend to become county, state, and ultimately national party committee members and officers. In fact, the reason that Party Chairs are so often people you've never heard of is that they're mostly folks who've chosen an alternate path to political influence. Rather than taking the visible role of candidate for public office, they've chosen the less visible but no less important path of Party office. That's where Fowler, for instance, comes from, although there are also some former elected officials, including former Congressmen Martin Frost and former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, on the list of official candidates, and others on the somewhat longer list of those 'said to be interested.'

The real question, of course, isn't who will be the next DNC Chair so much as it's what difference will it make? What, after all, is the DNC Chair, anyway? The traditional role of the Chair is to act as the Party's principal fundraiser and to lead the administrative side of the Presidential nomination process. Some have had more visible public roles as a Party spokesman than others over the years, but that's really a minor role, since one of the principal obligations of the Chair is to avoid overshadowing the candidates or saying anything that will make any Democratic candidate, for any office anywhere, more difficult. It's a heck of a tightrope, really, and one that's most safely crossed silently. Still, the Sunday shows will call, especially during the Presidential cycle, and the DNC Chair will be a, if not the, voice of the Party.

Those traditional responsibilities may go a long way toward explaining Howard Dean's reluctance to enter the race for Chair, and the reluctance of some to jump too enthusiastically on his bandwagon. Since the position has a four year term and a key assignment is the unbiased administration of the Presidential nomination process, becoming DNC Chair takes Howard Dean out of play for 2008. Some of his strongest supporters, hopeful for another run, hesitate to support him for Chair because it precludes supporting him for President. On the other hand, to the degree that the Chair is a voice of the Party, Dean is seen in the eyes of many as an unreliable voice. His reputation as a loose cannon may be largely undeserved, but it exists, particularly in the minds of many of the DNC members who his supporters heaped so much scorn on last year, and among the supporters of Terry McCauliffe, and there are many of those in the ranks of the DNC, who the Dean campaign often targeted as a source of Party weakness during the primary campaign.

Of course, there are those, particularly among the Reform faction, that feel that it's time for a change in the role of the Chair. Without a Democrat in the White House, they argue, the DNC Chair should be seen as the Party's national leader and take on a more forceful role in defining and advocating for the Party agenda. The problem is, that violates both the traditions and the structure of the Party. The Chair is, in the end, just a hired hand. His job is more Executive Director than Chairman of the Board. His role is to implement the decisions of the Committee, not to make them. The Party agenda is defined in the platform established by the National Convention and stands until the Party next convenes in 2008. The Platform, of course, is the product of the nominee, which is why tradition has dictated that the incumbent Democratic President, or, when there is none, the most recent nominee, is the titular head of the Party. That tradition was broken, perhaps irredeemably, by Al Gore, who didn't pick up the mantle, leaving it to Bill Clinton for an additional term, but today it rightly belongs to John Kerry, the architect of the Democratic Party National Platform, if he chooses to take it and is able to hold it, and there's every sign at this point that he'll make an attempt to do just that.

To change the role of the Chair in the way the Reform movement would argue for, then, would be for the Democratic National Committee to consciously vote to diminish their own influence in Party affairs. Whether or not they should is an interesting debate. Whether or not they will seems more certain. They likely won't.

So, what will they likely do? As I've said, the whole situation is fluid, and the list of announced candidates changes almost daily, but I think the smart money goes to two of those already on the list. Donnie Fowler has probably logged more hours in the trenches of the Party organization itself than anyone else on the list. While he has positioned himself as friendly to the Reform faction, he's also a well established Party regular. Many members of the DNC have forged a relationship with Fowler over a period of years, and with his father, former DNC Chair Don Fowler, for years before that. Those relationships could end up being the decisive factor.

On the other hand, Simon Rosenberg seems to have found the perfect balance point between the moderate 'New Democrats' and the generally more progressive Reform wing, and were Howard Dean to defer to him (a scenario I consider probable), his challenge to Fowler will be formidable.

And four years from now? Who we nominate will matter a lot more than who administers the nomination process. The increased interest in the race for DNC Chair is a positive sign of Democratic Party health in many ways, but the name on the ballot will always trump the name in the Chair, and always should. In a month or so we'll have a different Chair, but who we pick four years from now will make the real difference.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: By the release date for the January issue of Cosmik Debris Magazine, Howard Dean had declared his candidacy for DNC Chair.)

(C) 2005 - Shaun Dale