James Carville, Clintonista married to a Republican strategist, is running around accusing Howard Dean of doing a terrible job as DNC Chairman. Carville charges that the DNC had $6,000,000 in the bank that they should have spent in Democratic races, and that the party should have taken an additional 15 seats as a result. (He called Dean's performance "Rumsfeldian"; them's fightin' words, Boudreaux.)
I'll put aside the fact that you can't do a straight money-to-victory analysis here. Rahm Emmanual put $3,000,000 into Tammy Duckworth's race, and she lost; he put $0, zero, into Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01), and she won, so there you go.
But why doesn't Carville look at his own Clintonista house? Hillary Clinton spent $29.5 million to win her Senate race in New York, a race that was essentially over before it started; can you even name her opponent? (HINT: he had the same name as a member of the cast of West Wing; I'll leave his name in Comments.) She won 67% to 31%. Wouldn't it have been more useful for her to donate half of her vast stores of money to candidates around the country who were actually in competitive races? Looking at it from that perspective, her actions were Cheneyesque. (Is that stretching it? Like giving no-bid contracts to Halliburton? Well, it works as well as James Carville calling Howard Dean who helped WIN BACK CONGRESS Rumsfeldian. I mean, what has Rumsfeld ever won? The handshake of Saddam Hussein? The trust of Commander Codpiece? I mean, really.)
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2 comments:
John Spencer.
Thanks for the thoughtful comments Markg8 (I don't get many of those!)
Yes, I was one of those who was upset with Kerry's leaving money in the bank, but not because he didn't spend it on the election, but because he didn't spend it to keep his promise that every vote would be counted. He should have set up shop in Ohio with that money. And he's still got a lot of it. Why didn't that money go into the 2006 mid-terms? Why isn't Carville criticizing him? Because he's an insider, and Dean's an outsider. I'll stick with Howard on this one. Winner v. loser, a no-brainer.
Howard Dean, on the other hand, will use that money to continue to build the party nationwide. I just think Carville is giving us sour grapes here, and at a very inopportune time. Giving the DC media fodder one week after the election is just dumb.
I think people overrate the importance of positive ads. Voters may not like negative ads but they respond to them. They may not tell you that at the front door, but that's how they decide in the booth.
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