So Howard Dean asked DNC chair Terry McAuliffe to intervene and anoint him the presumptive Democratic nominee. To his credit, McAuliffe is staying out of it. Isn't that what the primaries are for? I learned in innumerable civics classes that the primary elections determine the delegates that go to the national convention, which then nominates the candidate who will run in the general election. (I learned lots of other fiction in my civics classes, too.)

During the 1992 campaign, it made me hopping mad when then-DNC chairman Ron Brown basically told the other candidates to get out of the way and clear a path for Clinton. Brown was then rewarded after the election with the post of Commerce Secretary.

I'm not naive -- I think McAuliffe is declining to get involved because he is the DNC and is the voice of the centrist Democrats, not because he's passionately committed to the integrity of the primary-election process. Howard Dean represents something of a threat to that order, and McAuliffe has no incentive to make things easier for him. (Truth be told, the Democratic Party hasn't been able to be a coherent opposition party to the Bush Administration, and I think McAuliffe is one of the key people to blame.)

Comments

[Victor]

Wait, wait- McAuliffe -is- the DNC, and -is- the voice of centrist Democrats? You'd better alert Mrs. Clinton to that fact (that's MRS. Minority Leader to you :) )

I wouldn't lay blame for incoherency solely with McAuliffe, I would also blame Mrs. Clinton, the Wellstone Memorial/Angry Campaign stop, NJ's Toricelli and the NJ Supreme Ct. trying to ignore campaign law, Democrat Congressmen having voted for war in Iraq and now regretting it, --- as Mrs. Clinton said, "it takes a village," ;) Also worth noting is that wherever Mr. Clinton seems to speak on behalf of a Democrat candidate, that candidate loses his election. At least Mr. Gore had the good sense to go home, let the beard grow out, and get involved in other things like joining the board of a technology company.*

As for civics classes, you had two of them, ELP and US History. World Civ didn't really attempt to cover the republic's primary process.

* for every one of these examples of contributing to Democrat Party loss, you could as well find a Republican, and to a far lesser extent, Libertarian or Green analogue

[Vidiot]

Well, McAuliffe is the DNC, because he's the chairman of the DNC. I'm not saying that he's the most prominent Democrat out there -- the Clintons and to a lesser extent Al Gore still wield enormous influence in the party.

I agree that incoherency is not solely McAuliffe's fault (Tom Daschle, I'm looking at you), but other things you cite are minor. The Wellstone thing was a tempest in a teapot (one guy went over the line a bit, the right-wingers spun it into a partisan hatefest), and the Torricelli/NJ Supreme Court imbroglio didn't have anything to do with being an opposition party. What the Democrats need and have needed for some time was to have a coherent message. An alternative to the hateful (and stupid) policies being promulgated by the White House. Some discipline -- not as much as the GOP's handling of the House, but a functioning party whip system would be nice.

Funny enough, Clinton campaigned for the newly elected mayor of San Francisco...not to mention that he's still the top party fundraiser.

Oh, and I've had other civics education before high school...I can't remember how many times I had to see that lame "How A Bill Becomes A Law" filmstrip.