A HERO AND A HACK: HOWARD DEAN AND JAMES CARVILLE

Do you know what a whore is? I'll admit I've hired a few in my day. And one was James Carville. He was a keynote speaker at a convention my company put on-- and what a hack he was even then, way before he turned into the irrevelevent hack he is yoday. Jane and the fdl crew know what a whore is too and Jane's portrait of Carville is worth reading. And Chris Bowers eloquently blows the whistle on Carville's Consultant Con.

You see, Carville's got his bloomers all tied in a bunch over Howard Dean and the 50 state strategy because spending money on building up the Democratic Party means not spending money on Beltway gasbag consultants (whores) who get big bucks and get a cut on advertising and on whatever else they can commission.

When the Blue America PAC team, mostly Jacquie, put together our radio and television advertising campaigns one primary goal was to put as much of the money we could into the broadcasts. We refused to use FedEx or messengers or anything that was expensive when we could make do with something that was less expensive. And no one raked 15 or 20% off the top. Or even 1%. Jacquie used her considerable charms and wiles to get the rates down and to get extra free spots and to do whatever she could do to get our candidates' messages heard by as many people as possible. It's not in the interest of the Carville ilk to bring down prices. 20% of a 1,000 $100 spots is $20,000. Negotiate the rate down to $50 a spot and your cut is only $10,000. Lucky we found Jacquie instead of Carville.


But Carville would probably have been too busy to do any work for Blue America. He and his DLC partners, Scum Shrum and Greenberg have been busy getting out messaging for tyrants and fascists all over the world. Gone Mild did a piece on Carville and Bolivia last March, a review of the brilliant documentary, Our Brand Is Crisis. One reviewer, Chris Barsanti summed up the film by pointing out that "What the film ably shows is how a band of Washington consultants can contribute to bloodshed and near societal collapse in a Third World nation whose politics can't be reduced to the same Beltway template now being exported around the world." And now that same crap Beltway consultant is doing his best to screw up the Democratic Party, the same way he screwed up Bolivia.

Since the triumph of Dean's 50 State Strategy, Carville has been bleating all over the media about... getting rid of Dean. No, he's not consciously working for the Republicans as far as I can tell. Although... he is married to one of Cheney's crew. Nah... he's consciously working for Rahm Emanuel, the ballet dancer turned would-be Tom DeLay of the Democrats.

Real live Democrats around the country-- the kind you'll never meet at an Inside-the-Beltway cocktail party-- are laughing are Carville. They know exactly what role Dean and the DNC played in this election-- and they know what role Emanuel and Carville played in nearly losing it for Democrats. (Remember, when the braindead talking head on TV tells you how great Emanuel is, Democrats did better in races that Emanuel didn't touch, from state legislative seats to congressional seats he ignored, than they did in the races he worked on.) Art Torres, who runs the biggest state Democratic Party in the country, California's, sent out a letter today. Here are some thoughts to think about in case you wind up seeing Emanuel or the sniveling Carville spewing their poison and venom on TV:

Governor Dean's "50 state strategy" played a significant role in our victory. In California, early organizing and coordination provided a strategic advantage over a highly financed Republican Party. We built a hard- charging "rapid response" communications team that pushed back every attack thrown at our down ticket constitutional candidates. We outperformed and out-hustled every single GOP operation on the ground. And we did it with less than a quarter of the $20 million spent by the Republicans on their field operation.

Now instead of moving forward to celebrate our victories and reward our organizers and volunteers, individuals in California - motivated by their own self interest - are maneuvering and re-positioning the results for their own self-interest.

Nationally, James Carville has anointed himself as the campaign manager of Harold Ford's DNC "takeover." Such divisive tactics distract us from working together to reconstruct our foreign and domestic policies which have been left in shambles by the moral and ethical hypocrisy of the outgoing Republican Congress.

Let me remind Mr. Carville that the DNC is a MEMBERSHIP organization. We vote for our leaders, not determine them in back rooms.

We came together to support Howard Dean for Chairman through open communications like countless listening tours and forums throughout the nation. In California, candidates came to our state capitol, presented ideas, and took questions from the hundreds of Democratic activists who participated in the democratic election process for DNC Chair.

As the Treasurer of the Association of State Democratic Chairs, I helped Howard Dean receive our endorsement prior to the election because I believed Howard would inject new energy, new enthusiasm, and bring new people to our Party. I believed that he would help state parties which had lingered too long without staff and help to organize their states. He did!

The "50 state strategy" began to emerge within our Association of State Chairs through the leadership of Howard Dean. He saw the importance of that strategy as did we. We were all proven correct when the election returns began coming in from states that had been ignored. These states helped create a Democratic Majority.

As a state and national party, we all have of lot more work to do. It is a team effort, and we should be united as we approach the 2008 election.

UPDATE: SIROTA MAKES A FUNNY

Few people have been as observant of the foibles of the class of Democratic traitors Inside the Beltway as David Sirota and this morning he's got a brilliant take-down of Carville's Emanuel-inspired-- I mean, Emanuel does pay the bills at chez Carville-Matalin-- and pathetic frontal assault on Dean.