VA Gov. Tim Kaine Named New DNC Chair
By Nicole Belle Sunday Jan 04, 2009 8:00pm
WaPo:
Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will become chairman of the Democratic National Committee later this month, serving as the top political messenger for Barack Obama's administration even while he finishes his final year in the governor's mansion, several sources said.
Kaine, who emerged as one of Obama's vice presidential finalists this summer, will operate from Richmond in a part-time capacity until January 2010, when he will become the full-time DNC chairman. Kaine is constitutionally barred from running for reelection.
A personal friend of the president-elect, Kaine is a gregarious chief executive who is known to relish political combat and helped put Virginia in the Democratic column for the first time in almost 50 years.
Ugh. After Howard Dean, could we pick a more disappointing choice for DNC head? After all, what the spinally deficient Dems need is a more milquetoasty, against stem cell research, pro-life, anti-gay chairman whose actions speak directly to his callousness towards those less fortunate directing the candidates and elections to help retain the Democratic majority, doncha know?
Democrats, snatching defeat from victory since 1992.
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I think the Dem incompetence goes way back further than that.
Had the Dems been a somewhat competent political machine, they would have made the GOP so toxic after Nixon... that the republicans would have joined the ranks of the Tories by now.
Instead, the Dems have managed to lose to the GOP over 2/3 of the elections since Nixon was kicked to the curve.
It is time for liberals to find a new political platform, which at least pretends to even care about liberal policies.
But, yeah; you're probably right.
I realize that Obama's no leftist, but I don't like the way that things are shaping up.
Yeah, yeah - I know that he hasn't assumed office.
For some strange reason I have no trust in politicians.
Silly, I know.
I wish more self-identified "progressives" would heed the words of the great Howard Zinn "You're a citizen. You have to speak your mind"
It's never been a question of competence. It's always been a question of complicity.
Most of the Dems in the last four years won by default, because the Repugs kept hitching themselves to Bush's wagon. And Obama is the result of grass-roots support outside the DNC. I admire Dean, but he still lost the '04 race, and so I'm not sure why they picked him to head the organization in the first place. So I guess you could argue that the DNC is a fairly worthless organization, much like the neo-con think tanks.
Many of the grassroots/netroots organization that propelled Obama to the White House originated with Dean's 50 State Strategy. Many old Deaniacs were front and center with the campaign.
However, Kaine has a stated agenda that sits more with the Republican platform than the Democratic one and it's really discouraging to see such an appointment.
Their accomplishments are flukes resulting from the implosion of the GOP. Obama's supporters may have had Dean's people on his side, but the guy would've probably won from disgust over the dominant party, anyway. The Beltway Dems are going to keep kissing corporate and redneck ass for a while, which is why we've got to do more than just secure a majority in 2010, but also purge any a-hole who dares to sell us out to the top 1%. Hillary and Joe's defeats are warning shots.
What? Hillary and Bill were outsiders to the cocktail parties and the elites in D.C....where are you getting YOUR information from?
Wait..I bet you're one of the ones who still thinks 600,000,000 was all raised in single donations online.
Obama is a straight up corporatist, more reminiscent of an Eisenhour era Republican than a Democrat. His cabinet is composed mostly of neocons, war hawks and corporatist prostitutes. The changes we all thought were going to happen...won't.
I expect the greens are going to start making significant gains in the coming years. Kaine becoming DNC head is just another in your face message from that crowd that they are still in control and the rest of us can go screw ourselves.
amen to that brother paul !
...to vote; dem's numbers remained on par with past elections.
(opened in another tab) and saw the 210 posts and said, "Damn, I'm slow! Must get coffee!!" (Interesting hybrid of the old numbered threads set in the new format, BTW)
From that old post, I echo Mudshark's sentiments then:
"No Stem Cell.............Fuck em!"
I realize we're not talking about Kaine as VP choice, but still, I'm hoping that stem cell research would be a cornerstone of Obama's reinvestment in science. If the Chairman of the DNC isn't supportive of this effort, then, well, fuck 'em!!
From Dean to this. And the Dem establishment will have gained nothing for selling their soul; they still will get the "far-left" accusations from the GOP and their empty suit talking point parrots in the MSM. And worst of all, they will have lost great people like Dean.
Putzes.
Yes, because that's their function. It's their purpose for being. The Democratic Party, as constituted today, exists for the sole purpose of representing liberal / progressive voters and their concerns badly. Without them someone may come along and advocate for them aggressively and effectively. Democrats prevent that. That's their job, to assume the left-leaning agenda as their own so that they can enter the arena with it alone and lose. Think of them as the political equivalent of the Washington Generals. You didn't waste your energy routing for them at Globetrotter games, did you?
As long as they've got you thinking they have any intention at all of representing you in any real way they don't have to worry about you starting an actual movement that intends to win.
So, please, don't be confused. They're not weak. They're not stupid. They're not cowardly. They're doing exactly what they want to do and their strength becomes evident when someone from the left speaks up about it and gets shut down, not by Republicans. Oh no. By Democrats.
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want but it's the only theory that explains with long-term consistency the way the Democratic Party behaves.
-ep
They are the Washington Generals playing the Harlem Globetrotters.
It certainly explains the actions of the DLC Dems and their coconspirators in Congress.
So true.
what a bunch of fucking idiots. I almost swore off voting yesterday due to a poor showing by Obama so far, but I came to my senses and realized that I need to vote for the most viable progressive third party that must certainly be on the horizon.
I bet I know what the Dem party, as an institution, is trying to do. They are trying to woo the religious right. That is why the face of their party has been changed to pro-life, anti-gay and anti-stem cell research.
That and pro-corporate, with the DLC all but running the party now.
This is nothing more than Republicanism - fiscal and social conservatism.
How strategically stupid can they be?
You might be labeled a racist, or a republican as myself and many other Hillary Clinton supporters have been smeared. As all of us tried to warn...Duh.
I'm still not over the pro-FISA retro immunity vote obama cast.
And SEXISM DID play a part; it's so ingrained in American culture, people can't even see it. "bro's before ho's" indeed.
I like the new look for C&L though...
You know I saw that vote on the floor, Hilary yelled out some nonsense, like "see!". (referring to the Illegal tapping of our personal private lives that is now legal)
I can guarantee you this, if it was the other way around Hilary would have been the 1 voting for immunity and Obama would've been against it.
It is a game, I can see it, can't you?
it's wrong that Hillary's supporters were labeled Repugs or racists. It's only Hillary. Maybe you read the latest on Hillary's fundraising prowess: She went very far to help a Syracuse businessman build a huge mall; in return, the businessman, a Bush Ranger, "donated" $100,000 to Hillary's foundation. No appearance of impropriety there, right?
As for racism, I still recall Hillary's declaration in the primary that she was supported by "hard-working, white" people. Personally, I think sexism played a very large part in Hillary's support. Some people still can't see that she's an ethically bankrupt, self-serving crypto-Repug; part of the problem, not the solution.
Please don't mention that, it's a rather sore spot for me.
A repub douche bag claiming he will bring green jobs to Syracuse while expanding a f'ing mall along and building a 3000 room resort in a town that gets very little tourism. All this while most of downtown is rotting. I voted for the Greens in the mayoral elections as they were talking about a more environmentally friendly solution of using the downtown real estate instead of destroying a whole bunch of land just north of it for a f'ing MALL.
Let's also not forget the lovely things they were doing with eminent domain and breaking up neighborhoods either.
Grumble grumble.
When I read the title, I thought, I can't believe this. Then I read what Nicole wrote and I also was very surprised, thank you.
I swear there is something around this east coast emanating from DC, these leaders and politicians are so disconnected from the people. They don't care either, It is almost like they are daring us to forcefully march on Government and physically remove them. That is what it will come to, I have no doubts. This is probably their last chance, I could be wrong???
The Democrats are Republicans, the one that aren't have no power.
Don't you think it's about time that progressives stopped vilifying Ralph Nader?
He was on the front lines taking flack from the Repubs and the Dems-would-be-Repubs.
He was the only one out there daring to confront the system and the power structure in this country.
It's time we thanked him - and tried to do something about this dreadful mess.
I suppose, but Nader just isn't right. He has the right message, but he's not the 1. If we could get Kucinich and Ron Paul together to form a 3rd party, I think something might just happen then.
There was nobody who was warning louder or who had his facts more together than Dennis Kucinich. And...look what the Corporate MSM machine and fellow "Democrats" did to him. His final warning when they kicked him out of the debates, "If you (the voters) let this happen, if you elect one of these people, you're going to deserve what you ultimately end up getting", or words to that effect are going to seem prescient by the time it's all over.
Paul,
I do remember Kucinich dominating a debate, with the perfect answers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYWWBwf2wHE
now you see the reason the demowhores shitcanned kucinich, an honest politicians not allowed to run this dictatorship, its bad for buisness!
Picking a guy like this to be the face of the party!
He'll be the only one to enjoy Rick Warren's dumb little prayer.
We need a third party - a progressive party.
These two are tweedle dee and tweedle dumbest.
I've been contributing to the DNC on a regular basis, and I'm going to take that money and reroute it to progressive candidates and organizations.
I contributed to Al Franken's campaign, and it looks like he needed every penny.
is sure right, Nicole. Double UGH. As in toUGH for our progressives.
Obama and the rest of the Democratic Party establishment are going out of their way to send a message to business-- and to their base.
They're saying, "we won't be listening to our base, so don't worry rich boys. We'll just triangulate them out of the equation."
just changed to "Republican Party" before my eyes...
We should register independent and refuse to back this guy.
WHY is Howard Dean leaving?
WHY are we going back to the old way of letting the party hacks in D.C. choose our leadership?
We should walk and let them know why.
I guess we just didn't give them enough of a win, huh?
"Democrats, snatching defeat from victory since 1992."
Had Bush and the GOP not completely wrecked America the Dems would not have won the last 2 election cycles. It's a damn shame the Democrat's only chance of winning is for the opposition party to fail so miserably. If there is anything the American people hate worse than incompetence (Republicans) is spinelessness (Democrats) therefore the Dems will find themselves back in the minority soon enough with Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and, I'm afraid, Barrack Obama leading the way.
Then they'd at least fight to insure pro-corporate candidates on their side to win, so they could maintain their own power. No, I think they're still stuck in the "Worried about losing the middle-ground voters to the fundies and, therefore, hurting our chances of sustainability" phase. We probably have to keep working on doing the opposite work of the Nixonites, which is making the progressives mainstream, and the red necks the loons.
picked this guy? Obama? Or the Party machinery hacks?
The honeymoon period for Obama is going to be very short indeed if he starts out his term with more of this...
For me it's pretty much over already. I was going to the inauguration but not now. Just as well, I hate crowds anyway.
With guys like this in your corner praising your moves (1:45 mark) who needs enemies? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKk7TDYH_tc
reaching out to bring Jeebus to the youngin's...
I'd feel safer 'round the hookers and dealers myself.
So did Ted Haggard.
After all, America is a center-reich nation. Right?
The problem is corruption. With Rethugs, it's 100 percent. With Democrats, it's about 70 percent. Corrupt, that is.
We gotta lotta work to do, folks.
I get so tired of that propaganda term "center". "Center" my ass. The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are the only center this nation has. They are its heart and its soul. The only ones who have a right to call themselves centrists are those who are doing their utmost to preserve the integrity and continuing operation of the ideals and principles that these two documents codify. In this election cycle, the only two candidates who did so were Kucinich and Gravel.
The way the rest of these fascists sneeringly portray it, if you are a Constitutionalist, then you are a far left-wing nutcase, and if you are a totalitarian wannabe, a fascist sellout, you're a "centrist" or "slightly right of center". What bullshit!
Progressive blogs should know better than to perpetuate this lie by their use of this term, in exactly the way that the propagandists who crafted it intended that it be used. It isn't helping anything.
It seems the absurdity of the GOP never ends, right now former Maryland Lt Gov. Michael Steele is fighting with Kenneth Blackwell for their party chair.
Two black guys who sold their souls in a fight to head the party of southern white males. Madness.
I think the term is Uncle Tom. There's an Uncle Thomas on the Supreme Court too.
Kinda like the Log Cabin Republicans who sell their souls to the devil for a tax cut.
There IS an alternative to this. There HAS been, but most won't pull the trigger. Go Green or go home.
I voted straight green last election. I'm only registered as a dem to hopefully vote out Schumer for a better dem. I tried with Hillary.
Kaine was one of the first guys to back Obama. He's pro-life but he is also anti-Death Penalty (Va. has usually been #2 for sending people to die). Kaine also seems to be trying to not cut funding for education during these bad economic times. Also, he has been strongly against off-shore drilling.
I'm not sure if being the head of the DNC is right for him, but I doubt that he could be the worst choice.
therefore, there is no need for a strong personality as the head of the dnc
plus, he will be ez to boot once the dems lose the house and the senate...and you know those idiots will
...and reprint in part an email I received from someone who is active in a state Democratic Party organization:
The chair prior to Clinton's election was the highly regarded Ron Brown who rebuilt part of the party in the late 80's...though did not do much to build the party's infrastructure in money or long running programs like ongoing voter databases.
Historically when we have a Democratic president is has been the tradition that the President chooses the chair and the members of the DNC oblige.
When we don't have a president, then the votes of the DNC members really do matter.
Under Clinton the chairs were weak, without power and often terribly behind the eight ball in terms of raising money. When we have had a president, the DNC has lost its autonomy and its long range vision on building the party. At the end of each of the presidents' terms the party apparatus is weaker than it was at the beginning. That is because the DNC is almost solely the creature of the president, who has his own agenda and his own needs. He either doesn't care or he cares too much...but mostly about himself. The needs of the party overall are not a priority. ....Also because the success of the president is seen as the success of the party. Of course , in terms of having a strong and not a hollow Democratic party that is not true.
By 2000 the DNC in comparison to the RNC was terribly in debt, had no ongoing voter database programs, did not have its own media capabilities and paid enormous sums to rent office space from a Republican landlord.
The 2 best chairs we have had were Howard Dean and Terry McAuliffe. Part of that was they did not have dual allegiances...to a president and the party....but only to the health and power of the party itself.
Terry McAuliffe came on in Jan 2001, full of ideas to get those all important, ongoing voter databases, get the party stronger and permamnently out of debt, make the DNC financially competitive with the RNC and to own its own space so that hundreds of thousands no longer went to fund Republicans. He succeeded. We rivalled the RNC in 2003-2004 in terms of money. I know that many dislike Terry McAuliffe for his Clinton loyalites and his big money fundraising, but 2001-2005 he used that to make the Democratic party a much stronger party in terms of infrastucture and money. He also never backed off in those 4 years from saying that George Bush was illegitimate...unlike our new HHS Secretary, Tom Daschle, who was forever silent at the first pop eyed glare from Tim Russert.
Howard Dean...we all know decided to give up any of his own ambitions for public office, in order to strengthen the party throughout the country, up and down the political arena. Howard has been a selfless visionary....who made us a much stronger party...everywhere.
We had 2 excellent chairs who made the party better, when we didn't have a president. Otherwise the chairs have been weak.
I don't think it has to stay that way.
And I do think puting in someone who has neither the time, inclination or motivation to serve aggressively as chair, very much ill serves the future strength and health of this party. This further deprives the national party of focus, strength, activism and money.
can we please stop using the term "pro-life"? The right coined the term in order to make those of us on the left appear "pro-death" or "pro-abortion." We're neither of those things. Nobody's "pro-abortion." Nobody on the left is happy about the necessity of terminating a pregnancy. What we support is a woman's right to choose what happens to her body and we understand that people's personal situations are very often too complicated to label in stark black and white terms.
Conservatives/wingers aren't "pro-life." They're "anti-choice."
Let's frame the debate our way for a change.
I absolutely agree. I've seen choice supporters being interviewed on TV who were actually labeled "pro-abortion" by their interviewers.
If dean leaves the DEMOCRATIC Party so will I. A know what you feel about DEAN but he built this new DEM. now they threw him out so me and my friends are gone too. It is back to the old DEMOCRATIC PARTY. Maby LIE-berman can head it next time.
Should it ever come to pass that prominant Democrats start leaving the party and going to a third option, like the Greens, that will be the beginning of the end for the Democratic party. I would love to see Dean, Kucinich, Feingold, Gravel and the like make that move.
The Green leadership needs to think about a viable national platform and to make an effort to attract liberals from the Dem machine.
Unfortunately, they will be shut down by the media big time. But there need to be creative ways in place to get around the informational blockade.
Sane individuals on the right, should think of a similar approach. The only way to get out of this mess is via a healthy democracy, that is not subjected to the dem-gop dynamic duo of hubris. I am tired of having to chose between insane (gop) and spineless enablers (dem).
the hit and run electoral approaches of Nader et al, don't help either.
Unbelievab... No, it is believable. The Democrats continually create new ways to fuck up any momentum they get. Tim Kaine?? What, Evan Bayh didn't want it? Another anti-science, Pro-fairytale, milquetoast jesus-freak governor is now the face of the dums?
Good job, Dims.
Goodness, sounds like more of the same "be more like Republicans and we can win" strategy that failed miserably in the past. So how long until we'll be saying, "President Jeb Bush"?
Seriously. What in the fuck.
I did the "old guy with a land line and 15 minutes" thing last fall and answered a phone survey on prospective vice-presidential candidates. This guy was one of the four and certainly didn't sound impressive to me at the time. Apparently, somebody in the power structure thinks he is.
If that survey was an omen, look for the Governor of Kansas to find a place somewhere in the administration too.
I'm becomeing more and more sure that the dems are trying to become Gops without the spine .
This kind of post is exactly what's wrong with today's democratic party. We like to refer to ourselves as the "Big Tent Party", but then we only welcome those people we agree with 100%. I read all these blogs (C&L, Kos, etc.) and I'm a democrat, but to be a democrat you don't have to be an uber-lefty-liberal. Obama is a transcending politician. All the lefties out there better get used to the fact that he is NOT Kucinich. He will bring people into the party that you and others would never dream of accepting or reaching out to. This is not only good for the country, but it's good for the Democratic party as well.
it is OK for everybody to berate and ignore liberals, but if us "lefty-liberals" dare to bitch about it... we are not being "inclusive" enough?
If the DNC and Obama's cabinet were dominated by liberals, yes... I could see how your big tent argument would have some validity. Since liberals are under represented (or not represented at all). I think your argument of the non inclusiveness by liberals is utter hog wash.
That's exactly the problem!! To placate the far-left of the party (and it appears this includes you) we have to have a certain # of identified lefties in the cabinet etc. He can't simply put the people he thinks are going to do the best job possible (what I would think, and it appears obama thinks, is the top priority for anybody filling these positions at this critical time). I'm a lifelong dem and I'm a huge supporter of Obama, but democrats just aren't satisfied... ever. Keep bitching it's what we do best, right?
So let's follow your logic. If Obama is putting people who he thinks will work best, and he is only including either moderates, conservatives and full blown hawks in his cabinet. Ergo, this means that he thinks that liberal ideologies do not work. So, I as a liberal am supposed to support that?
I have seen this movie before. When Pelosi came to be speaker of the house, again... I was told to "shut up and sit quiet" since she was supposed to know best. Never mind that all the indicators were to the opposite. And now, voila the same shit storm is brewing...
What I am tired, is of the insinuation that the problem with liberals are that we bitch too much. We have practiced subsumption for the better part of 4 decades. And look at the collective shithole that has taken us. I, for one, am tired of being told to shut up. I am tired of having to "yield" and accommodate those who will have zero tolerance towards us liberals and will never offer the same courtesy. And I am sick as fuck of being blamed for the incompetence of our leaders. The problem with the Dems ain't that some of us libs bitch too much. The problem is the piss poor leadership we have to endure.
As a lifelong resident of Virginia (the best "state" in the country) and as someone who worked foe Kaine through the AFL-CIO's Working America in his race back in '05 I am thrilled with this selection. While I don't agree with him on all his positions he has done a very VERY solid job for us Virginians, is a genuinely good guy and is right up Obama's alley. I am almost certain hardly anyone in these comments knows a single thing about him and have passed judgement based solely on the original posting. That's just awesome.
I'm a liberal and a Democrat but I have to admit, both sides are really beginning to annoy me. Pragmatism > Rigid Ideology. Such a shame, such a shame.
I live in VA and when I heard this morning that Obama was tapping Kaine, my first reaction was sadness. VA is a pretty conservative place--particularly socially conservative. No, I don't agree with all Kaine's positions. Kaine had a hard fight, but it was a good win. He's a Democrat that understand how to win in the south--the Democrat's answer to the Republican's "Southern Strategy." He's been an excellent governor and I, for one, will be sorry to see him go. Putting another Democrat in the VA governor's mansion is going to be a neat trick. He may not be as flashy as Howard Dean, but I betcha he can get the job done.
If Terry McAuliffe wins the Va Dem gubernatorial nomination in June I seriously might puke myself to death. No chance he would win, 1, and 2 he doesn't represent Va AT ALL. Not even us commies in Northern (fake) Virginia.
I very strongly doubt he has even the slimmest of chances though. Like I said Virginia is the best state in the country. We won't go for that BS.
But you never know. Ugh.
Come see Howard Dean at DemocracyFest! http://www.DemocracyFest.net
I heard that Obama was going to name Claire McCaskill in one of her lovely house dresses. That would be worse. All that I can say is that I will be saving money. The DNC no longer needs me as a donor. Illinois was never allowed to be part of the 50 state strategy. We didn't need it. We didn't need Howatrd Dean. We had Rahnbo! We are the true blue home. Look at the characters that we elect. There is no honesty or virtue in politics. I need to get interested in something else. Otherwise, I will always be depressed and feel cheated. There are no good guys. The Repugs are horrible but we aren't the good guys either. A Green dean would be good.
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