Howard Dean Weighs DNC Decision
Newsweek

The Vermont firebrand is essentially a centrist—with conviction and passion. He's an obvious choice to lead the fractured party

NOV 26, 2004

By Eleanor Clift
 
The struggle to be Democratic National Committee chair is round one of the battle for the soul of the party. The obvious choice is Howard Dean, who has the clarity of conviction and the passion that voters hunger for even if they don’t always agree with him.

Party activists around the country are furious at the Washington Democrats for blowing the election. Wresting control away from the entrenched establishment is their goal. Dean would spark a Red State rebellion within the party, but the Heartland’s leading contender, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, withdrew his name from contention after being shown numbers suggesting Dean would win.

Dean is talking to a lot of people, and what he’s telling them is that if a consensus African-American or minority candidate emerged, he would not seek the job. Clinton Labor Secretary Alexis Herman’s name surfaced, but she said she wasn’t interested, and so far nobody else has assumed the mantle. A DraftHoward.com Web site has sprung up, and a Democratic source says Dean is planning a series of speeches “to position himself as a centrist.” A campaign aide with close ties to the governor protests that he “wouldn’t be positioning himself. Remember in Iowa, the nicks came from the left.” Rival campaigns attacked Dean for once agreeing with Newt Gingrich that Social Security’s growth rate should be slowed, and for winning the endorsement of the National Rifle Association as Vermont’s governor.

Democrats who have spoken with Dean say he is moving toward a decision about the DNC post. But they caution that it could go either way. Anybody who has run for president doesn’t get it out of their system fast, particularly anybody who came as close as Dean thinks he came. Deciding to lead the party would probably take Dean out of the running for the ’08 nomination. Maybe that’s why the Clintons are quietly pulling for Dean. He would be one less party favorite for Hillary to dispose of. It’s not just his own ambition that Dean is weighing. The DNC job is no nirvana. It’s a place where he could make a difference, but it’s like any other Washington bureaucracy, says a Democratic operative. “There is a huge institutional pull in the same direction—‘We do it that way because we’ve always done it that way'.”

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