Democracy for Democrats

Unless he can find a national audience to scream at in the next week, it looks like Howard Dean will be the next Chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). For a party that rejected Dean’s brand of loud-mouthed liberalism in the primary and then got spanked in November, this may seem like an odd choice. But Dean didn’t get elected by playing to the left wing of the party. If anything, Dean’s success stems from his willingness to cater to state Democratic Party organizations that may be far to the right of Dean and his supporters.

Dean, and every other candidate with a shot at winning the race, spent most of his campaign telling state Democratic Party activists how much he was going to do for them. Dean never publicly committed to turning the DNC over to the states, but he has supported proposals that would put more money, and therefore more power, in the hands of state organizations. Dean calls it “grassroots.” It fits with his “outside the Beltway” rhetoric. But Dean’s brand of localism needs a few tweaks if it is going to work.

First, empowering state parties has some real advantages. If state parties have the resources and the autonomy to do their thing, they can be more effective than a national bureaucracy. When people think of the Democratic “Party establishment,” they often imagine a bunch of fat white guys sitting in a smoke-filled room throwing darts at kittens. In the standard caricature, Party activists are out of touch with “the people.” Conservatives say they’re too liberal. Liberals say they’re too corporate.

At the state level, the Democratic Party establishment is culturally diverse and ideologically representative. Democratic Party activists—the people who actually run the Democratic establishment—are far more likely to reflect the beliefs of voters from their area than the national party.

The biggest problem with giving more money to state parties is that some of them just suck. While activists in Montana miraculously elected a Democratic Governor in a Republican year, the Democratic Party in Michigan is facing questions about a missing $2.5 million from the 2004 election. One of the only ways the DNC can force state parties to spend money responsibly and effectively is to hold on tight to the purse strings. When the DNC needs to run a national campaign, working with the state parties can be like herding cats. If Dean gives the states more autonomy, he might make it impossible for the Democratic Party to function effectively during presidential election years.

One way to solve this problem without giving up on localism is to steal a play from Dean’s primary campaign. Dean needed to get a lot of people excited about his campaign because otherwise he wasn’t going to have enough money to pay the heating bill for his Vermont office. If the DNC cuts the state parties a check at the beginning of every year, the parties have no incentive to use the money effectively. If they mobilize fewer voters, they have easier jobs and they can spend less money keeping volunteers happy. If the DNC gives state parties more opportunities to fundraise on their own, the parties must get people involved and excited if they’re going to have money to spend. The best way to get a donor to cough up money is to give them a real role in the national party. If Dean gives state parties an incentive to raise their own cash, he is also giving them an incentive to build a true grassroots operation.

This may sound like it encourages the states to cater to the wealthy, but it doesn’t need to. The DNC could find a way to pay for volunteer hours. If the DNC paid state parties to recruit volunteers to put on worthwhile events, then state parties could focus on mobilizing interested voters regardless of their ability to write a check.

Every time a state party finds a donor or a volunteer, they give a voter a sense of ownership in their state Democratic Party. The more state Parties focus on grassroots fundraising, the more they will mobilize local activists. Democrats have had problems with new campaign finance laws because the DNC has relied too heavily on large donations. State parties are more embedded in local communities. They may find those middle-class potential donors that the national party has ignored. If not, their search will put them in touch with voters that the DNC hasn’t talked to, voters who can’t cut four-figure checks. If the DNC funnels money to state parties by helping them fundraise, rather than by cutting them a check, it will encourage voter mobilization while it ensures that more effective state organizations get more cash.

Of course, the DNC must still do something to make sure that California doesn’t monopolize Democratic money. Fundraising is a lot easier in Hollywood than it is in Des Moines. But Dean should spend more time thinking of ways to help mobilize the state parties and less time offering cash handouts to all 50 states. If all Dean does is push power down to the states, the Democratic Party will become more fragmented, ideologically and organizationally. If he gives state parties incentives to get people involved, Dean will create a more democratic Democratic Party.

Samuel M. Simon ’06 is a social studies concentrator in Eliot House. His column appears alternate Wednesdays.