I don't know where people get that.

The national party still funds all 50 state parties sufficiently to have permanent staff.

That's literally what the 50 state strategy is.

And then implementing the plan.

How silly I am.

All we need is to have a desk and pay somebody a salary.

(Oops, forgot Poe's Law)

Those are good ideas, but that's not what Dean meant when he talked about the fifty state strategy (but the ongoing 50 state strategy is a prerequisite to them). You can read his book ("Winning Back America&quot where he talks about it.

Or you can read the Democratic Party's page about the 50 state strategy. If the strategy has ended, they don't seem to be aware of it.

The 50 state strategy is finding credible but long shot candidates and putting a lot of effort into them. It's also about putting a lot of focus into local state seats and not just ignoring those races or letting long shot candidates wing it without any support whatsoever.

Here's a good overview: http://www.governing.com/blogs/politics/gov-democrat-howard-deans-fifty-state-strategy.html

Here's a good journal paper (page 34): http://people.reed.edu/~gronkep/pol333-s07/electionarticles.pdf

If it went away why are there dozens and dozens of articles about Democrats "returning" to the strategy?

As far as the articles, I've wondered that for a while too.

The party itself still talks about its 50 state strategy, so the party seems to think it's still doing it.

It didn't succeed until 2006. The two articles I link explain the history. And especially explains how Dean was heavily doubted. The main key is getting a ground campaign going, that costs tens of thousands, once you have the movement going, it feeds into itself. But you need that starter money. And I am sorry keeping people "staffed" is not that. That's Paul Bagala's view, Rahm Emmanuel's view.

Where is the list of contested districts? Where are the links to state parties and potential candidates? I don't find that credible I think it's the DNC saying "oh we are still working on it."

And yeah, I was referring to Bagala and Rahm being all "staffing people isn't worth anything." That's why "staffing" was in quotes. But it was never about just staffing, it was about building out known targets, doing demographics stuff, finding viable candidates, etc.

Many Democrats in 2010 and 2012 complained that the DNC wasn't helping.

That's what got Bagala so mad: Dean devolved a lot of funding and power to the state parties, a structural change that is still in place.

However, as somebody pointed out down thread, the DCCC in particular went all cannibal on its own incumbents' war chests around the same time, with the result that it actually came out ahead of the state parties despite the increase in their funding.

When he was tapped to oversee the 2006 campaign effort, Emanuel led a record fundraising effort, bringing in far more money than four years earlier. The single biggest source of money was other members of Congress, which irritated some members who faced fierce pressure to contribute.

The additional money allowed House Democrats to expand the field, going into districts that hadn't been considered competitive before. That sometimes meant recruiting more conservative candidates, an Emanuel strategy that generated some complaints.

But his success in electing a Democratic majority soothed most hard feelings and confirmed Emanuel as a major force in the House -- perhaps even a future speaker.

Dean wanted the money under the state parties. We've kind of split the difference, but the campaign committees have had to come up with their own money rather than going through the party to get most of their increased funding.

Because they legislate for the 1% and not the 99%.

Here is the whole problem with "the third way" as I see it. If you compromise your ideals before it is absolutely necessary to do so, just to supposedly appeal to the widest focus group of low information voters, you end up with the complete mess our great nation currently faces. The problem all our recent Democratic leaders face is that they "compromise" before they even put the matter on the table in the interest of a "bipartisanship" that works only one way.

The only way to win is to proclaim your winning position loudly over and over and over. You only compromise, just as you only go to war, as a last resort. If you don't stand up for what is right as strongly and as vociferously as possible, regardless of what the corporate media addled public supposedly "thinks" according to corporate polls, your defeatism becomes self-fulfilling, and you end up with the political mess our country now faces: a government of the 1%, for the 1%, and by the 1%.

If Democrats want to win state and local elections, our candidates are going to have to start working to energize the disaffected masses that the Republicans keep trying to disenfranchise both by law and by apathetic attrition. Democrats are going to have to go after the rich, powerful, and entrenched interests that are ripping Americans off and offer some tangible relief to the average citizen. Simply not being quite as bad as Republicans is no longer a viable strategy. Democrats are going to have to work hard to channel the anger of average citizens against the corrupt oligarchy that currently controls our government at almost every level. Until the rigged system is changed, Democrats have no choice but to reach out to many people who have completely given up on participating politically and give these people some compelling reasons to engage.

But that doesn't mean Democrats need to meet Republicans halfway on every issue, even in these states.

When Democrats are afraid even to articulate the argument for a fairer, more egalitarian government, the boundaries of acceptable political debate are inevitably moved to favor the 1% and their Republican lackeys.

All Democratic candidates need to attract Southern voters is to say they respect the Second Amendment, they like God, and they think heterosexual marriage is great. They could also add that they want to reduce the number of abortions. It should not be hard to find Southern Democratic candidates who sincerely feel this way on all these issues. On the other hand, there is zero reason that Southern Democratic candidates have to be Blue Dogs on top 1% vs. bottom 99% and corporate oligarchy issues. That is just the Democratic party doing its best to keep the oligarchs happy.

Rahm Emanuel and by extension Obama. He's done so much good but where he's failed, it's been spectacular

asking someone during the Dubya years who the Vice President was. She had no idea. All I could think was "are you for fucking real?". This person had no idea that the taxes coming out of her paycheck were used more for war than teaching her children. I get that parenthood is time consuming, but it also requires civic knowledge and VOTING.

eom

It's very unlikely that I'll ever do so again. I'll vote for whatever liberals appear on my ballot, and leave the other lines blank.

If a Liberal wants to win a presidential election, all he has to do is make a cattle call request to all the independents who left the party. Be mindful of the primary deadlines for each closed primary state and advertise those dates with the reminder that this will be the only opportunity we have to make a difference. Do not underestimate the numbers that have drifted away from the Democratic party because they felt disenfranchised by the rank corruption and misguided strategy of colluding with the Republican party.

Call and we will come. What does Sanders have to lose?

After posting above that I believed the democrats have totally failed at any sort of strategy regarding elections other than the most visible one and ignoring everything else,

I visited the Indiana Democratic Party site: http://www.indems.org/

I did notice that the site had been updated recently. There's an election coming up in 2 weeks or so. It's kind of important at the local level and includes the mayoral election.

Maybe someone else can help me but I can't find any reference to the election on the site. Nothing about candidates. Nothing about where to vote. Nothing about important issues.

I did see the Indiana 2014 democratic platform.

So much for the strategy.