Chairman DEAN needs to RELEASE $$$ NOW. Saving for 2008 is dumb.

This Time, Dean's Right

By Charlie Cook
© National Journal
March 11, 2006

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While Pelosi and Reid are right that control of the Senate will be decided by races in just eight or nine states and that, likewise, a small fraction of House districts will truly be in play, they ignored one set of facts. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee exists solely to win House races. On the Senate side, there's the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. For the party's governors, there is the Democratic Governors' Association. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee was created to boost candidates for state legislatures. And the GOP, of course, has comparable committees for all of its candidates.

The primary responsibility of the DNC is not to win House, Senate, gubernatorial, or state legislative races, but to build and sustain a national party and to oversee the presidential conventions and nomination process. The same is true of the Republican National Committee. No other entities within the two major parties are charged with those missions.

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The Democratic congressional leaders' shortsighted, penny-wise/pound-foolish complaints show why their party has become bicoastal. Congressional Democrats have trouble winning in many interior states, in part because leaders like Reid and Pelosi have failed to appreciate the importance of maintaining a strong national party apparatus. The Democrats' inability to consistently win elections in places where gun shops outnumber Starbucks is a big reason the party controls neither the House nor the Senate.

Right now, one of the biggest obstacles to Democrats' taking the House back is their failure to recruit strong candidates in many Republican-held districts that ought to be in play. Party building means lining up a solid team -- organizing and winning lower-level offices that give the party a talented bench from which to draw for higher contests.

Dean's view -- that Pelosi, Reid, and their party committees have their jobs and he has his -- is the one that he ought to stick to. He should also resist pressure from interest groups, such as the Congressional Black Caucus, whose members raise very little money for the DCCC even though a Democratic takeover of the House would elevate many black lawmakers to chairmanships.

Howard, stick to your guns.

http://www.cookpolitical.com/column/2006/031106.php