"Democratic Leaders Question Whether Dean's Right on the Money"

"Democratic congressional leaders aren't happy with the way Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is spending money. At a private meeting last month, they let him know.

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) challenged the former Vermont governor during a session in Pelosi's office, according to Democratic sources. The leaders complained about Dean's priorities -- funding organizers for state parties in strongly Republican states such as Mississippi -- rather than targeting states with crucial races this fall.

Neither side was willing to give ground, according to several accounts of the meeting. Dean argued that his strategy is designed to rebuild the party across the country, and that he had pledged to do so when he ran for party chairman. Reid and Pelosi countered that if Democrats squander their opportunities this year, longer-term organizing efforts will not matter much."-from the story in today's Washington Post by Dan Balz and Chris Cillizza.

The (liberal) Girl Next Door tells me, in response: "Dean's strategy here is right on. The only way the Democrats can become a whole party again is to build from the ground up in all 50 states. Of course the status quo Democratic leadership is going to balk at his efforts to spend money across the country instead of focusing solely on key races, because they are in trouble and they want the DNC to bail them out. If incumbent Democrats are in trouble in their districts, perhaps they should take some personal responsibility and accept that they're not living up to the expectations of the people they were elected to represent. Instead of throwing good money after bad to get mediocre incumbents re-elected, I'm all for empowering the state parties which likely will result in better candidates who won't alienate their constituencies or require huge amounts of money to get re-elected. The other side of this equation though, is that those of us who agree with Dean's strategy, must get behind him as he stands up for his idea. We should be giving money to the DNC and promoting the 50 State Strategy every chance we get."

One can only conslude that Dean's foes are "leakin" in order to "weaken" his position.

Update: Jonathan Singer pushes back on MyDD with his post, "Media Continues to Push "Dems Dislike Dean" Stories." Here's a Hawaiian pupu:

"In addition to my qualms about the content and tenor of the Balz/Cillizza story, I'm also having trouble understanding why this article was published today. There's nothing particularly timely about the information contained in the Balz/Cillizza piece; the purported meeting took place over a month ago, and there's no explanation of why this story is germane now. What's more, even if such news were fit for printing in The Washington Post, there's nothing new or groundbreaking about this story. Reporters have been saying exactly the same thing -- that Congressional Democrats are unhappy with Howard Dean -- since the beginning of Dean's tenure as Chairman, and probably even before then, when Dean was only running for the position."