Dean's 50-State Strategy Is a Plus for Obama

If Sen. Barack Obama is able to prevail over Sen. John McCain Tuesday, all of those Democrats who ripped Howard Dean's 50-state strategy during the past four years should call the head of the Democratic National Committee and offer a heartfelt apology.

First in line should be Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois and my CNN colleague and political strategist James Carville.

When Democrats were in the final stages of winning back Congress in 2006, those three were at odds with Dean, saying he should forget about his pie-in-the-sky plan to have the Democratic Party compete in all 50 states.

They reasoned that it was futile to spend money on get-out-the-vote efforts in non-congressional elections and that all the effort should be on reclaiming Congress.

But Dean resisted their suggestions, weathering repeated calls for him to resign after that election.

Dean's insistence on having a Democratic Party that exists in the heartland — not just California, New York and Massachusetts — was brilliant in that it made it clear that the party recognizes the rest of America.

The Democratic Party earned its liberal label because it ignored the moderate and conservative voices, which paved the way for the Reagan Revolution to win three consecutive elections. Yet the decisive wins weren't just on the national level.

Texas is a prime example. What used to be a blue-dog Democratic state now has Republicans dominating every statewide office.

But things are looking up. In Dallas County, all of the county positions except for a handful were in the hands of the GOP, especially judicial positions. That changed four years ago, and the party could solidify itself this time around.

The same thing in Harris County. The state's most populous county saw Republicans take everything in sight. This time around, Democrats are poised to take back Houston and surrounding cities.

Texan Democratic leaders used to cry the blues when an election was near, but after seeing the massive turnout during the primary, they have been able to build their voter database and cultivate a new generation of politicians to run for office.

Will the state go red? Sure. But with a rock-solid black vote, the ability to attract more Hispanic voters, and a growing appeal to whites, Democrats may make Texas a competitive two-party state soon.

If Democrats are going to achieve success on the national level, they must have significant enthusiasm on the local level.

When Obama announced that he was implementing a 50-state strategy, he was laughed at. But here we are with a few days left in the campaign, and the Republicans are having to spend precious dollars on ads in Montana, North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada, GOP locks in past elections.

Obama deserves a lot of the credit for this because his "change" campaign theme, along with the horrible leadership of Republicans nationwide, is helping his candidacy. But changing the attitude of the nation's Democrats was also vital, and that's where Dean played a role.

The former governor of Vermont saw firsthand the sorry shape of the party when he ran for president in 2004. Republicans, led by Karl Rove, perfected their voter-registration efforts, targeting voters down to the neighborhood, block and household.

They knew that in order to win, they needed a well-oiled machine that wasn't activated every four years; it needed to be active year-round and in every election cycle.

So Dean put the people and resources behind substantial voter efforts in a number of states, and they went about rebuilding a crippled party that had no central voter-registration effort, an outdated database of supporters, a fundraising arm that heavily relied on trial attorneys and Hollywood types, and a message that changed depending on the day.

In addition to seeing how Obama performs Tuesday, we also will watch and see whether Democrats are able to increase the number of governorships and legislatures they control.

That will be critical in 2010 because that's when the borders of congressional districts will be redrawn, and the party that rules the general assemblies, legislatures and governor's mansions will write the rules to the game.

Old pols always said that all politics is local, and the only way for a revitalized Democratic Party to expand its reach nationally is by re-branding the party on the home front. That takes time, money and leadership, and Howard Dean was willing to put his money where his mouth is.

Roland S. Martin is an award-winning CNN contributor and the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith." Please visit his Web site at www.RolandSMartin.com. To find out more about Roland S. Martin and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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