Posted on 11/28/2004 2:26:14 AM PST by Liz
Except for sneering Michael Moore types, the new mantra of Democrats is learning how to see red — as in Republican red states. Problem is, nobody appears to want the key job of DNC chairman except those from super-blue states.
That's a quandary, since the DNC is the only national forum that can serve as the party's base for revival. President Bush is back in the White House by a solid margin and Dem numbers are shrinking in Congress.
One clue to the traumatized post-election Democratic mood is that those pushing New Yorker Leo Hindery Jr. — former YES Network chief — for DNC head honcho feel a need to insist that he's not too New Yorkish.
"When I hear Leo talk, I don't hear somebody that I suspect of being an East Coast snob," says Nebraskan-turned-New Yorker Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator and New School University president.
Abortion-rights activist Kate Michelman, also backing Hindery, insists, "The fact that he lives in NY does not mean he cannot appreciate the life of someone in Iowa."
The others clamoring to run the DNC are just as un-Iowa as Hindery — Howard (The Scream) Dean, controversial (and very NY) Clintonista Harold Ickes and New Democratic Network chief Simon Rosenberg, a native of Connecticut suburbs.
Former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb and former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk — both African-Americans — are cited, but it's not clear they're interested. Both did well in red states, but only at the city level. Kirk lost Texas-wide for U.S. senator.
That's why the few red-state Dem stars have better things to do than replacing Terry McAuliffe (hand-picked by the Clintons) as DNC chief. Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack are all said to be mulling 2008 White House bids.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Funding
Funded with "more than $2 million in donations from wealthy liberals." "Among Mr. Brock's donors is Leo Hindery, Jr., the former cable magnate; Susie Tompkins Buell, who is co-founder of the fashion company Esprit and is close to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, and Ms. Buell's husband Mark; and James C. Hormel, a San Francisco philanthropist whose appointment as ambassador to Luxembourg was delayed for a year and a half in the late 1990's by conservative lawmakers protesting what they called his promotion of a 'gay lifestyle.'
Sounds like Hindery's right tight with the Toons.
I know Mr. Hindery from the fact that he races with the British-American Motorsports team in the American Le Mans series. You can google him and find out that he is from San Francisco, that he is worth half a billion according to records available, and that he is very active in AIDS prevention and cure in the former Soviet Union.
He's also a very personable man, very intelligent and intellectual, extremely well connected and able to make diamonds out of coal.
He was apparently targeted for a high position with the Kerry Administration if such a thing had come to pass; he planned to give up racing for 2005 to go to Washington and work as an insider.
Check him on Google and find out for yourself, rather than repeating knee-jerk remarks about what you imagine him to be, coupled with the usual "Democrats are Stupid" chorus, repeat ad infinitum.
Now that the Right are in control, we need to learn reasoned discourse, even among ourselves.
So's Toon. He's still a sleaze.
P.S. Cows have UDDERS. UTTER is an adjective.
If the party wants its chair to raise wads of money and build bridges to business, it has a contender in longtime telecom exec Leo J. Hindery Jr. For Democrats who long to see the DNC run more like a business, there's Hindery, an ex-Tele-Communications Inc. president and AT&T Broadband & Internet Services (T ) CEO. But some worry about Hindery's later tenure at scandal-plagued Global Crossing Ltd. (GLBC ), a company to which McAuliffe also had connections.
Global Crossing...Uh oh...
The Democrats and the media like to portray Bush as a far right-wing zealot. In fact, Bush is a relative moderate (not a quality I like, but I'll take him over a Democrat). It's the Democrats who have moved farther from the center, and their inability to find someone electable from a red state is good evidence of that.
The new democrat slogan will be "A chicken in every pot for every child, man, woman and abortion".
FWIW, Hindery was also a backer of a 527 group called Americans for Jobs, Healthcare & Progressive Values (AJHPV).
Donna Brazile, "a closet Republican"!!
AlGore's campaign manager and a Kerry advisor.
Show me the money on that one.
She is a koolaid drinker and is already saddled with two presidential campaign losses. The Al Gore loss is deemed as a give away as well. Adding a few more losing efforts would put her in the same category of Bob--peformance-does not matter-- Shrum. It would guarantee her RAT Party leadership jobs life.
He had some shady dealings with Global Crossing -- as did Terry MacAuliffe.
Hindery denies knowledge of Global Crossing trades Reuters, 04.18.02, 3:55 PM ET NEW YORK, April 18 (Reuters) - Leo Hindery, former chief executive of Global Crossing Ltd. , on Thursday denied he had any knowledge of trades in the beleaguered telecommunications company's stock by an investment group in which he was a partner. At issue is a series of trades made two years ago by LJH Partners after Hindery became chief executive of Global Crossing in 2000. Hindery has been a limited partner in LJH since May...
http://www.webprowire.com/summaries/81058.html
I really am surpised that Bill Richardson is not mentioned. We here in NM need him gone. lets get the ball rolling. Denco
The people that will steer the Democrats toward the Center--namely Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana and Senators-elect Ken Salazar of Colorado and Barack Obama of Illinois--won't be influential until at least 5-6 years from now. In short, the Michael Moore crowd will still dominate Democratic Party politics, and they will continue to sink further in the morass.
It doesn't matter if they brought F.D.R. back from the grave to run their party. Their positions on key issues aren't going to change. Their contempt of their own country during a time of war resonates. Their quiet hatred of all things Christian is felt by most. They should just drop all pretense, and appoint Michael Moore. He embodies what they are all about.
Yes, but Castro is getting a bit long in the tooth. I believe that most progressive Democrats would be just as happy with Hugo Chavez, and he is much younger.
A "Draft Chavez in 08" campaign would probably go over well with the same folks that were happy with a Senator Kerry candidacy.
Heh....that would make a great thread.......lining up all the sure-loser candidates the Dims might be forced to use.
Worth repeating.
Jeez, this guy's got real talent. I wonder if he can spin thread into gold ..........oh wait, that was Rumplestiltskin.
Look, I know that Joe Lieberman is a liberal. If you noticed I only pointed out his "Hawk" stance. The Democrat Party is never going to give up its liberalism. Where it failed miserably with the American people is in its overwhelming anti-war, anti-military, anti-American, secular (anti-God) stance. The party as it stands today is unacceptable to the majority of the American public. With each day that passes, the Party loses more supporters. Unless they address these above positions quickly the party will be in minority status forever!!! I doubt, even though, you profess great distain toward Lieberman, that the Democrat Party would choose him to head the DNC. He is unacceptable to the crazy left-wing idiots that now control the party. For our side, this is just fine with me, because my desire was not only to beat John Kerry, but to destroy the entire Democrat Party as it exists today. We really do need a two party political system in the USA, but not one that the current Democrat Party has become.
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