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Facing an $11.6 million budget shortfall, organizers of the Democratic National Convention are cutting events ... The convention's Denver host committee reported it has deposited $29 million of the $40.6 million it promised to the Democratic National Committee by a Monday deadline. The overall convention budget is about $70 million. A planned media walkthrough of the Pepsi Center was abruptly canceled last week, alerting political reporters across the country that something was amiss. People close to the party's convention committee said the event was scrapped in part to embarrass the host committee into stepping up its fundraising efforts. Denver was...

In a major shakeup at the Democratic National Committee -- and a departure from tradition -- large parts of the committee's operations are relocating to Chicago to be fully integrated with the Obama campaign. The DNC's political department, housed in Washington, D.C., will be dramatically rebuilt, with staffers offered a choice of moving to Chicago, joining state operations, or staying in Washington, DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney said. But the power will clearly be shifting to a centralized Chicago hub. The DNC's key role in coordinating political operations with state parties is expected to largely be taken over and overseen by...

Don't know what to make of this but, at least one site, Clinton Democrats, says it is true. TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION! Howard Dean is working to remove Hillary from first ballot at the convention! I.E he is trying to have her stricken from the record…the annals of history, and diminish the gravity of her historic place in history. Remember, Obama had Alyce Palmur removed from the ballot here in Chicago so he had no one to challenge him….SEE An PATTERN? More . . . Another commenter on this post also mentioned it. Otherwise, why would he be trying to have...

Washington Post: GOP tool? Might sound a tad far-fetched to you. But you're not Howard Dean. Appearing on today's Morning Joe, the DNC Chairman Dean claimed a Washington Post article about Jim Johnson, whom Barack Obama has chosen to head up the vetting of potential VP picks, was "planted" by the McCain campaign. Johnson's appointment has become an embarrassment to Obama because the former CEO of Fannie Mae has been linked to the mortgage crisis. As WaPo reported: The questions about Johnson began after the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that he received more than $2 million in home loans...

Excerpt - Bill and Hillary Clinton no longer control the Democratic primary. There's simply no other conclusion to draw after the party's Rules and Bylaw committee reached a decision Saturday that helps Barack Obama and hurts Hillary Clinton's chances of somehow winning the Democratic presidential nomination. Clinton, in the words of Florida State Sen. Arthenia Joyner, wanted "it all" at Saturday's meeting. She wanted full delegations seated from Florida and Michigan, with a full vote. She wanted Obama to get zero delegates from Michigan, since he followed the rules, ignored the outlaw primary and went so far as to take...

WASHINGTON, May 23 -- Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean today issued the following statement in commemoration of Memorial Day:"This weekend we honor the brave men and women who have defended our country and those who have lost their lives on the battlefield. They deserve the very best in return, which is why the Democratic Congress passed the bi-partisan 21st Century GI bill to help them pay for college when they come home. We believe that if someone is willing to put on the uniform for the United States of America, we should do everything we can to help them...

As we see Barack Obama winning certain cities, regions, and demographics by wide margins, and yet also having a tough time in some states with a lot of electoral votes (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida), it's not unthinkable that he could do what Al Gore did in 2000: Win the popular vote, but lose in the Electoral College. James Boyce examined a plausible scenario at the Huffington Post: Barack Obama will win California and New York and all the blue coastal states by huge margins - he will be millions of votes ahead on the basis of New York, California, Illinois...

Back in the day I was learning afresh of this wondrous new thing called blogging. As a callow-headed newbie, I took a shot at what users of Freerepublic.com refer to as a vanity post. My target was the execrable Howard Brush Dean III, MD and my post was entitled “It’s The Condescension, Stupid.” This was written back in 2004. I felt concerned back then that Dr. Dean would be spending the next four years writing a prescription that would clobber America the way he and those of his repugnant ilk would like to see us clobbered. It was also right...

Today on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace confronted Howard Dean over two highly misleading ads put out by the DNC attacking John McCain on Iraq and the economy. Regardless of the very obvious fact that the ads were misleading, at best, Dean refuses to back down irrespective of the evidence Wallace cites. It makes for comical political television, and we can all rest assured that there's plenty more of this to come...

Howard Dean appeared on the Daily Show and said definitively that the Michigan and Florida delegations will be seated. (H/t Scott Jacobs.) The video is here. Representative quotes: STEWART: If I were designing a plan to submarine your chances, and again, you don’t have to follow my advice here, I would take the state that was, let’s say crucial to the Republican election chances — lets, let’s call it Florida — and I would find a way to insult them. Maybe not seat them at the convention, that sort of thing. Then I would pick a Rust Belt state, maybe...

Excerpt - The Democratic National Committee raised only $4.7 million in April and ended last month with a perilously low $3.7 million in the bank, a Democratic insider tells Washington Wire. Four years ago during the last presidential election cycle, the story was much different. The DNC raised $19 million in April 2004 and ended that month with $42 million cash on hand, Federal Election Commission reports show. ~ snip ~ What explains the cash crunch at the DNC? Some critics say it’s proof that Chairman Howard Dean just hasn’t been very effective at cultivating donors or managing resources. Dean’s...

I started focusing on the political process in the mid-to-late 80's. For as long as I've been involved, it has been generally accepted that Ronald Reagan's success was keyed to his ability to bring the three legs of the conservative movement to stand together -- the foreign policy, economic, and social conservatives. Today, I believe the Republican and Democrat establishments would love nothing more than for the social conservatives to sit down and shut up, but they know this demographic can still really impact an election. It is harder for social conservatives to win elections by themselves these days. They...

<p>The Democratic National Committee has sparked outrage among veterans and others across the internet by running an anti-John McCain ad that shows U.S. soldiers being blown up.</p> <p>After the new ad’s voice-over castigated McCain for suggesting that the United States may stay in Iraq for “maybe 100” years, the footage becomes shocking.</p>

WASHINGTON - Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Monday that either Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama must drop out of the Democratic presidential race after the June primaries in order to unify the party by the convention and win the election in November. But Dean didn't say which candidate should drop out, only that it should happen after primary voters have been to the polls. "We want the voters to have their say. That's over on June 3," Dean said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America." Dean also said that while the party rules say Democratic superdelegates...

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is calling Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain out on the controversial North Carolina GOP ad which link two Democratic candidates in the state to Democrat Sen. Barack Obama's by now infamous Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Dean is framing it as a test of McCain's leadership...

One of the great effects of Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos is that it is causing to Democrats to face doom down the road in the form of the disenfranchised delegates from Florida and Michigan. Normally, a candidate (Obama) would have been already coronated by now with the convention merely being a technicality to make it completely official. As a result, Howard Dean could have played the part of the good guy and allowed the Florida and Michigan delegates to be seated since their votes would have no effect on the outcome. However, thanx to Operation Chaos, the Democrats don't...

If you missed FNC's Red Eye last night Greg Gutfeld did an excellent rant on Howard Dean I posted it on YouTube this am.It's worth a watch.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Thursday that swing voters participating in focus groups commissioned by the D.N.C. bring up John McCain's age unprompted. "We didn't bring it up, but they volunteered it," said Dean who explained that voters have two concerns about McCain's age. "One was a health concern, the other was, and this is really interesting . . . that his views are old-fashioned." At the age of 72, McCain would be the oldest newly elected president in U.S. history if inaugurated in 2009. Referring to what Dean characterized as the party's most conservative focus group in...

To: NATIONAL EDITORS Contact: Luis Miranda of Democratic National Committee, +1-202-863-8148 WASHINGTON, April 6, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean highlighted the reasons John McCain is not a strong candidate in interviews with George Stephanopolous on ABC's This Week and Bob Schieffer on CBS's Face the Nation this morning. Dean also discussed the Democratic Party's "extraordinary candidates" and delegate selection process. On John McCain "I don't think Senator McCain would be a good president either in terms of defense or certainly in terms of national policy where he's deeply out of touch with almost everything that Americans...

Even as the rest of the Democratic Party around him takes sides in the epic struggle of Clinton vs. Obama, Al Gore remains inscrutable, silent, above the battle. His gigantic but unspoken presence is raising rumors and fueling speculation. Joe Klein, writing in Time Magazine, even suggested a scenario where a deadlocked convention turns its lonely eyes to Al. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson comes out for Obama, and so do Ted Kennedy and Bill Bradley. Govs. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania and Jon Corzine of New Jersey back Hillary. Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, while avoiding an endorsement, speaks out...

Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean has a plan that will produce a nominee before his party's convention in August, avoiding what he fears could be a "really ugly and nasty" fiasco. Democratic leaders have begun complaining he has bungled the party's nominating process and alienated voters because of his failure to engineer a political compromise in the DNC's ill-advised decision to strip Florida and Michigan of all its delegates. But Mr. Dean, whose polls show the party's internecine warfare is hurting its chances in November, has been talking to party bigwigs about a deal and now says the delegations will...

Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean has a plan that will produce a nominee before his party's convention in August, avoiding what he fears could be a "really ugly and nasty" fiasco. Democratic leaders have begun complaining he has bungled the party's nominating process and alienated voters because of his failure to engineer a political compromise in the DNC's ill-advised decision to strip Florida and Michigan of all its delegates. But Mr. Dean, whose polls show the party's internecine warfare is hurting its chances in November, has been talking to party bigwigs about a deal and now says the delegations will...

She's not going anywhere. If her campaigning in Indiana this weekend, which doesn't vote until May, isn't enough of an indicator, then maybe this weekend's email from her husband will convince you. Here's part of it: Dear Tom, Here's the most important thing you need to know about this race: it's neck-and-neck. Only 130 delegates separate Hillary from Senator Obama -- and that's not counting Florida and Michigan. The difference in popular vote is less than 1 percent, and millions of voters have yet to make their voices heard. This election should be about their choice. But now we're hearing...

Howard Dean, Democratic National Committee chairman. WASHINGTON — The turmoil in the Democratic presidential race has presented a sharp test of Howard Dean’s low-profile approach to leading the Democratic National Committee, bringing calls from many Democrats for him to take a more aggressive role in defusing the threat of a protracted and divisive nominating fight.

The McCain campaign’s first general election ad, released Friday, includes moving footage of him as a prisoner of war. What was Democratic Chairman Howard Dean’s reaction? “While we honor McCain’s military service, the fact is Americans want a real leader who offers real solutions, not a blatant opportunist who doesn’t understand the economy and is promising to keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years.” Most Americans want to be told we can leave Iraq sooner rather than later. McCain has chosen instead to tell Americans the hard and unpopular truths that we’ll be there for a while, and that...

In her most definitive comments to date on the subject, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton sought Saturday to put to rest any notion that she will drop out of the presidential race, pledging in an interview to not only compete in all the remaining primaries but also continue until there is a resolution of the disqualified results in Florida and Michigan. A day after Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean urged the candidates to end the race by July 1, Clinton defied that call by declaring that she will take her campaign all the way to the Aug. 25-28 convention if...

MIAMI -- A donor to the Democratic Party asked for a rebate out of frustration over the party's Florida delegate dilemma -- and he got it. Federal records show that Paul Cejas has given six-figure sums to the Democratic National Committee for years, NBC 6's Nick Bogert reported. Cejas asked for his last donation back. He said he was angry with the party, particularly party Chair Howard Dean, over the failure to resolve Florida's delegate dilemma. "Frankly, he's dropped the ball, and I told him, 'You're going to go down in history as the worst chairman of the Democratic Party...

BREAKING: Dean wants closure by July 1 A potential game-changer from CBS News and "The Early Show." Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean says he wants superdelegates to make a decision by JULY 1 -- the most specific he has been in his effort to prod the party to decide between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton before the Democratic National Convention in late August. Harry Smith asked if after the nominating contests end with the South Dakota and Montana primaries on June 3, "Do you want the superdelegates to have some sort of vote immediately so that you'll know months...

SUMMARY: He says: "Who in their right mind, if they were African-American or Hispanic or Asian-American, if they were gay or lesbian, would join the Republican Party?" Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean came under attack for speaking out against conservative gay men and lesbians as well as Republicans of color. "They can't become more diverse," Dean said Tuesday at a speech at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Who in their right mind, if they were African-American or Hispanic or Asian-American, if they were gay or lesbian, would join the Republican Party?" The Log Cabin Republicans issued a statement Wednesday against...

When Democrats contemplate the apocalypse these days, they have visions of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton slugging it out à la Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter at the 1980 convention. The campaign's current trajectory is, in fact, alarmingly similar to the one that produced that disastrous affair. Back then, Carter had built up a delegate lead with early wins in Iowa, New Hampshire, and several Southern states. But, as the primary season dragged on, Kennedy began pocketing big states and gaining momentum. Once all the voting ended and Kennedy came up short, he eyed the New York convention as a...

In Denver. Denver is not equipped to handle any convention scenario other than a coronation, and certainly not the most (potentially) contentious national convention in 40 years. It is important to point out that the state of Colorado, and the city of Denver, is currently nearly completely controlled by Democrats at every level of government. This puts these locals in a box, politically and from a law enforcement standpoint. This sets up a scenario similar to Seattle 1999 WTO debacle. I happened to be living in downtown Seattle during that awful experience, and what stands out is that the city...

I say “unfortunately” because, not being an Obama supporter, I have been enjoying the chaos as the Democrats try to choose a candidate, and neither candidate can put together a majority of delegates, and as the Florida and Michigan primary fiascos grow worse and worse, while the two candidates slime each other. In a year that has looked like a Democratic lock on the presidency, I am sure that Howard Dean and the rest of the Democratic Leadership Council are working the phones feverishly trying to set up a scenario involving super-delegates and even pledged delegates wherein either Clinton or...

Despite their apostasy in holding early primaries in defiance of the powers that be in the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Michigan and Florida both deserve to have do-over primaries. It is ludicrous to suggest that their current delegations should be seated and equally inappropriate to disenfranchise the nation's fourth- and eighth-largest states. The obvious and only fair solution is to hold do-over primaries. In Michigan, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's name did not even appear on the primary ballot. He obeyed the national rules and pulled out of the contests, while N.Y. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton chose to keep her name...

With Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's decision to stay in the Democratic race to the bitter end, she has signaled a delegate fight all the way to the party's convention in Denver this August. Both candidates appear in something of a stalemate. Political strategists have concluded that Clinton cannot overcome Sen. Barack Obama's pledged delegate lead by winning additional primaries. And despite his lead in electoral and delegate wins, Obama cannot seal his nomination without the support of the party's superdelegates. Clinton's decision, after winning in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island this week that she would not capitulate has opened up...

This is getting entertaining. . . With Hillary firmly in the race after her Texas and Ohio victories, the Dems are setting about forming that circular firing squad for which they're famous. Evidence comes from this morning's Today show. First, goodbye Obambi, hello Rambo-ama. Then, DNC Chairman Howard Dean on the hot seat, snapping at David Gregory, calling his suggestion that a nominee decided by party elites would appear undemocratic "complete nonsense." View video.

Howard Dean & The 1850s: Convenient Racial Revisionism by Dr. Brian Melton “The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates Howard Dean has recently demonstrated conclusively that historical ignorance doesn’t stop with teenage mall-rats and muscle-bound jocks. In fact, it runs all the way up into the very heart of the DNC. The good doctor (who hopefully knows more about his profession than he does about history) has made the claim that the Republican Party “looks like the 1950s and talks like the 1850s.” The 1950s aside, Dean, of course, is attempting to smear the Republicans as a party...

Howard Dean showed up to talk about Black History Month but the focus quickly changed to politics Tuesday night in ICC Auditorium. The Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and former Governor of Vermont contrasted the two parties’ presidential candidates, saying that with a woman and an African-American as the two front-runners, the Democratic field “looks like America,” while the all-white male Republican field “looks like the 1950s and talks like the 1850s.” “The younger generation sees itself as a multicultural generation,” Dean said. “People under 35 think of themselves differently, and feel integrated [in society].”

** EXCERPT ** (CNN) -- Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean accused Republican presidential front-runner John McCain of trying to skirt campaign finance laws Sunday by trying to opt out of public financing for his primary campaign. Dean told reporters McCain has already used the prospect of nearly $6 million in federal matching funds -- which he now says he won't claim -- as collateral for a January campaign loan and to obtain automatic ballot access in every state. Dean said he was filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission to block McCain from quitting the public financing system, which...

The scene at the November 15, 2007 Democratic debate in Las Vegas was thick with the usual suspects--the candidates, the flacks, Wolf Blitzer, Dennis Kucinich's Amazonian wife. But there was someone who seemed out of place, a ghost of campaigns past: Howard Dean. The 2004 presidential candidate turned Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman had been strangely absent all fall, not just a ghost of an earlier campaign but seemingly the ghost of his former self. Among campaign junkies, suddenly glimpsing him up on stage shaking hands with John Edwards "set off a flurry of commentary," remembers one Democratic strategist close...

Once upon a time, it was party bosses in smoke-filled rooms who decided who would run for president. Then came the primary system and the novel concept of letting voters make the choice. But if you're a party boss, the problem with democracy is that the voters don't always do what you want them to do. That is why the Democrats created the superdelegate, who can leap over the will of the voters at a single bound, is faster than an exit poll and is more powerful than a thousand pundits. Here's the history behind it: the last time the...

People worldwide -- and indeed, most Americans -- are under the impression that whichever party candidate has the most delegates at the end of the primary elections is assured the party nomination for president. And who can blame them? In a typical year, one candidate will emerge from the primary campaign with a majority of the delegates, and he will have the nomination secured. But this year's race is unprecedented; a woman and black man, running neck to neck against each other to try and reach the magic number of 2025 delegates to lock the nomination. There are 4,049 total...

the Hallmark Channel. ...offered a naked preview of how nastily the Clintons will fight, whatever the collateral damage to the Democratic Party, in the endgame to come. The campaign’s other most potent form of currency remains its thick deck of race cards. But in the entire televised hour, there was not a single African-American questioner. This decision was a cold, political cost-benefit calculus. Bill Clinton and the campaign’s other surrogates stopped caring about what African-Americans thought. In an effort to scare off white voters, Mr. Obama was ghettoized as a cocaine user, “the black candidate” . The result? Black America...

I just finished reading Howard Dean's latest fundraising appeal, and it looks like the Democrats will have trouble against John McCain in the fall. Why? Dean's letter attempts to portray a McCain presidency as a third term for George W. Bush. But it doesn't hold up. Dean actually writes that McCain "looked the other way as Jack Abramoff bought and paid for the Republican Party and the Culture of Corruption." Um, I wrote an entire book in which McCain was one of the few Republican heroes in the Abramoff affair. Besides which, whether you agree with the Bipartisan Campaign Finance...

This is a continuation of yesterday's DUmmie FUnnies EDITION in which the Daily Kos KOmmies are in an uproar over Hillary trying to change the campaign rules by allowing the Michigan and Florida delegates which were stripped by the DNC to be allowed to vote at the convention this summer. You can see this outrage in this KOmmie THREAD from yesterday titled, "Hillary Clinton to Howard Dean: Screw you." I am doing this special second part DUFU for two reasons. One is because this KOmmie thread was so long it was almost impossible to cover all the responses in...

I saw this one coming from way back as soon as I heard that the DNC had stripped Michigan and Florida of their delegates for moving their primaries up. I just KNEW that even though Howard Dean refused to seat delegates from those two states that Hillary would try to grab those delegates if it would help her. Well, it has happened. Yesterday morning, a statement was posted on Hillary's WEBSITE demanding that those delegates be seated. Gee, do you think Hillary would have made this demand if it would have helped Barack Obama? Of course not. However, Hillary...

Keystone state may be vital to candidates By David M. Brown TRIBUNE-REVIEW Monday, January 21, 2008 Staff writer Salena Zito contributed to this story. Pennsylvania's April 22 presidential primary, usually written off as meaningless, could mean everything this year. If no clear front-runners emerge in either party after Super Tuesday on Feb. 5 and another flurry of primaries through March, the Pennsylvania primary would become a key battleground. It's the only primary in April and the last big prize before the Democratic and Republican conventions.

It seemed like something was missing from Friday's crazed photo of Howard Dean. Then I noticed he wasn't in the proper make-up. BEFORE: AFTER:

When it comes to fund-raising, Democrats have outpaced Republicans almost across the board. The lone exception is the Republican National Committee, which reported yesterday that it had raised $83 million for the year, easily topping the Democratic National Committee, which had raised $50.5 million in the first 11 months of 2007. Republicans say that this cash pile — the Republican committee has $17.2 million on hand, compared to the $2.8 million the Democratic committee reported — should help the Republican presidential nominee in the fall. “Our significant fund-raising advantage over the D.N.C.,” said Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican...

Greencastle, Ind. - "Four years ago in this cycle there was a front-runner and his name was Howard Dean," recalls Jeri Kehn Thompson, in an interview with Kentucky's Lexington Herald-Leader. "John Kerry was running about eighth. You can ask President Dean how things went in Iowa." Thompson, a 1988 graduate of DePauw University, is the wife of Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson, who is currently running third among GOP candidates in an Iowa poll. She was in Louisville campaigning for her husband yesterday. The article notes that Jeri Thompson returned home to Washington immediately following her Kentucky stop so she...

Dean: Americans Don't Want Another Bush Term December 12, 2007 Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean issued the following statement following the Republican Des Moines Register/Iowa Public Television debate today: "Every single one of the Republican candidates on the stage today had the same message: four more years of Bush/Cheney policies. What the Republicans fail to realize with their rhetoric is that the American people don't want a third Bush term, they want a new direction for our country. Tomorrow on the stage that's exactly what Iowans and the rest of America will see in the Democratic candidates, the kind...