On the Third Hand...
I commented earlier that Howard Dean was probably not a bad candidate for head of the DNC. However, one of the requirements of a party chair is to decide how to allocate scarce resources to races that his party has a chance to win, and Dean does not look like he did a good job of that. Here's the
first "Dean Dozen" a set of candidates that Dean's organization, Democracy for America, endorsed, and how they did:
Mary Ann Andreas for State Assembly, CA: Lost 42-58
Ken Campbell for State House, SC: Lost
Mary Chapelle for State House, MO: Won (Unopposed)
Scott Clark, Mark Manoil & Nina Trasoff for the Arizona Corporation Commission: All lost
Kim Hynes for State Representative, CT: Lost
Richard Morrison for US House of Representatives, TX: Lost
Barack Obama for US Senate, IL: Won
Rob MacKenna for Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections: Lost
Monica Palacios-Boyce for Massachusetts State Representative: Lost
Lori SaldaƱa for State Assembly, CA: Won
Jeff Smith for US House of Representatives, MO: Lost (in Democratic Primary)
Donna Red Wing for State House, CO: Lost
Three for twelve, and one of the winners ran unopposed, so it's really two for eleven, and one of those (Obama) really ran effectively unopposed. That's a pretty pathetic record. This is just the first Dean Dozen; the website claims they were going to put forward another dozen every two weeks. I don't have time to go through them all, but it looks like Dean's not a very good horserace handicapper.