Dean: DNC is 'piggy bank' for Dems
Posted: Friday, April 11, 2008 3:52 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Democrats
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
CNBC’s/NYT’s John Harwood writes, "DNC Chairman Howard Dean is under fire from critics who say he hasn't raised enough campaign cash, isn't doing enough to resolve the Obama-Hillary Clinton nomination fight, and is committed to a 50-state strategy that has dissipated resources in states so red that Democrats can't carry them in presidential races anytime soon."
Dean spoke with Harwood from his DNC headquarters office and talked about the issues, facing DNC, including the criticism that the it hasn’t raised more money than the RNC, but the DCCC and the DSCC have. (Watch the interview here.)
“I don’t think that’s a valid criticism. We’ve actually outraised the previous DNC by about 20 percent every single year. But we have an infrastructure. The other committees -- the DCCC, the DSCC -- benefit from our infrastructure. They don’t have to maintain any infrastructure other than the Washington folks they have. We have 170 people out in the states. We have voter files that we maintain. Those help our senators and our congressmen too. We went out and borrowed $5 million for Jim Webb’s campaign last time.
“So we’re sort of the piggy bank for the other two campaigns. I think it’s good they have a lot of cash on hand, but we did not have the kind of infrastructure you have to have to run a presidential campaign when I took over. We do have that now, and I think when we do have a nominee, we’ll be able to raise money hand over fist. I thought it was much more important to have a strong infrastructure -- if I had to make a choice -- than a big wad of cash, because, at the end of the day, without the infrastructure you can’t win the presidency.”
