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Peter Rosenstein calls on Dean to resign from DNC
He wrote an OpEd in the Washington Blade calling for Dean's ouster because of his (according to Rosenstein purposeful) misstatements. Now, to be fair, I'm none to pleased with Dean's latest "missteps" regarding our community, but I'm holding out passing any sort of judgement until I hear what he has to say at the NSD conference.
Also, it is important to note that Rosenstein is a Beltway insider consultant and no doubt fairly wealthy. This calls his motivation into question because those beltway folks HATE Dean. Look, the guy puts his foot in his mouth and is trying to get the Democratic message out there. However, he's been doing an amazing job as DNC Chair by building up and funding the state parties. Rosenstein doesn't discuss that, instead he admits:
I long ago stopped contributing to the DNC, way back when I worried some of my money might go the re-election of Sam Nunn, the former senator from Georgia who came up with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
So here's a guy who stopped giving to the DNC in 1996. A good 7 years before Dean was even on the national map.
Rosenstein also bluntly states:
I was not a Howard Dean supporter in the presidential primaries and didn’t support his candidacy for party chair either. I’ve always been suspicious of his pandering to gay voters when he thought he needed us. It is clear now that he thinks we are a burden on the Democratic Party, and he is moving away from us as fast as he thinks he can get away with it.
He was never a fan of Dean or the DNC and now he's trying to sway the glbt community with a pretty extreme accusation. I think Dean thinking that we are a burden on the Dem party is waaay off base. To my knowledge, the DNC has never been more involved with National Stonewall - and we have Dean to thank. Yes, Dean eliminated the identity group chairs for the American Majority Partnership, but he did that to all identity groups - blacks, latinos, etc - not just ours. I actually think that's a step in the right direction. It's about working together, not splitting apart into "where's my piece" groups. Read Jerome and Kos' book, "Crashing the Gate," to get insight into what I'm talking about regarding special interests.
Furthermore, Rosenstein's summation of Dean:
To do so is wrong strategically and a betrayal of the party’s ideals. People don’t want wishy-washy statements — they want clear position statements from their politicians and their parties. That is what wins supporters and elections.So Howard Dean must go.
"Doing so" is in reference to this:
It is clear now that he thinks we are a burden on the Democratic Party, and he is moving away from us as fast as he thinks he can get away with it.
According to Rosenstein's logic he should be calling for most elected Democrats to resign. Very few Dems elected to national office are in favor of marriage equality. That's slowly changing as progressives take over, but that process takes time. No, he limits it to just Howard Dean. A man he admits he never supported and reveals he doesn't like who's in charge of an organization he doesn't want anything to do with.
Like I said... highly suspect.
Comments
cool site
Posted by: Helga at September 7, 2006 08:31 PM
