Dems Want to Dump Dean

Dr. Dean is rubbing some Democrats the wrong way.

USA Today reports that there is growing concern among the Dems. Dr. Dean is being criticized for performing so poorly in his first 100 days as chairman of the DNC.

Check out the differences in style and strategy of the party chairmen.

Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, is courting black and Hispanic voters on a regular basis. Beyond the usual run of speeches, fundraisers and meetings with donors, he has visited Latino neighborhoods and historically black campuses. He has attended black-oriented receptions and ceremonies, spoken to minority chambers of commerce and raised money for Otto Banks of Harrisburg, Pa., a black city council candidate new to the GOP.

Dean, who reaches Day 100 as Democratic National Committee chairman Monday, is for the most part speaking to diehard Democrats who are the backbone of their party. He's addressed Democrats in nine states dominated by Republicans, such as Kansas and Mississippi, and in party strongholds such as California and Massachusetts. He's spoken to labor unions, gay-rights groups and state party chairs — all pillars of the party.

Some Democrats are frustrated by the contrast between the two approaches, even as they praise Dean's efforts to revitalize flagging state parties. "Democrats should be stirring things up, roiling the waters on (the GOP) side the way Mehlman is on ours. He's playing in our sandbox," says Steve Rosenthal, CEO of America Coming Together, a group formed to energize and turn out Democratic voters.

Will Marshall, president of the centrist Progressive Policy Institute, agrees that Democrats need to "go raiding behind Republican lines."

...Rosenthal, Marshall and others say Democrats — led by Dean — should be reaching out to groups and areas where Republicans have done well: military families, Catholics, evangelical Christians, business leaders, people who live in the "exurbs" beyond even outer suburbs, and people who live in small, "micropolitan" cities. They also say Democrats should focus on black and Latino voters, even though majorities of both voted for Democrat John Kerry for president last year.

More than three months into his tenure, Dean has yet to name a political director, typically the person who stays in contact with state parties and decides where money should go...He's kept his profile relatively low so far but is set to break out Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press.

I have to disagree with the stance that Dean has kept a low profile so far. Every other day he says something hateful and untruthful or both about the President and Republicans. If it appears that he's staying out of sight, it's because the MSM has buried his lunacy.

In speeches covered locally, he has called Republicans "corrupt," "brain-dead" and "mean." "They are not nice people," he said last month in a radio interview on Air America Minnesota, according to the political newsletter Hotline. Last weekend he said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, whose associates are under investigation but who has not been charged with anything, should go home to Houston to "serve his jail sentence" at Texas expense.

At the same time, Dean tells Democrats they need to "respect people in all 50 states" and try to win them over. "We need to talk to people from our hearts," he told California Democrats. He said Democrats should "say what our values are" and "inform Americans about what we believe instead of letting the other party do it."

Dean cries about the need to respect people, while he degrades them. Each time he opens his mouth he pounds another nail in the Dems' coffin.

Meet the Press promises to be interesting this weekend.

Will Tim Russert grill him or will he serve as an accomplice in the Dr. Dean reinvention effort? Russert can be tough, but he can also be a wuss.

I have a feeling that Tim WUSSert will be interviewing Dean on Sunday.