Again...Heidi Li is Smart Lady

If Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Donna Brazile, and Harry Reid were genuinely committed to the Democratic Party and its future...

If they were, they would resign their various leadership positions effective immediately. This team has not only brought the Democratic Party an unpromising candidate for victory in the upcoming Presidential election but they did it in a fashion that has millions of heretofore dedicated Democrats determined to vote Republican, thousands who have reregistered as Independents, and many others hungry to start a third party movement. Successful leadership this is not.

Even if the Democratic candidate for President this year manages to pull off a victory, which I still believe unlikely, that will not alter the fact that the Democratic Party leadership has failed miserably in doing what political party leaders are supposed to do. Party leaders are supposed to ensure the viability and well being of the party as an institution. They are not supposed to become surrogates for a particular candidate during the primary season; they are not supposed to choose a nominee for the Party; they are not supposed to assume that everybody will remain committed to a organization when its leadership acts in bad faith. Regardless of whether their preferred candidate wins or loses in the general election, Dr. Dean, Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid, and Ms. Brazile will still have alienated millions of Democrats who now doubt, with good reason, the integrity and credibility of the Democratic Party.

As Senator Obama's campaign seems ever more likely to fail (think of the McGovern debacle) or to yield the sort of narrow victory that does not bode well for a fledgling administration (think of the Tilden-Taft debacle), true party leaders would be thinking how to salvage the institution in light of the likelihood of these outcomes. The answer is obvious: a reformation. A complete and total housecleaning of the people who have so alienated so many heretofore quite committed Democrats.

Since a new Democratic Party must be inaugurated if there is to be a healthy Democratic Party in the foreseeable future, it would help immeasurably if the current leadership simply bowed graciously and left the scene. Otherwise Democrats will spend years fending off third party movements and/or the complete dominance of the Republican Party over the country.

To be continued...