Spinning the Democratic Party

For the third day this week, there is a Washington Post story about Democratic Party politics. And, like everything else the Post writes about Democrats, it leaves the impression that the party couldn't organize a walk around the block.

Sunday, March 5: Democratic Leaders Question Whether Dean's Right on the Money (Pg. A4)
Tuesday, March 7: Democrats Struggle to Seize Opportunity (Pg. 1)
Wednesday, March 8: Democrats' Data Mining Stirs an Intraparty Battle (Pg. 1)

Today’s front-page story is about a new data mining operation that is being launched:

A group of well-connected Democrats led by a former top aide to Bill Clinton is raising millions of dollars to start a private firm that plans to compile huge amounts of data on Americans to identify Democratic voters and blunt what has been a clear Republican lead in using technology for political advantage.

The new venture is called Data Warehouse and working with Ickes is Laura Quinn, who worked on the voter file program under Terry McAuliffe until Howard became chairman and brought his own people on board, including Blue State Digital. Blue State Digital is now under contract to the DNC and includes DFA alumni Joe Rospars and Laura Gross.

According to the Post, the DNC and Data Warehouse "will separately try to build vast and detailed voter lists -- each effort requiring sophisticated expertise and costing well over $10 million." Ickes says Data Warehouse will at first seek to sell its targeting information to politically active unions and liberal interest groups, rather than campaigns.

More:

The effort by Harold Ickes, a deputy chief of staff in the Clinton White House and an adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), is prompting intense behind-the-scenes debate in Democratic circles. Officials at the Democratic National Committee think that creating a modern database is their job, and they say that a competing for-profit entity could divert energy and money that should instead be invested with the national party.

Ickes and others involved in the effort acknowledge that their activities are in part a vote of no confidence that the DNC under Chairman Howard Dean is ready to compete with Republicans on the technological front. "The Republicans have developed a cadre of people who appreciate databases and know how to use them, and we are way behind the march," said Ickes, whose political technology venture is being backed by financier George Soros.

"It's unclear what the DNC is doing. Is it going to be kept up to date?" Ickes asked, adding that out-of-date voter information is "worse than having no database at all."

Right away I smell a rat. Unnamed advisors to Hillary Clinton claim she is concerned "that Democrats and liberals lack the political infrastructure of Republicans and their conservative allies."

In the print edition, I noticed that just before the reader has to jump to the rest of the story inside the paper, you see the sentence where Ickes and others acknowledge that their activities are in part a vote of no confidence in Howard. Even if the reader never finishes the story inside the paper, the narrative has been defined.

And the narrative of today's story is that the Clintons are aiming for Howard Dean. If you read the story, here is what you get out of it: Republicans lead in technology, Democrats can't compete, Democrats are out of date, the Republicans can tailor their GOTV messages, Democrats can't work together.

In his evaluation of Larry Summers' forced resignation as president of Harvard, Eric Alterman says, "The power of the consensus narrative in journalism is all but impermeable to reason or evidence. The right understands this and the left does not. That’s why the right worries little about nuance or getting the details straight; it’s the story that matters. Once you’ve defined the story, journalists struggle to make the facts fit the narrative rather than vice-versa."

The consensus narrative today is that Howard has risen to his level of incompetence that forward-thinking Democrats need to act independently of the DNC. This is strange because Laura Quinn worked on the database now described as having so many technical problems that it wasn't useful for state and local GOTV operations--and the purported reason why Ickes is launching Data Warehouse.

There are several storylines I see being defined that will acquire the veneer of conventional wisdom:

1) Hillary is making a run for the 2008 nomination and because Ickes is developing this new database independent of the DNC, Democrats are hopelessly unable to coalesce.

1a) The Clintons have it in for Howard Dean (hey, I remember HRC’s sour puss when Howard took the stage at the convention. I thoroughly enjoyed that moment.)

2) If voters need more evidence that Howard Dean is doing a poor job as DNC Chairman, not only is the DNC lagging in fundraising, gerbils power their computer system and voter files are on punch cards (ok, I exaggerate a bit but you get the point).

3) The Democrats can’t capitalize on GOP corruption because they have no alternatives to offer voters. And Howard Dean is doing a poor job as DNC chairman.

4) Here's one I didn't consider as I read the story this morning: Base vs Elite, small donors vs large business donors.

This is what the media will use in between now and 2008. And the midterm election coverage is just for practice. Wait until the presidential cycle cranks up. Then you’ll see some consensus journalism that will likely exceed the "Howard Dean is an angry unelectable liberal" theme of 2004.

Postscript--Matt Stoller has a post up at MyDD.com, Dean versus Ickes. Stoller says this is a real political fight that he has known about for months, all off the record.

Update--Scott Shields has his own take on the matter at MyDD.com. Shields thinks it's another case of the Post massively overstating bad news about Democrats and that while the conflict is real, he doesn't necessarily think it's a bad thing:

The fact that these are parallel efforts could serve two important functions. One is to force both entities to bring their A game and try to top the other. And data from both can theoretically be utilized and cross-referenced to produce a more refined product. While the existence of two competing efforts may cause some maniacal giggling among those at the Post, I fail to see how it's a net negative in and of itself. Once again, we're a party full of grown-ups -- unlike the weak Republicans, we can handle some internal competition.

...

Recognizing that many will disagree, the takeaway message for me is that Democrats are working fast and furious to fix something that's widely viewed as being in need of repair.