Here’s a great takedown of that pariah thankfully no longer running the the DNC. I’m told this is the “polite” version; I’m sure if I were to research Terry in-depth I’d have some strong stuff to say. There is much to explain what the problem is in party in this piece, here’s a quote I liked particularly:

By his own account, his friends are always selfless, whether it’s Dick Gephardt driving four hours to pick out just the right puppy for the McAuliffe kids or a strip-mall builder doing a financial favor for the Democrats (“Terry, we’ve got to do this for the sake of the party”). By his own account, too, McAuliffe is always a hero: he saves the Democratic Party (several times); he even saves a small, struggling independent bank (it’s a wonderful life). But in real life there’s always a cost, and the political effects of McAuliffe’s rehabilitation of the Democrats among the wealthy may be nugatory.

Shortly after the disappointing 2004 elections, he’s talking strategy “with the president and Hillary.” All agreed the Republicans won because “they inflamed their strong supporters with emotional talk of abortion and gay marriage.” But this is simply not true as an analysis of that campaign. Bush’s performance among heavy churchgoers was no different in 2000 and 2004. The extra margin that gave him a popular majority, his first, consisted of voters who made more than $100,000 a year. Those voters made up 15 percent of the electorate in 2000, and 54 percent of them voted for Bush; in 2004, at 18 percent of the electorate, 58 percent of them supported Bush. Rich people may have given more than they ever had to the Democrats, but they didn’t vote more for Democrats; they voted less. And the money they kicked in, whatever else it did, wasn’t successful in disseminating a message convincing enough to people making under $100,000 to make up the gap.

“People ask me all the time what the trick to fund-raising is. They always want to hear that there is some secret. But it’s simple enough, and I’ll spell it out in black and white: As a fund-raiser you’re selling belief. You’re selling vision. You’re selling hope. You’re selling dreams.” The question is: what dreams, and whose? You won’t find that difficult discussion here. But did you know that Kirk Douglas is “just like he is in all his movies”?

SSSSSSSssssnnnnaaaappp!

I will always be angry at Terry and his ilk for blowing it in 2004. I’m going to tone down the anger, because today is Write Like a Serious Blogger day, but let me say this: I count Terry as one of those with a great deal of blood on his hands. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead, in large part because people like Terry think it’s more important to suck up to the rich than it is to lead and do the right thing. I can’t wait until the last of his kind are flushed from positions of power in the party, even as I know that’s probably “a dream.”