Andrew Golis

The more I read about the Democratic party, the more that I’m realizing that I was wrong about all this introspection and reflection being a waste of time. We’re really screwed up. My vote? Tear this mother down and start anew. (Dean would have a fun time doing this at the DNC)

My current frustration is a result of this *ahem* enlightening piece about consultants in the Democratic party. Basically, it points out that we continue to hire consultants who continue to lose. Worse than that, the same guy who controls which candidates the party gives money too also essentially tells them that they have to hire his consultant firm of he won’t give them as much. Hmmm, seems like a bad idea.

I would observe that there is also a problem with the culture of the party in staffer hirings. Having spent at summer at Democratic HQ is DC, I can attest to the fact that the group of people running our party is a decidedly mixed bag. I don’t know the consultants, of course, but you can tell what culture exists in the lower and middle ranks. Some, and luckily most of the people I worked with in field at the DNC and at Democratic GAIN, are hard-working, smart and selfless people who truly want to help people. But there is a minority of people, both in the general party structure and specifically at the DNC, who are kind of pseudo-politico tag-a-longs. It’s not that they don’t care, they do in some way. But they enjoy the status, the game, the “insiderness” of it all more than anything. What’s worse, in a system with such a high turnover at the bottom (interns, young staffers, etc.) the people who get promoted are often just the people who stick around. Sometimes, they stick around because they care. Sometimes they stick around because they don’t really care and have nothing else to do.

Essentially, and similar to the problem with the top consultants, a vacuum of talent is filled by whoever has the right connections or experience to do so. Sometimes, the people are hard working and smart, sometimes not so much.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 11th, 2005 at 1:32 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.