A changed strategy preceded a changed electoral landscape

WASHINGTON - Nobody is crediting Howard Dean with Barack Obama's historic victory Tuesday night - certainly not Howard Dean.

But a day after Obama remade the electoral map with wins in previously deep-red states like Virginia and Indiana, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee said he does believe Obama's campaign has shown the value of his much-maligned 50-state strategy, especially when the right candidate comes along.

"I think what it says is if you go to states like North Carolina and Nevada and Virginia and Colorado, you can win; but you've got to go," Dean said yesterday. Dean said the party's investments in red states over the last few years could not on their own turn red states blue, but they helped lay the groundwork for Obama's ground effort in the states where he competed.

"My favorite saying is, chance favors the prepared mind," Dean said. "Who knew we were going to get a candidate with such incredible appeal and organization?"

When he first became chairman, a few months after John Kerry's 2004 defeat, Dean said the party could not win by fighting the same battle in the same old states. Convinced the party needed a viable operation nationwide, not just in the blue and purple states, he spent millions to hire three to five new staff members in all 50 states to handle fund-raising, communications and organizing. He also invested in technology, building a simpler and streamlined national voter file, and expanded the party's fund-raising base.

The state party chairs loved it, but some leading Democrats thought it was a waste, particularly those in charge of the party's Congressional and senatorial campaign committees, whose job it is to send every available dollar to help Democrats in swing states win. Democratic strategist Paul Begala scoffed that, with limited resources available to help candidates in swing states, the party did not need to hire people "to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose."

But Obama also sought to broaden the battlefield; he expanded his campaign to a number of carefully chosen red states like Indiana and Virginia, which had not picked a Democrat for president since 1964, spending millions of dollars on advertising and paid staff.

Yesterday Joe Trippi, who managed Dean's 2004 presidential campaign, said that the combination of Dean's and Obama's work helped the Democrats seize opportunities presented by President Bush's enormous unpopularity. "The mistake now would be to stop and retreat," he said.

Of course, he noted, there will always be disagreements about how to allot money. Would a bit more cash have helped carry US Senate candidate Al Franken, who may have lost narrowly in Minnesota, over the finish line?

Not everyone sees the election as a vindication of Dean's strategy, however. Republican strategist Whit Ayres said Obama's victory had nothing to do with a handful of staffers Dean sprinkled around the country. He said many of the margins in states Obama did not win were as large or larger than they were in 2004, suggesting that it was Obama's "targeted red-state strategy," not a 50-state strategy, that made the difference, in a year when the political environment for Republicans could not have been worse.

"Where Barack Obama decided to spend money and put a team on the ground and make a major push, he made inroads," Ayres said. "When you've got $750 million to spend, you can cherry pick a few red states to make a charge. And they did, and it was smart."

In Mississippi, Democrats hoped that they could win a tough US Senate race seat and perhaps that Obama could even win the state. That didn't happen. But John Bruce, a political science professor at the University of Mississippi, noted Democrats increased their vote tallies in most of the state's counties this year, a trend seen nationwide.

Dean said he did not know whether he would stay as Democratic Party chairman, but he said he is certain Obama would continue to invest in the party from the ground up nationwide.

"He totally gets this party-building stuff," Dean said.