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Democratic National Committee
- Nov 02, 2008 Fake flier gives Virginia Democrats wrong election day
- Oct 31, 2008 Florida Democrats don't buy the RNC answer on voter-caging concerns
- Oct 26, 2008 Montana GOP accused of vote caging plan
- Oct 21, 2008 NC Dems guard against GOP voter intimidation
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support of Democratic Party candidates, and not on public policy. The DNC was established at the 1848 Democratic National Convention.[1]
The Democratic National Committee provides national leadership for the Democratic Party of the United States. It is responsible for promoting the Democratic political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy.
Its main counterpart is the Republican National Committee.
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Campaign role
The DNC is responsible for articulating and promoting the Democratic platform and coordinating party organizational activity. When the President is a Democrat, the party generally works closely with the President. In presidential elections it supervises the national convention and, both independently and in coordination with the presidential candidate, raises funds, commissions polls, and coordinates campaign strategy. Following the selection of a party nominee, the public funding laws permit the national party to coordinate certain expenditures with the nominee, but additional funds are spent on general, party-building activities.[2] There are state committees in every state, as well as local committees in most cities, wards, and towns (and, in most states, counties).
The chairperson of the DNC (currently Howard Dean) is elected by vote of members of the Democratic National Committee. The DNC is composed of the chairs and vice-chairs of each state Democratic Party Committee, two hundred members apportioned among the states based on population and generally elected either on the ballot by primary voters or by the State Democratic Party Committee, a number of elected officials serving in an ex-officio capacity, and a variety of representatives of major Democratic Party constituencies.
Dean ran against numerous candidates to win his position in early 2005. Rather than focusing just on close "swing states," Dean proposed the "50 State Strategy."His goal is for the Democratic Party to be committed to winning elections at every level in every region of the country, with Democrats organized in every single voting precinct in the country.[3]
The DNC establishes rules for the caucuses and United States presidential primary|primaries which choose delegates to the Democratic National Convention, but the caucuses and primaries themselves are most often run not by the DNC but instead by each state. All DNC members are superdelegates and can influence a close Presidential race. Outside of the process of nominating a Presidential candidate, the DNC's role in actually selecting candidates to run on the Democratic Party ticket is minimal.
The chairperson is a superdelegate for life.
Current DNC leadership
- National Chair: Howard Dean, former Governor of Vermont
- Vice Chairs:
- Mike Honda, United States House of Representatives|U.S. Representative]] from California
- Linda Chavez-Thompson, former Executive Vice President of the AFL-CIO
- Susan Turnbull, Maryland Democratic Party
- Lottie Shackelford, former Mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas
- Mark Brewer (Michigan Democrat)|Mark Brewer, Michigan Democratic Party Chair and President of the Association of State Democratic Chairs
- Treasurer: Andrew Tobias, businessman, author, and financial self-help guru
- Secretary: Alice Travis Germond
The National Advisory Board exists for purposes of fundrasing and advising the executive. The present chair is Elizabeth Frawley Bagley, former U.S. Ambassador to Portugal.
DNC National Chairpersons
|
Chairperson |
Term |
State[4] |
|---|---|---|
| Benjamin F. Hallett | (1848-1852) | Massachusetts |
| Robert Milligan McLane | (1852-1856) | Maryland |
| David Allen Smalley | (1856-1860) | Vermont |
| August Belmont | (1860-1872) | New York |
| Augustus Schell | (1872-1876) | New York |
| Abram Stevens Hewitt | (1876-1877) | New York |
| William H. Barnum | (1877-1889) | Connecticut |
| Calvin Stewart Brice | (1889-1892) | Ohio |
| William F. Harrity | (1892-1896) | Pennsylvania |
| James K. Jones | (1896-1904) | Arkansas |
| Thomas Taggart | (1904-1908) | Indiana |
| Norman E. Mack | (1908-1912) | New York |
| William F. McCombs | (1912-1914) | New York |
| Homer S. Cummings | (1914-1916) | Connecticut |
| Vance C. McCormick | (1916-1919) | Pennsylvania |
| George White | (1920-1921) | Ohio |
| Cordell Hull | (1921-1924) | Tennessee |
| Clem L. Shaver | (1924-1928) | West Virginia |
| John J. Raskob | (1928-1932) | New York |
| James A. Farley | (1932-1940) | New York |
| Edward J. Flynn | (1940-1943) | New York |
| Frank C. Walker | (1943-1944) | Pennsylvania |
| Robert E. Hannegan | (1944-1947) | Missouri |
| J. Howard McGrath | (1947-1949) | Rhode Island |
| William H. Boyle, Jr. | (1949-1951) | Missouri |
| Frank E. McKinney | (1951-1952) | Indiana |
| Stephen Mitchell | (1952-1955) | Illinois |
| Paul M. Butler | (1955-1960) | Indiana |
| Henry M. Jackson | (1960-1961) | Washington |
| John Moran Bailey | (1961-1968) | Connecticut |
| Lawrence F. O'Brien | (1968-1969) | Massachusetts |
| Fred R. Harris | (1969-1970) | Oklahoma |
| Lawrence F. O'Brien | (1970-1972) | Massachusetts |
| Jean Westwood | (1972) | Utah |
| Robert S. Strauss | (1972-1977) | Texas |
| Kenneth M. Curtis]] | (1977-1978) | Maine (now in Florida)[5] |
| John C. White | (1978-1981) | Texas |
| Charles T. Manatt | (1981-1985) | California |
| Paul G. Kirk, Jr. | (1985-1989) | Massachusetts |
| Ron Brown | (1989-1993) | New York |
| David Wilhelm | (1993-1994) | Ohio |
| Debra DeLee | (1994-1995) | Massachusetts |
| Christopher J. Dodd1 | (1995-1997) | Connecticut |
| Donald Fowler | (1995-1997) | South Carolina |
| Roy Romer]]1 | (1997-1999) | Colorado |
| Steven Grossman | (1997-1999) | Massachusetts |
| Edward G. Rendell1 | (1999-2001) | Pennsylvania |
| Joseph Andrew]] | (1999-2001) | Indiana |
| Terrence R. McAuliffe]] | (2001-2005) | Virginia |
| Howard Dean | (2005-) | Vermont |
1 General Chairperson
List from http://rulers.org/usgovt.html#parties
Its main counterpart is the RNC| Republican National Committee.
Allegations of vote fraud
2004
New York and Florida Fraudulent Registrations
In 2004, the DNC was in a massive voting fraud probe in New York State and Florida as the New Tork Daily News uncovered that over 46,000 people were illegally registered by DNC operatives mainly in New York City and Florida[6].
Norman Schwarzkopf RoboCall Fraud
During the 2004 election, the Democratic National Committee was knowingly jamming phone lines by robocalling claiming that Retired General Norman Schwarzkopf from the First Persian Gulf War during Desert Storm endorsed 2004 Democrat Presidential Nominee Sen. John Kerry which was false at a time when the anti-war movement was picking up during the 2004 election.
The RNC vehemently responded swiftly to the actions claiming it was a desperate DNC campaign team which deceived voters during the 2004 election[7].
DNC Voting Rights Institute (VIR)
The DNC Voting Rights Institute was established as an elections day operation to monitor voting irregularities and to report incidents of vote fraud and suppression.[8]
DNC Vote Buying Caught on Tape By Milwaukee NBC Affliate
During the 2004 election, Today's TMJ 4 (WTMJ-TV) of Milwaukee which is the local NBC Affliate filmed Democratic campaign workers handing out small amounts of money and free food to residents at a home for the mentally ill in Kenosha after which the patients were shepherded into a separate room and given absentee ballots. One of the Democratic Party workers for the DNC fled when she saw the camera from WTMJ-TV[9].
Petition blocking lawsuit
On October 30, 2007, Ralph Nader filed a lawsuit in Superior Court in Washington, D.C. against the DNC, arguing that it had conspired with a variety of co-defendants, including America Coming Together to bring "groundless and abusive litigation" against Nader's 2004 petition drives for ballot access in order to bankrupt Nader's campaign and force him off the ballot in 18 states..[10],[11]
See also
External links
- Official Website of the Democratic National Committee
- "Truthout.com," "VIR calls manual count on all Ballots on Busby vs. Bilray Race..." 2008
- DNC on Wikipedia
- Democratic National Committee
- The Charter & Bylaws of the Democratic Party of the United States (PDF)
References
- ↑ Party History. Retrieved on 2007-02-17.
- ↑ "Public Funding of Presidential Elections". Federal Election Commission. 2005-02. http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/pubfund.shtml#General. Retrieved on 2006-10-29.
- ↑ A 50 State Strategy. Retrieved on 2007-02-17.
- ↑ The Political Graveyard web site, A Database of Historic Cemeteries, accessed July 17, 2006.
- ↑ "Superdelegate from Maine moves to Florida - Superdelegate total now 794". 2008 Democratic Convention Watch. 2008-02-28. http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/02/superdelegate-from-maine-moves-to-fl.html. Retrieved on 2008-05-27.
- ↑ http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/8/23/163727.shtml
- ↑ http://www.nodnc.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=65
- ↑ DNC VIR
- ↑ http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002530
- ↑ http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/5259684.html
- ↑ http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jSJzOBT1G4nHh_7HFNBZLzNQVo-wD8SJQAP00
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Portions of this article have been taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Copyright Notice can be found here.
