Daley gave an interview with Novakula: The Dark Prince off the record giving Novak an excuse to avoid most substance and rail against Democrats but two things come through at the end.
The first, is where Daley is clueless–he complains Dems don’t have an energy plan and are simply obstructing which ignores both plans to move towards energy efficiency. Daley himself has been somewhat innovative on these things with the roof gardens an example of an effective policy. Fine, no one ever accused him of being a national policy wonk.
The best bit though comes in this line:
And later, in an almost word-for-word repetition of his 1995 comments, Daley told me: ”We are a Washington party. We have no farm system. The Republicans do, and we don’t.”
This isn’t surprising, nor should it be surprising that the last four Presidents who weren’t VP first, were Governors and it’s especially problematic then when Dems aren’t building a strong state party system. While there is some hope that Dean is building stronger state centric efforts, the lack of a grassroots and local infrastructure is still killing the party nationally.
Doesn’t Daley appointing aldermen and stifling dissent hurt the farm system too?