How the Dems won

Two years ago after yet another bruising collective loss of the presidency, the House and the Senate, the Democratic Party seemed to be on the brink of implosion.

Across the board, it had lost on message and cohesiveness, it had tepid candidates, and its get-out-the-vote infrastructure was a house of cards.

Democrats knew they needed to get their ducks in a row and at least have a decent showing for the 2006 midterm election. The entire House, one-third of the Senate and a score of governors' seats were up for grabs, and they were staring at a U.S. map that was a sea of red.

First order of business was to place aggressive leaders at the top of their party infrastructure: Howard Dean at the Democratic National Committee, Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Emanuel and Schumer both had one job: to get people elected on Nov. 7.

Dean's job had a different timeline and different intensity; it was and still is -- unless James Carville gets his way -- to build the party and to make it competitive again. He has to do as many things as possible, as quickly as possible, yet do it over the long term. This means investing in infrastructure -- investing in things that pay dividends for the party, not just in 2006 but beyond.

Democrat strategist Steve McMahon, of McMahon Squire Associates, worked with both the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the midterm cycle. Among other things, McMahon was responsible for the national committee's "values messaging" in the reddest of red states.

The strategy was to go after the hearts and minds of rural Christian voters through radio -- and it worked. There was no screaming, no partisan attacks; the tone was neither shrill nor harsh. Rather than use traditional political advertising, McMahon's operatives wrote short radio ads, read by a local voice that people hear every day, that were embedded into a radio station's weather, sports, news and farm reports.

In nine red states including Virginia, Ohio and Indiana, some 5,000 of those ads reached an audience of 9 million to 12 million people, all of whom were hit at least three times. That's a lot of voter contact. And Democrats bought out the entire advertisement inventory, so Republicans could not copy them if the GOP got a scent of what was happening.

"These were not overly partisan messages," McMahon says. "They were not shrieking negative ads. They were simple messages that began with 'Are you tired of ...' or 'Think about this ... .' "

Now that the Democrats' infrastructure is building, you might think Howard Dean would at least get a nod for his part in the collective effort.

Not so much.

In a classic move, James Carville -- the Clintons' top attack dog -- called for Dean's ouster from the Democratic National Committee.

It is the Democrats' worst-kept secret that Team Clinton has no love for Dean. Having Dean as the head of the national committee going into Hillary's quest for the presidency is unacceptable to them, so they sent out Carville to do what he does best: being Carville.

But remember: When Carville and the Clintons rolled into Washington in 1992, Democrats had the majority; two years later, under Clinton leadership, their majority was swept under the bus.

By no means should Dean get sole credit for his party's rise to power.

Yet only a fool would dismiss his hand in it.