Democratic National Committee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 (DNC) 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. Since 1866, House Democrats have used the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.[citation needed] The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee coordinates campaign activity in support of Democratic Senatorial Candidates. These committes are controlled by the Democratic caucus in House or Senate. During the first eighteen months of the 2005-2006 campaign cycle, each of these two committees has raised over $70 million to support candidates, while the DNC has raised over $90 million for its own operations and the support of the Democratic Party generally.[2]
Its main counterpart is the Republican National Committee.
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[edit] Campaign role
The Democratic National Committee (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. There are state committees in every state, as well as local committees in most cities, wards, and towns (and, in some states, counties).
The chairman of the DNC (currently Howard Dean) is elected by vote of members of the Democratic National Committee. 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 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. 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.
[edit] DNC fundraising
In the 2001-2002 election cycle, the DNC and its affiliated committees (which includes numerous local committees and committees formed to coordinate expenditures for specific districts or races) raised a total of US $162,062,084, 42% of which was hard money. The largest contributor, with US$ 9,280,000 was the Saban Capital Group, founded in 2001 by Haim Saban, who also founded Fox Family group. Fred Eychaner, the owner of Newsweb Corp., gave the second highest amount of money to the DNC and its affiliates, US $7,390,000. The third largest contributor was Steve Bing of Shangri-La Entertainment, who gave US $6,700,000.[4]
In the 2005-2006 election cycle, the DNC raised a total of US $61,141,823, all of it hard money. Most contributions came from small donors, giving less than $250, who accounted for over 80% of total dollars raised in the the first half of 2006.[5] The three largest individual contributors were Hill Wallack (a law firm), Jonathan Rose & Co. (developers), and Bain Capital (an investment firm). Hill Wallack and Jonathan Rose & Co gave US $100,000 and the other one gave US $53,400 [6].
In 2002, the Federal Election Commission fined the Democratic National Committee $115,000 for its part in fundraising violations in 1996 [1]
[edit] Current DNC leadership
- Chairman: Howard Dean, former Governor of Vermont
- Vice Chairmen:
- Mike Honda, U.S. Representative from California
- Linda Chavez-Thompson, Executive Vice President of the AFL-CIO
- Susan Turnbull, Maryland Democratic Party
- Lottie Shackelford, former Mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas
- Mark Brewer, Michigan Democratic Party Chairman and President of the Association of State Democratic Chairs
- Treasurer: Andrew Tobias, businessman, author, and financial self-help guru
- Secretary: Alice Travis Germond
- National Finance Chair: Philip Murphy, . [2]
[edit] DNC Chairmen
1 General Chairman
List from http://rulers.org/usgovt.html#parties
[edit] References
- ^ "DNC fined for illegal 1996 fund raising", CNN.com, Sept. 23, 2002
- ^ http://www.democrats.org/a/2006/07/philip_d_murphy.php
- ^ The Politcal Graveyard web site, A Database of Historic Cemeteries, accessed July 17, 2006.
