Aides say (Clinton) recognizes how much thinner the Democratic bench has become over the last seven years — having seen longtime allies lose their seats — and wants the trend reversed.
“I think it is important to lay a foundation for the future,” said Marshall, who has worked in the Obama administration and pushed Dean’s 50-state strategy as an organizing staff member in Kansas in 2005. “State House members are going to be your next folks running for Congress or running for governor, and one of them may be your next president of the United States.”
Clinton’s approach is also born from a belief that institutions, more than personalities, form the basis for political progress — that even the most moving rhetoric runs up against the procedural rules of the House and Senate.
“The 50-state strategy worked. It gave us the majorities in the House and the Senate, and then it was abandoned because Obama chose to go with OFA [Organizing For Action], which did not work, and the DNC scaled way back on it,” Dean, a supporter of and consultant to Clinton’s campaign, told HuffPost. “But I’m very pleased it is going to be rebuilt. I think they totally get that her legacy depends on having a Democratic Congress and that she has to start now.”
