Howard Dean’s prescription for Democratic success: Strengthen the state parties

CHUCK TODD: Dan Balz had, I thought, a rough piece about the Democratic party. But two things, the headline is, “Two midterm elections have hollowed out the Democratic Party.” And they said this about the state parties in particular, “Without prominent statewide-elected leaders, Democrats are in danger of seeing their state party structures atrophy.”

HOWARD DEAN: We’ve been there before. We know what the solution is now.

CHUCK TODD: And what is it?

HOWARD DEAN: It is to put money into the state parties. They get to pick their own people, we do the training, we do all the intel, we get them to weave together this incredible organization that the president has done in the last eight years for his campaigns, two of the best campaigns ever run in the history of American presidential politics. But you’ve got to strengthen the state parties. It requires discipline, accountability, but it also requires money to go to the state parties and we have to trust the state parties.

(Meet the Press transcript courtesy of NBC News.com)