WASHINGTON, Jan. 19 (UPI) -- Republicans easily elected former Bush campaign manager and hand-selected candidate Ken Mehlman to lead their national party Wednesday, while Democrats seeking the party's top position continued to prove they had the vision and know-how to reverse the Democratic National Committee's fortunes.
In expansive remarks Wednesday to members of the Republican National Committee, newly elected Mehlman assured his party members that his job would be to solidify the successes of the last two elections.
"One hundred and fifty years after our party was first founded, the party of Lincoln stands at our strongest point in a century," Mehlman declared in prepared remarks.
Conservatives increased their proportion of the electorate by 20 percent in the past four years and won a victory that can only be called one thing -- a mandate, Mehlman said.
"Our party can continue to earn the majority status we've won in the past two elections, and continue to expand our support even further," he added, to "cement these victories into a durable Republican majority."
Mehlman was unanimously elected by RNC members Wednesday during the party's winter conference. The choice was little surprise, after Mehlman successfully led President Bush's re-election campaign. The president selected Mehlman to chair the RNC at the end of outgoing Chair Ed Gillspie's term, and the former campaign manager ran unopposed.
In his speech Wednesday, Mehlman also called for increased civility in politics after a highly contentious and personal election season.
"Let's continue to make sure that we're attacking problems, not people," he said. "Changing the tone in politics requires both parties to show personal respect as we disagree."
One thing both parties can agree upon, he said, was that the surge in voter turnout was a net positive for the country.
"While I don't know who my counterpart at the DNC will be, I think it's important for the chairmen of America's two great parties to promote more participation and public service."
Both were points on which Democrats can agree. Increased participation leads to a better democracy.
And, that they did not know who would become Mehlman's counterpart at the Democratic National Committee.
The seven candidates met with members of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors in Washington Tuesday, yet another stop in a campaign highly unlike Mehlman's coronation.
The candidates made their appeals to the assembled mayors, each professing their dedication to giving more support to local-level politicians, like mayors.
"If you want to win you've got to start at the bottom, and that's what we're going to do," former Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean said.
Dean promised more resources to local-level politics, telling the group, "This is all about local politics."
Reports indicated that Dean, once considered too eccentric, was pulling ahead in the race. Dean won support in his presidential bid as an outsider, a reformer to politics as usual inside the Beltway.
But as he has continued to campaign for the chairmanship, Dean has pointed to his experience at grassroots politics. His own career started in local politics and developed from there, while his new organization, Democracy for America, successfully supported more than a dozen first-time candidates.
He also, insiders said, has proved effective at courting DNC members, a group of some 447 who will select their new chairman in Washington on Feb. 12.
He is not alone in the field, however. At Tuesday's event he was joined by New Democrat Network head Simon Rosenberg, former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, former Reps. Martin Frost of Texas and Tim Roemer of Indiana, Democratic activist Donnie Fowler and former Ohio Democratic Party Chair David Leland.
A Hotline poll released Wednesday indicated Dean led the pack, while Frost held up in second place. Thirty-one percent of responding DNC members said Dean was their first choice to chair the party, while half as many cited Frost as their first choice.
The poll was conducted Jan. 11-14 and included responses from 42 percent of DNC members.
The findings were just as Frost told one potential supporter on a cell phone call outside the conference Tuesday night. "It looks like it's pretty much between Howard Dean and me at this point," he said in his Texas drawl.
The other candidates trailed behind with no more than 4 percent of the vote each. Roemer, the sole anti-abortion candidate, came in third behind Frost and Dean but also was the top candidate mentioned when members were asked who they would not want to see head the party.
Rosenberg continues the most aggressive campaign of the pack, replete with daily e-mail messages announcing mounting endorsements, but as of Tuesday Dean held that lead as well. State party chairs in Florida, Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma, Washington state and Vermont have thrown their support behind Dean.
But despite the ideological cast the battle is being given by the media and pundits, Bob Mulholland of the California Democratic Party said he didn't hear members discussing whether the party should go left, right or center.
"I want some chair that has pit bulls at home for entertainment," he said. "In other words, I want to win."
Dean had won six endorsements by Tuesday, but Mulholland said he didn't expect many other chairs to announce their backing before the western regional caucus, in Sacramento Saturday, and the eastern regional caucus the following week.
The two parties are facing different battles in the years to come and as they look to choose a party head, said RNC spokesman Brian Jones, adding that Republicans' electoral outcomes enable them to unify behind Bush's legislative agenda.
"The Democrats right now are engaged in a little different debate, and I think are trying to define exactly which direction they're headed" over the next several years, he said.
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