Your new DNC chairman

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine.

A fine pick, if you ask me, not least because of his close relationship to the soon-to-be president and because of his popularity in a key swing state.

Then again, as MyDD's Bob Brigham points out, he's hardly an ideal party chair. DWT notes that it's yet another sign that Obama is "putting all the levers of power in the hands of conservative Democrats."

As has often been the case during the transition, though, I'm willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. I just wouldn't want the DNC to become nothing more than Obama '12, that is, for the party apparatus to devote itself almost exclusively to Obama's political ambitions, however much I may support those ambitions. Democrats need to secure and hopefully expand their majorities in Congress, after all, as well as to make gains at the state level. I just don't know if Obama's man at the DNC is the right man for that job.