Last week's resignation of Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Executive Director Joe Hansen brought to a head the concerns many in the party have had about the direction the DSCC has taken in its decidedly uphill task of picking up the five seats necessary to recapture control of the Senate.
The parting of company between Hansen and DSCC Chairman Robert Torricelli of New Jersey was unanticipated -- but hardly shocking -- to close observers in the party who have felt strongly for months that something needed to happen at the committee, and quickly. Past DSCC officials who worked for various chairmen over the last decade and still keep a close eye on the committee placed as much or more blame on Torricelli as on Hansen. They noted that it is rather extraordinary for a party campaign committee to make it through one-quarter of an election cycle without filling three of the top five slots: political, communications and research directors.
In an interview conducted before his departure was announced, Hansen said that both he and Torricelli felt it important to hold off
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