(2005-02-08) -- Faced with the fact that former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is the only person still seeking the chairmanship of the Democrat National Committee (DNC), the nine-member panel of elected officers announced today that it had posted the job on CareerBuilder.com, and would consider applicants from outside the party.

"Clearly we can't just hand over the reins to a man whose claim to fame is losing Iowa to John Kerry and John Edwards," said party vice chair Linda Chavez-Thompson, a former top official at both the AFL-CIO and the AFSCME. "We need someone who knows how to win. So, we're looking at Republican resumes."

Although electing a Republican to lead the 440-member DNC would seem counterintuitive, Mrs. Chavez-Thompson said, "First, we need to focus on winning elections. Once we recapture the White House and Congress, we can take a look at ideology and other peripheral matters."

Other party leaders privately said that the "working with a bunch of monkeys" ad for CareerBuilder, which ran during the Super Bowl, "sparked some real soul searching at the DNC."