Howard Dean and Keith Ellison have both indicated their intention to seek the Chair of the DNC. I think both would bring great qualifications, though I do have a bit of a concern about a current member of Congress. I also wouldn’t mind keeping Donna Brazile.
Please share widely!
Brazile is pretty stained by her passing around debate questions. I like Ellison, but Dean has a proven track record.
because :
1. It should be full time
2. We need to get back to the 50 state grassroots strategy that Dean fathered
Fred Rich LaRiccia
The Clinton era is over. Our party is reduced to a rump minority in nearly three quarters of the states. We need people with a track record of rapidly reversing those fortunes (Dean) or running a national populist message and winning unlikely states with it (Weaver). Ellison or someone like Tuksi Gabbard would be fine if we want diversity that also knows how to reach out and connect with working people. Someone who can help the party connect emotionally with the country. If we bring in a stats, data or big money guy we are destroying ourselves.
Data and money are at least usually how elections are won, so should not be dismissed out of hand. It’s not necessarily for the chair to be charismatic, but rather to be the ultimate campaign manager.
and I’m surprised you didn’t know that, Christopher.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
…the Mr. Weaver who managed Sanders’ campaign was named Jeff. JConway, is that whom you meant?
John Weaver is a centrist Republican guru, while Jeff Weaver is whom I meant. Definitely not gonna happen now that Bernie endorsed Ellison.
who was a lobbyist for corporate medical and big pharma….so please, not him.
…doesn’t make him a bad person. There are people who lobby professionally for our causes too. Besides, lobbying is simply an organized way of exercising the first amendment right of petition.
I’m OK with lobbying being a terminal position. After you’ve been one you don’t get a political job (unless you run for office).
I see. A person votes for Trump and is a misogynist and a racist, no exceptions, but a Democrat works as a lobbyist for corporate medical and big pharma…and well, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.
If there were a race pitting a corporate lobbyist against a Dangerous Unqualified Misogynistic Bigot, I’ll take the lobbyist without question. Lobbyists, like lawyers, are paid to represent their clients. I’m not going to hold their client list against them unless in the course of their representation they engaged in illegal or unethical behavior. Howard Dean was a great party chair; that should be what counts.
Or just from Agway? Either way, they are not becoming. Some poor soul has lost his house after the plant closed down nine years ago, his wife left him, his kids are sick and “Obamacare” only covers some of his expenses, he votes for Trump out of sheer desperation because the insiders of BOTH parties have screwed him, and you call him a bigot, a racist, and worse based on that ONE vote. One the other hand, a DEMOCRAT pledged to the good of the people sells his soul to big corporate medical and big pharma, and oh well, give him a pass, he just needed a paycheck….Yeah, I know, just like your buddy says, “The Money HAS to come from somewhere”…
WJC has played an important role in losing the presidency twice for the Democratic nominee—2000, and 2016. HRC failed to get the job done against the least popular nominee ever. We need to look toward the future. For that reason, I would steer clear of Dean, and I agree that it has to be a full time job leading up to the mid-terms. If the Republicans are going to spend their time trying to dismantle the social safety net, we will have the opportunity to pick up many congressional seats because that was not part of what voters wanted in this election. Let’s get a real progressive who will devote full effort to the job.
As in Bill? The biggest mistake the Gore campaign made was NOT using him because they assumed Clinton fatigue, but I suspect if he could have run again he would have mopped the floor with GWB. I also fail to see how 2016 is his fault. Of course, both Gore and HRC did receive the most popular votes in their respective races.
Was going to post the same thing. Gore wanted nothing to do with him, and didn’t use him at all. This above is a bit of revisionist history for those who think we should go in the direction of electing a People’s Commisar.
The people aren’t clamoring for Acela corridor nonsense like entitlement reform, balanced budgets or trade deals that favor business over workers. I’m not a social democrat, but Trump actually called for a workers party and the results seem to bear that out. Reviving the New Deal tradition is the only way to build a cross racial/cross class coalition that rejects bigoted government and captive government as equally offensive to the American tradition.
“Uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I am elected…” That’s what Bush ran on. He won.
And I’ve mentioned that before. If she doesn’t want to be a candidate, it’s a great way for her to maintain a national profile and help downbaklot candidates. A good swan song for Bernie who won’t be running again.
Bernie? No thanks. Someone whose Medicare days are ahead of them, please. Are there really so few people in the party who are not elderly?
DNC chair isn’t the leader of the party; s/he is the person who holds things steady while a leader emerges.
Based on limited knowledge, I like this Ellison guy.
They both endorsed Ellison who’s likely to get it now. Good choice
I can’t find that, and this recent post seems contrary…
Not Dean.
I doubt he’d do it, but his name has come up.
Sorry, we need someone not affiliated with corporate America to lead the Democratic party back to being a workers party again.
Not agreement.
For accuracy. See Reich’s article.
Another entry in the “Whatever happened here proves I was right all along” genre. I’m not a fan.
because I follow the herd
Because uprate/downrate remains a crappy substitute for the more nuanced rating on the old platform. One can disagree with a good comment, or agree with a poor one.
For their perspective on why he would make a strong candidate.
I just didn’t appreciate the dismissive Bain Capital corporate slap that makes him sound like another Romney when he was quite the improvement over Romney as Governor. Having a corporate background is not per se a deal breaker with me.
Ok with charters, casinos and MBTA privatization. Ok with mental health cuts and cuts leading to kids dying in state care at DCF. Thomas Frank has a good chapter in his book on how much of a neoliberal he was.
Is he working on making a state party that actually reflects our values and electing progressives down ballot or working on building another addition to the Berkshires mansion with a retainer from a company that made its trade on outsourcing jobs? I’ve never been more disappointed in a candidate I campaigned for.
Is invigorating and oft times needed to sustain reasoned and civil discourse!
Not Donna Brazile, not Dean… wouldn’t mind Ellison but he should give up his seat
…but for crying out loud, chairing one of the two major parties is about the LAST position you want to give to an outsider. If anything this person needs to know the players, know how to campaign, have access to money, etc. – assets you usually acquire by spending a fair amount of time as an insider.
a state chair would be a good idea as well… but no matter what a sitting office holder is an inherent conflict of interest and we should learn our lesson here
a state chair would be a good idea as well… but no matter what a sitting office holder is an inherent conflict of interest and we should learn our lesson here
…would be a successful chair of a state Democratic Party, which state is politically and demographically diverse.
Aren’t so by false advertising.
I’m used to thinking of the party chair as more of a technician than an inspirational leader, but this cycle could be different. For the former, I think Dean has an unmatched mix of skills and experience, and I don’t see the “sell by date” thing as relevant.
One big task is going to be playing traffic cop during a power struggle between the progressive wing and the Wall Street wing (to oversimplify grossly). That could be extremely difficult and divisive, or maybe this decision is the opening round.
Whoever is chosen will need to be a unifier and it won’t be easy.
Is that we don’t really have a “face” of the party. Reid just retired, Obama and Clinton are done, Biden too. The most experienced Democratic leader on the national level is Nancy Pelosi, and she’s hardly up and coming. Chuck Schumer is only inspiring to people with enormous incomes. Really, aside from Sanders and Warren, who do we have who’s known to the average American?
The DNC Chair may well end up filling that vacuum. S/he may have to.
Insurance industry lobbyist and MEK supporter. He’s done.
The Dean of a decade ago was great. The Dean of today is the wrong choice. Not a disastrous choice, but the wrong choice. Ellison is a fantastic choice.
Who or what is that?
It’s a noted terrorist organization (although that designation has been lifted in recent years after pressure from high ranking officials) that has a cult-like status among certain circles and has paid a number of connected politicians to speak in support of their efforts. Among those who have been paid to speak in support are Howard Dean, Ed Rendell, Rudy Giuliani, and John Bolton. The history is very sordid and involves likely Israeli funding and American training. Check out the reporting from Seymour Hersh and Glenn Greenwald.
…with a roster of supporters like that.
You lose me there. Those guys are knee jerk anti-Americans, not journalists in any sense of the word. They defend Putin, Assange and were merciless against Clinton and were probably rooting for Trump since he’s less “imperialist”. When you make bedfellows with the alt Ruth in foreign policy, it’s your side that’s wrong.
…and I’ve heard talk of Robert Reich.
Christopher, you’re joking about Brazile, right?
She is one of the most qualified managers our party has, and I really could not care less about her slipping Clinton a couple of debate questions which Clinton was probably smart enough to be prepared for anyway.
If you think it was just about emailing debate questions, I strongly suggest that you aren’t learning the lessons of this election.
If we are going to draw up a list of who should NOT be DNC chair, the list would go something like this, in ranked order:
1. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
2. Anyone named Clinton
3. John Podesta
4. Donna Brazile
I would at least consider George Clinton for DNC Chair. Election Night would be tough, but the music would be amazing.
…as was his son DeWitt?:)
…in “learning lessons” when it comes to party chair. People seem to be confused as to the role of the chair. It is not to be a charismatic figure, though being a good messenger certainly doesn’t hurt. It is not to mold the party ideologically in his or her own image. The role of the chair is to be the party’s foremost expert on organizing and managing campaigns. I want someone with a solid resume in this regard. S/he also needs to be a good administrator, presiding officer, and yes, fundraiser. That’s why I said the ideal candidate would be a successful state party chair, which state is not a gimme for Democrats. Donna Brazile certainly knows what she’s doing, as does Howard Dean, who is probably my preference at this point among those who have been mentioned. I also resent the suggestion I’ve been hearing that the national and the state committees are somehow to blame for our “loss” (200K more votes, remember). I have no doubt DNC members did what they could to elect HRC. Donna Brazile certainly did as interim chair. This is inside baseball though and I doubt you’ll find any average voter saying they might have voted for Clinton were it not for who was chairing her party.
There it is. The Democratic party is now a grand exercise in suicide by “foremost experts.”
This hasn’t quite worked out how we’d like so let’s hire someone without qualifications.
And we should probably run Clinton again in 2020. She is the most qualified after all.
Again, please learn the lessons of this election.
It’s not about choosing someone unqualified for the job. It’s about not repeating the same mistakes over and over again. And it’s not just about losing on Tuesday, it’s losing over the last couple decades at nearly every level except the Presidency and in almost every state except about a dozen. In the northeast and west coast the Democratic party is doing fine and almost everywhere else it is in shambles. We had some bright spots in a few midterm elections and a couple glorious Presidential elections, but we’ve had our asses handed to for the most part, and Donna Brazile has been in leadership during almost all of that time. It’s time to thank her for her service and put her in an emeritus advisory capacity. She’s shown she’s not up for the job at hand. This is all moot because I don’t believe she’s in contention for the position, but I want to aggressively push back on this kind of thinking.
It’s really too bad because nobody more than she really deserved her turn in the Oval Office before the party and political sentiment generally passed her by. To the extent that we lose I think it’s largely because the GOP is just plain willing to do things we are not, and there are any number of things I DON’T want us to sink to their level on (lying through their teeth, hate for “the other”, gerrymandering, obstruction). We can do better messaging with certain constituencies, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater either.
Various sources report that on the order of 7M mail-in and absentee votes are still being counted in CA, WA, and NY, and that those are coming in 2-1 for Hillary Clinton.
It won’t change the election results. It will demolish the argument that Hillary Clinton was a terrible campaigner. In particular, locally, it will demolish the utterly false comparison between Hillary Clinton and Martha Coakley.
When all the votes are counted, Hillary Clinton will have won the popular vote by at least TWO MILLION votes, while losing the election. Ms. Coakley did not come close to winning more popular votes in MA than her opponent.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it appears that Ms. Clinton will have gained more popular votes in 2016, while losing, then Barack Obama gained in 2012 while winning.
I wonder if perhaps it’s time for the blue states of America to secede.
It absolutely will not. She lost states Dems traditionally win and that she should have won, including states that Dems have won for the last thirty years. Still a bad candidate against the worst candidate. Stop trying to sweep that away.
There are some Coakley parallels that stick – Dem party elites choosing a candidate and largely clearing a field despite a candidates heavy baggage and obvious weaknesses, including giving that candidate a second chance in a high stakes election after showing significant electoral weakness in a recent race.
I don’t think Dem party elites chose her, unless you include people who would have been with her anyway. The lack of competition problem was/is the Democratic bench.
For Clinton, it was very much a clearing of the field. When Clinton decided to run, the powerful party players pressured others to stay out, including Biden. And that may be the easiest lesson of all of this. If you have a successful and well-liked President with a very experienced and outrageously charismatic VP (and one without much baggage), run that VP every goddamned time regardless of who else may be out there.
For Coakley, when she decided to run, there was an instant coalescing of the bulk of the party behind her. I guess it was different than the Clinton situation in which people actively pressured others to stay out. Democrats backed her and I think were blind to her failings, both in her policy positions and as a campaigner, and sometimes that came out in nasty ways by baselessly accusing supporters of other candidates of sexism when making very valid critiques of policy positions.
In both cases, the VOTERS chose their nominees and in some cases said voters weren’t even registered Dems. Others could have run; others DID run!
I know people (Democrats and unenrolled) who were highly turned off by the debate questions thing. I know progressives who might be Democrats (vs. unenrolled) if it weren’t for what they perceived as too many shenanigans at the highest levels of the DNC. While in the past many people likely did not pay much attention to who chaired the party (I know I didn’t), the profile of that person is higher now–in part due to the media coverage of the Clinton campaign. Choosing either Dean or Brazile, as qualified as they might be, and as much as I admire Dean, likely will signal “business as usual” to anyone paying attention. Right now that’s not a positive thing.
I’m not saying it is absolutely disqualifying, but it surprises me how many smart people associated with her supposedly cautious campaign did dumb things. It’s as though they failed to grasp how vulnerable Clinton was to small things getting amped out of proportion and beyond the campaign’s
s control.
That didn’t happen in this case but it could have.
I wouldn’t pick him for Chair. But his e-mails (I haven’t read all of them) paint a picture of a calm leader who gets it. I’d have a beer with him.
Except not at that “Spirit Dinner.”
(Google it if you haven’t heard about it.)
That whole thing was peak Crazytown, right up there with Trump’s racist butler (though the butler really existed).
DLC style “progressivism” failed to beat Bush twice, failed to beat a charismatic liberal black man in the primary, nearly failed to beat a rumpled and crusty old socialist from Vermont in the next primary, and failed to beat the least experienced and most odious nominee every put forth by a major party. Time to give it a rest and work on something new. Third Way and New Lbour made sense in the age of Thatcher/Reagan, it’s inadequate in the age of Trump.
…to like a page calling to draft Joe Biden for DNC chair.