Tom Perez Stacks 2020 Convention Committees With "From the Swamp" Nominations

by Thomas Neuburger

"Where would you stick the knife in?" 
— 2020 Democratic Convention Rules Committee nominee John Podesta, referring to candidate Bernie Sanders in 2016

DNC chair Tom Perez recently presented his nominations for the 2020 Democratic Convention standing committees. The full list is at the top.

If you think the Democratic Party as currently run is determined that no progressive will receive the nomination, the DNC and the superdelegates, who get to vote in all but the first round of voting, are the last bulwarks against such an outcome.

We'll have more to say about the superdelegates and what they may do later. For today let's consider how Tom Perez, Barack Obama's pick for DNC chair over Keith Ellison, is loading up the 2020 Convention standing committees with determined anti-progressives, Clinton and Obama loyalists and operatives, enemies of Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, a bevy of corporate and national security lobbyists and high-dollar Democratic Party consultants and firms.

As you read the following, consider this:

• Given the popularity of progressive policies in the actual country — that is, among people who vote — it certainly appears possible that the primary goal of the DNC is to guarantee the continuous flow of corporate dollars to DNC coffers and approved consultants and lobbyists. In that sense, the whole organization seems focused first on insider jobs and wealth security.

• Only after the first goal is achieved is a secondary goal — winning elections — taken into account. 

Is this too cynical? Is this cynicism justified? Read on and decide for yourself.

The 2020 Platform Committee

Kevin Gosztola offers us a rundown of Perez's nominations in a series of tweets, many points with accompanying documentation. The tweets are here. I've summarized his main points below, absent much, but not all, of the documentation that he provides (emphasis and some reparagraphing mine).

Of the nominees for the Platform Committee, Gosztola notes the following:

• [Co-Chair] Denis McDonough was Barack Obama's chief of staff during his second term. He also chairs Rework America Task Force, which launched Rework America Business Network with Heidi Capozzi, senior vice president of human resources at Boeing, in December 2018.

[The] Rework America Business Network that McDonough helped launch counts as its founding members the following: Aon, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Boeing, Duke Energy, Kaiser Permanente, McKinsey & Company, Microsoft, Stanley Black & Decker, Walmart, & Zurich Insurance

Jon Hamm portrayed McDonough in 2019 film, "The Report," which told the story of Senate's CIA torture report through perspective of Senate staffer Daniel Jones. On behalf of the CIA, McDonough advocated for more redactions from the executive summary that was released.

• [Vice-Chair] Danielle Gray, former Obama administration official, is the senior vice president, chief legal officer and corporate secretary for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina

Gray was a partner in the New York law firm of O’Melveny and Myers, where she advised "health care companies, financial services institutions, universities, and clients in a range of industries on litigation, internal investigations, and government enforcement actions."

• [Vice-Chair] Jake Sullivan is a member of the Alliance for Securing Democracy's Advisory Council. He was a senior policy adviser for Hillary Clinton's 2016 and 2008 presidential campaigns. Sullivan was also a national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.

• Georgia State Senator Nikema Williams served as member of Obama Victory Fund 2012. She was one of "top ten influential African American bundlers for Obama."

• Carol Browner is senior counselor for Albright Stonebridge Group, business firm founded in 2009 by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She worked on climate change policy in Obama admin.

Clinton's campaign appointed Browner to 2016 DNC Platform Drafting Committee. As a Clinton delegate, during the 2016 Platform Drafting Committee meeting, voted against a ban on fracking, Medicare For All, opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), keeping fossil fuels in ground, and measure[s] to halt abuse of eminent domain by fossil fuel industry.

• Mary Kay Henry is the president of SEIU. In 2015, she ensured the major union endorsed Hillary Clinton early. SEIU donated $1 million to Priorities USA, the primary super PAC that supported Clinton's 2016 campaign in spite of Clinton's reluctance to back a $15 minimum wage.

• Charlie King is a lobbyist, close ally of Governor Andrew Cuomo, former executive director for the New York State Democratic Party, and a 2020 Democratic superdelegate.

• Bakari Sellers was Kamala Harris surrogate and surrogate for Hillary Clinton in 2016. He has disingenuously insisted Bernie has long way to go with black voters, despite contrary polling.

See how Sellers welcomed Bernie to the DNC primary when he announced his 2020 campaign. [Sellers: "I don't have a problem with Bernie getting in the race, 'when is he getting out is probably a better question."]

In 2015, Sellers became member of National Council of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the notorious pro-Israeli government lobbying group. https://thetandd.com/news/sellers-selected-for-aipac-council/article_18a0c968-6592-58a2-8093-19cd76ff01c5.html. Mentioned here too: https://diversity.gatech.edu/Sellers_Biography.

Sellers drafted letter and spearheaded effort in 2016 to ensure the DNC platform did not adopt language Bernie Sanders supported, which would've acknowledged responsibility to confront humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians in Gaza. https://d10onlizn351s5.cloudfront.net/uploads/2016/06/Bakari-Sellers-Letter-to-DNC-on-Israel-Platform-Statement.pdf

• Dan Shapiro is the former ambassador of United States to the state of Israel. He backed moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, if done the "right way." And here's Shapiro in November 2019 championing virtues of US military aid to Israel. https://jpost.com/American-Politics/Dan-Shapiro-Military-assistance-to-Israel-also-serves-US-interests-607352

• Wendy Sherman is a senior counselor at the Albright Stonebridge Group, a business firm founded by Madeleine Albright. She was Clinton delegate on the 2016 DNC Platform Drafting Committee, who voted against Medicare for All, opposing the TPP, and banning fracking.

While Sherman was lead negotiator for the Iran nuclear deal and has previously backed diplomacy with North Korea, during drafting of 2016 platform Sherman opposed language on Israeli occupation and suggested BDS movement "creates anti-Semitism."

• Craig Smith was White House Political Director during President Clinton's administration. He was campaign director/senior adviser to Joe Lieberman's 2004 presidential campaign. Smith also was senior adviser for super PAC, Ready For Hillary, and later Clinton's 2016 campaign.

• Meghan Stabler is a member of the Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), a group that advocates for pro-Israel Democrats. She also served on the national board of directors for Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

FYI: The DNC Platform Drafting Committee will define the Democratic Party's policies and priorities for domestic and foreign affairs in 2020.

That's a short rundown of 13 of Tom Perez's Platform Committee nominations. One of the two Co-Chairs is an Obama ex-chief of staff with corporate ties to "Aon, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Boeing, Duke Energy, Kaiser Permanente, McKinsey & Company, Microsoft, Stanley Black & Decker, Walmart, & Zurich Insurance." This co-chair also advocates for CIA torture.

Of the four Vice-Chairs, one is chief legal officer for Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina and a health care lobbyist, and the other was senior policy adviser for the 2016 Clinton campaign.

Of the remaining 25 members, nine are either Obama bundlers; lobbyists opposed to "a ban on fracking, Medicare For All, opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), keeping fossil fuels in ground, and measure[s] to halt abuse of eminent domain by fossil fuel industry"; 2016 Clinton supporters and delegates; and/or supporters of Israel's oppression of Palestine who likewise oppose the BDS movement.

All in all, this committee looks well stacked against any change to the corruption of the political process by money and stands strongly against any change to U.S. interventionism abroad, especially in support of Israel's national foreign policy objectives. 

The 2020 Rules Committee

Of the 31 nominations to the Rules Committee — two co-chairs, four vice-chairs and 25 members — Gosztola writes the following:

• [Co-Chair] Maria Cardona is a 2020 Democratic superdelegate and a CNN and CNN en Español contributor. She also is a principal at the Dewey Square Group, a lobbying firm that has fought on behalf of corporate interests against progressive reforms.

From [a] 2016 @theintercept story: Dewey Square Group worked on behalf of health insurance industry during health reform debate, even placing letters to editor in newspaper "under names of elderly Massachusetts residents without their knowledge or consent." https://theintercept.com/2016/02/08/hrc-inner-circle-lobbyists/

Maria Cardona wrote [a] column for Univision in March 2016, "Sanders Socialism Does Not Sit Well With Florida Voters."

She invoked Venezuela, ignoring how US policy has targeted and destabilized country since at least 1998 because socialism was incorporated into their democracy. Maria Cardona invoked [a] right-wing attack to discourage support for Warren or Sanders. (Dec. 29, 2019)[:] "If Warren and Sanders remain among top Democratic tier (they will), Trump will continue to try to paint all Democrats as radical socialists who want to turn US into Venezuela."

• [Co-Chair] Barney Frank is former congressman, who currently is on board of directors of Signature Bank in New York.

In July 2018, New York Times examined how [the] bank was a go-to lender for President Donald Trump's family, as well as Jared Kushner's family. https://nytimes.com/2018/07/23/business/signature-bank-trump-kushner.html

Barney Frank argued against the Green New Deal in February 2019, even as the climate change threat rapidly intensified. "There’s an argument that you don’t destabilize a society by doing too much change at once."

In July 2015, early in [the] primary, Barney Frank wrote a column for POLITICO, "Why Progressives Shouldn't Support Bernie." He advocated against democracy because he believed if Sanders presented a formidable challenge to Clinton it would weaken her.

Viewed as "attack surrogate" for Clinton in 2016, Bernie Sanders demanded Barney Frank be removed as head of Rules Committee. That request was rejected.

Sanders believed Frank had "deeper professional, political, & personal hostility" toward his campaign

• [Vice-Chair] Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms endorsed Joe Biden in June 2019. Even in November, as Biden's poll numbers sagged, she maintained he'd be the best nominee. "People have long underestimated Joe Biden, and he's been consistent."

• [Vice-Chair] Chris Lu was Deputy Secretary of Labor for President Obama.

In 2016, when [the] issue of trade deals killing jobs was raised, Lu replied, "TPP is a great opportunity for US companies that sell products overseas," and jobs reliant on exports pay better.
https://voanews.com/usa/interview-top-us-labor-official-talks-job-creation-tpp

• [Vice-Chair] Alexandra Gallardo-Rooker is vice-chair of the California Democratic Party. She endorsed Clinton. She is 2020 superdelegate (and also was one in 2016). Gallardo-Rooker is a senior adviser for Mike Bloomberg's presidential campaign.

• Charlie Baker is co-founder of Dewey Square Group (scroll to see some history of firm helping corporate interests undermine progressive reforms). Baker was chief administrative officer for Hillary For America. Also senior adviser for Kerry/Edwards, Gore/Lieberman, Clinton/Gore.

• James Boland is president of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers (BAC). In September 2015, the union endorsed Hillary Clinton. He is also on board of directors of National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which Reagan setup after backlash against CIA for meddling in countries.

• Daniel Halpern was appointed by DNC chair Tom Perez to be a DNC deputy national finance chair in 2017. This @PasteMagazine article details how Halpern fought against raising minimum wage. He was chair of Georgia Restaurant Association. https://pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/

• Heidi Heitkamp is a former US Senator in North Dakota. She is a contributor to CNBC and ABC News. She is on board of the McCain Institute.

She wrote this column in May 2019 urging Democrats to remain opposed to expanding Medicare to cover all Americans. https://washingtonpost.com/opinions/heidi-heitkamp-democrats-dont-ditch-the-aca-for-medicare-for-all/2019/05/08/b77780cc-71a9-11e9-9f06-5fc2ee80027a_story.html

In March 2019, Heidi Heitkamp insisted Americans want "realistic" solutions. She does not believe Medicare For All or the Green New Deal should be part of Democrats' "messaging" to voters.

Here's Heidi Heitkamp in October 2019 drawing from her experience as a former tax commissioner to argue against taxing the rich. https://wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/10/21/heidi-heitkamp-impeachment-inquiry

• Harold Ickes chaired Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992. He was Bill Clinton's deputy chief of staff. He was senior adviser and strategist for Hillary Clinton, including her 2008 campaign. Like many of nominees, he's 2020 superdelegate, and he was in 2016 too.

• Elaine Kamarck is a director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution. She's 2020 superdelegate and also was superdelegate in 2016. She's one of those centrist liberals who claims to be an "expert" on exporting American democracy.

In May 2019, Elaine Kamarck highlighted five "minefields" to avoid. One was allowing prisoners to vote. She took [a] right-wing position, saying Democrats shouldn't "get rope-a-doped into giving rights to terrorists" by agreeing with Sanders on voting rights.

Kamarck also advocated against Medicare For All in that same May 2019 post. "...Telling those suburban moms who voted in Democratic members of Congress in 2018 that they will lose their private health insurance is a high-risk strategy."

Socialism was the fifth "minefield" Elaine Kamarck insisted Democrats avoid. Her argument invoked Cold War and urged candidates to cower in face of Republican scaremongering. Baby boomers hid under their desks out of fear of Soviets. We need to be sensitive to them, she said.

• Claire Lucas is chair of LGBTQ Council at DNC and lauded by DNC for her fundraising. She has held leadership positions at World Bank. She worked as official at USAID, which uses "humanitarian aid" to undermine socialist & independent governments that challenge US foreign policy.

• Regina Montoya is a former aide to President Bill Clinton. She recently ran for Dallas mayor. When Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2016, Montoya was a "Hillblazer" (bundler), who raised over $100,000.

• John Podesta was the campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. In this leaked email from February 2016, he agreed in principle that Bernie needed to be "ground to a pulp."
"Where would you stick the knife in?" Podesta added.

• Emmy Ruiz is Democratic strategist. She was Hillary Clinton's state director in Nevada and Colorado in 2016. She was senior adviser for Kamala Harris' 2020 campaign.

• Dennis Speight is a Democratic insider and 2016 superdelegate, who backed Hillary Clinton. He is the political affairs director for the Texas Trial Lawyers Association.

• Michael Steed is founder of Paladin Capital Group, which invests and helps homeland security companies secure government contracts. New York state accused Paladin of “pay to play” involving pension fund investment business. In 2010, Paladin settled.

Additionally, Michael Steed is founding board member of National Democratic Institute (NDI), which is a project of National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

In August 2019, @TheGrayzoneNews reported on NDI's role in fomenting protest in Hong Kong[:] "Behind a made-for-TV Hong Kong protest narrative, Washington is backing nativism and mob violence — Hong Kong's increasingly xenophobic protests are devolving into chaos with help from US government regime-change outfits and a right-wing local media tycoon with close ties to hardliners in Washington" https://thegrayzone.com/2019/08/17/hong-kong-protest-washington-nativism-violence/

Of the two co-chairs of the powerful Rules Committee, one is a health care lobbyist, opponent of "socialism" and strong supporter of U.S. intervention in Venezuela.

The other, a Democrat, nonetheless sits on the board of Jared Kushner's family's "go-to lender," is a vocal opponent of the Green New Deal because he doesn't want to "destabilize society" with "too much change," and served as such a vigorous "attack surrogate" for the Clinton campaign that Sanders asked that he be removed from the 2016 Rules Committee for having had a "deeper professional, political, & personal hostility" than was normal. 

Of the four vice-chairs, three are either current Biden supporters, former Clinton supporters, TPP supporters, or all three.

Of the 25 remaining nominees to the Rules Committee, 12 include 2016 Clinton senior campaign operatives, supporters or bundlers; strong opponents of "socialism," Medicare for All, the Green New Deal and raising the minimum wage; lobbyists, and/or proponents of foreign intervention (one on behalf of his high profile clients).

One of the Clinton senior campaign officials even wrote in a leaked 2016 email "Where would you stick the knife [into Sanders]?" Yet he sits on the Rules Committee for the 2020 Convention.

The 2020 Credentials Committee

The important Credentials Committee also contains two co-chairs, four vice-chairs and 25 members. In his examination of just the co-chairs and vice-chairs, Gosztola writes:

• [Co-Chairs] Lorraine Miller and James Roosevelt [also] co-chaired the Rules Committee in 2016, and remember how Bernie Sanders wanted Barney Frank removed? He also wanted Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy removed from Platform Committee Chair. Miller and Roosevelt denied that request.

• [Vice-Chair] Tonio Burgos is a veteran lobbyist, who has been a member of Democratic National Committee for over three decades. Williams Companies previously paid Burgos' firm nearly $1 million to help lobby for fracked gas Constitution Pipeline in New York.

• [Vice-Chair] Shefali Duggal is deputy national finance chair at Democratic National Committee. She was on Rules Committee for 2016 Democratic National Convention and was part of Hillary For America's National Finance Committee.

• [Vice-Chair] Elizabeth Bagley has raised millions for Democrats. She was a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaigns. Her late husband was the heir to the R.J. Reynolds tobacco fortune. Bagley also is a National Democratic Institute board member.

Both co-chairs and three of the four vice-chairs of the Credentials Committee sit squarely in the "For-Clinton Never-Bernie" camp, at least as Gosztola sees it.

The Establishment or the Nation?

It will be interesting to see how progressive candidates and policies fare at this convention, given the makeup of these committees.

My guess is that even if a progressive gains a plurality of the delegates (a likelihood), they will face a strong, perhaps determining, challenge in the second round of balloting. And if a progressive does manage to become the nominee, they will still be opposed by a Party and Convention infrastructure strongly aligned against every principle and policy they stand for — a true rear guard challenge — and that all of this will be independent of the acual preference of voters, that the Convention pick and back a candidate with the strongest chance of beating Donald Trump.

The battle is on between the lobbyist/consultant-driven Party establishment and the insurgent voter energy that does indeed want to drain the Party in particular and the DC swamp in general of most of the people listed above.

Perez's nominations clearly show that the swamp seems in it to win for itself, regardless of the electoral outcome for the nation. Stay tuned. These are epic times.

(If you wish to support Gosztola's excellent work, you can do so here and here.)
 

Our Party? Their Party?

Saturday we took a brief look at a very important report written by Sean McElwee for the Justice Democrats, . The report lays out a progressive vision for a populist Democratic Party. I'm guessing that the bunch who would most benefit from reading it following its precepts closely-- those who work at the DNC (and the DCCC and DSCC)-- never even glanced at it. As Glenn Greenwald tweeted a few days ago, The DNC under Tom Perez continues showing contempt for the people it needs to vote for it: still not even pretending to be neutral in primaries, always endorsing corruption-tainted establishment hacks, insulting the left at every turn."

Greenwald was talking about the gubernatorial primary battle in New York state, where DNC chairman Tom Perez endorsed a champion of corruption in politics, Andrew Cuomo. If you're a Democrat, don't kid yourself-- the one way there really is no difference between the two parties is that each their establishments really are all about one thing and one thing only: corruption. The Democrats may be pro-Choice, pro-immigrant, pro-LGBTQ and anti-guns, etc but the Sine qua non for the party establishment, no less than for the Republican Party establishment is corruption. This describes them and I can;'t believe I buried it late on a Saturday night of a holiday weekend. If you missed it, please go back, listen to the music, watch the clips, think about the underlying message... and skip the whole part of about the fancy private terminals for wealthy airplane passengers.

Keith Ellison is the vice-chair of the DNC. He expects Perez to stick to his promise of neutrality in party primaries, not behave like some kind male Debbie Wasserman Schultz. "The Democratic Party should not intervene in the primary process," he said. "It is our role to be fair to all contestants and let the voters decide." Perez had already addressed the the NY Democratic Party convention and declared he was "proud to endorse" Cuomo, the embodiment of government corruption and Kathy Hochul, one of the party's most right-wing officials, Cuomo's choice for lieutenant governor.

"You've been delivering results and you've been delivering results that have made people's lives better. That's why Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul are charter members of the accomplishments wing of the Democratic Party, and that's why I'm proud to endorse them," Perez said.

Cuomo is seeking for a third term and facing a spirited primary challenge from actress Cynthia Nixon, who is running to his left.

Party chairmen typically play the neutral arbiter role in primaries, and Perez himself has repeatedly stressed the importance of staying out of Democratic contests. He took over the party last year pledging to restore trust after controversy about DNC involvement in the 2016 presidential nominating contest.

...Perez' forceful endorsement is unusual, even though incumbents often get the automatic endorsements of other party groups, like the campaign arms of Democratic governors or House members.

On Friday, for instance, Perez told NBC News that the DNC had been "scrupulously neutral" in this weeks' Georgia's Democratic gubernatorial primary "because we think the voters should decide that."

His involvement in the New York race drew criticism from the left.

"The entire reason we hold primaries is because voters should decide who's on the ballot, and not party bosses," said Karthik Ganapathy, a spokesperson for MoveOn. "It's wrong for those in charge of official party infrastructure to put their thumb on the scales and try to influence the outcome of elections before the primary voters who form the party's grassroots base have had a chance to cast their ballots."

Perez was one just one of several bold-name Democrats who threw their support behind Cuomo at the convention, including former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Joe Biden.

If Cuomo decides to run for president in 2020, the issue may come up again, since the DNC is responsible for [refereeing] the primary.

Even Indivisible, a group founded on the national level-- very different from the grassroots local Indivisble groups-- by Hillary Clinton campaign supporters, seemed put off. Ezra Levin, a co-founder (along with his wife, Leah Greenberg), tweeted "Don't be scared of democracy-- let the voters decide." Cuomo has been endorsed by Hillary too, of course.

[Note the caveat, "in a safe Democratic state," which gives the party establishment leeway to endorse its crappy conservative candidates in non-safe swing district seats, like the DCCC did in districts like NE-02, only see its Blue Dog shithead rejected by primary voters who preferred progressive Kara Eastman instead, just as they had preferred Bernie over Hillary in 2016.]

Cuomo has been rejected by the progressive wing of the party, which is rallying behind Cynthia Nixon. Nixon has been endorsed by DFA, Our Revolution, PCCC and the Working Families Party, whose state director reminded Democrats that "Cuomo represents a wing of the Democratic Party that is out of touch with what voters want right now and that people are veering away from."

Two key points that McElwee made in his report:

1- Democrats can win elections without rejecting their base.

• The general public supports key, over-the-horizon Democratic priorities, from marijuana legalization and ending mandatory minimums to a $15 minimum wage and single-payer health care.
• Medicare for All and a $15 minimum wage are popular in purple states across the country.

2- Democrats are not representing the progressivism of their constituents.

• Many Democrats reject policies supported by the general public in their states and districts.
• Ninety-two percent of Democrats in the House represent districts where modeled support for repealing the Hyde Amendment is greater than 55 percent, but only 70 percent of House Democrats support repealing the Hyde Amendment.
• Sixty-seven percent of Democrats in the Senate represent states where modeled support for Medicare for All is greater than 55 percent, but only 33 percent of Senate Democrats support Medicare for All.

You Have To Be Crazy To Expect The Institutional Democratic Party To Be Anything More Than The Lesser Of Two Evils-- Two Really Evil Evils

After the massacre in Las Vegas normal Americans thought it would be the perfect time to push for saner gun policies, not just banning bump stock devices (a ban opposed by the NRA)-- which have no other purpose but to turn legal semi-automatics into mass murder machines as they did in Las Vegas-- but to prevent dangerous and mentally ill people from buying guns and ban military hardware from American streets. But Republicans will have no of it-- and neither will the Democrats' Senate Leader, Chuck Schumer. Schumer is telling other Democrats to ignore "pressure from activist groups that argue the party needs to take a stand given the string of mass shootings across the country." Activists are incensed but Schumer is unmoved. He's thinking about reelecting conservative red state Democrats like John Tester (MT), Joe Manchin (WV), Claire McCaskill (MO), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Joe Donnelly (IN), etc., who, supposedly, will be hurt if Democrats even propose modest legislation that is overwhelmingly popular. Schumer seemed to have bought into the GOP-NRA perspective that banning weapons of mass murder is that same as confiscating everyone's hunting rifles and guns needed for home protection. But, as we mentioned the other day (and most days), there's a reason some people call the party which is supposed to be the vehicle for the legitimate rights of working families, the Democraps. With leaders like Schumer, Hoyer, Crowley, Wassermann Schultz, Emanuel and now even Pelosi, it's too much to expect anything but crap from them.

David Dayen's New Republic piece, The Democrats' Dianne Feinstein Problem this week was a good illustration of the cesspool the DC Democrats are swimming around in. "The 50-year-old president of the California state Senate last week announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate against longtime Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is 84," he wrote. "Like Lieberman, Feinstein occupies the right flank of the Democratic Party, even more so in an era of resistance and progressive resurgence. California’s kooky electoral rules make it likely that Feinstein will face de León in a general election matchup, with similar dynamics to Lieberman vs. Lamont. And every Democrat in the Senate, at a time when they are striving to win back the chamber, will have to answer: Do you support a colleague, or the challenger who best represents the political moment?"

Feinstein’s political instincts were apparent when she loudly supported the death penalty at the 1990 state party convention, drawing a chorus of boos—which she subsequently used in campaign ads to prove her distance from the liberal base. Perhaps no Democrat in the past two decades has been as committed to expanding the national security state than Feinstein (again, like Lieberman). On domestic policy, she supported the Bush tax cuts, permanent normal trade relations with China, and the bill that repealed Glass-Steagall’s financial reforms. While strong on gun safety, women’s rights and the environment, Feinstein has openly courted the center and rejected the left since coming to Washington. Just this year, she told the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco that Donald Trump could mature into a “good president.”

...Progressives are likely to make the Feinstein–de León race into a litmus test, as well they should. Feinstein is clearly too conservative to represent one of the nation’s most liberal states. If Democrats who want to lead the party end up siding with her, they do so at their peril.

The DCCC thinks they're smart-- they're anything but smart-- for running Blue Dogs, New Dems others from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party as if they were real Democrats in districts where Bernie beat Hillary. All that will do is hold down 2018 turnout, killing Democrats up and down the ballot. Leave it to a moron, Ben Ray Lujan, who has asked Rahm Emanuel, the architect of that failed strategy, to teach him how to run the DCCC. Meanwhile, the Establishment's DNC puppet, Tom Perez, now appears to be purging the DNC of Bernie supporters.

A shake-up is underway at the Democratic National Committee as several key longtime officials have lost their posts, exposing a still-raw rift in the party and igniting anger among those in its progressive wing who see retaliation for their opposition to DNC Chairman Tom Perez.

The ousters come ahead of the DNC's first meeting, in Las Vegas, Nevada, since Perez took over as chairman with a pledge this year to unite a party that had become badly divided during the brutal Bernie Sanders-Hillary Clinton 2016 primary race.

Complaints began immediately after party officials saw a list of Perez's appointments to DNC committees and his roster of 75 "at-large" members, who are chosen by the chair.

The removal and demotion of a handful of veteran operatives stood out, as did what critics charge is the over-representation of Clinton-backed members on the Rules and Bylaws Committee, which helps set the terms for the party's presidential primary, though other Sanders and Ellison backers remain represented.

Those who have been pushed out include:

• Ray Buckley, the New Hampshire Democratic chairman and longtime DNC official who ran against Perez for chair before backing Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn. Buckley lost his spots on the Executive Committee and DNC Rules Committee.
• James Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute and prominent Sanders backer, is no longer co-chair of the Resolutions Committee and is off the Executive Committee, a spot he has held since 2001.
• Alice Germond, the party’s longtime former secretary and a vocal Ellison backer, who was removed from her at-large appointment to the DNC.
• Barbra Casbar Siperstein, who supported Ellison and Buckley, was tossed from the Executive Committee.

The moves exposed a rift in the partnership between Perez and his deputy chair, Ellison, who have publicly broadcast their "bromance" since Perez tapped Ellison for the post in a show of unity after their hard-fought race this year for the party's chairmanship.

"I’m concerned about the optics, and I’m concerned about the impact," Zogby said of the changes. "I want to heal the wound of 2016."

Buckley said that while he understands Perez, as chairman, can do as he pleases, "it's all just very disappointing."

Germond has been on the DNC since the 1980s and was a vocal backer of Ellison for DNC chairman.

"It is quite unusual for a former party officer who has been serving on the DNC for forever to just be left out in the cold without even a call from the chairman," Germond said. "So I assumed it had something to do with myself support for Keith."

"I understand that I fought very hard for Keith Ellison. And I understand that to the winners go the spoils," she added.

The DNC denied any retaliation, saying that the changes were an effort to diversify and freshen the party’s leadership and that all the party’s officers had a chance to offer input. They touted new additions like Marisa Richmond, a millennial black transgender activist, and the first Dreamer member, Ellie Perez, to point to the DNC's efforts at diversity.

What's the cutoff point for millennials? Perez's black transgender millennial may actually be black and transgender but she's also 57. What what would you expect from any organization so recently run by Debbie Wassermann Schultz but systematic lies and treachery? And somehow, somehow, somehow... don't ask me how, Perez has made sure lots of scumbag lobbyists and power-brokers, hated by Democratic voters, are joining his army of millennial black transgender activists on the DNC. Jennifer Epstein reported for Bloomberg Politics that "The Democratic Party this week plans to name 75 people including lobbyists and political operatives to leadership posts that come with superdelegate votes at its next presidential convention, potentially aggravating old intraparty tensions as it struggles to confront President Donald Trump." We all just love those super-delegates, right? One, Joanne Dowdell, is even a lobbyist for Fox News.

Party spokesman Michael Tyler [a notorious paid liar who could go to work for the Trump White House tomorrow and never miss a beat] stressed the demographic reach of the at-large nominees, saying they 'reflect the unprecedented diversity of our party’s coalition.' The party is doubling the representation of millennials and Native Americans on the DNC and increasing the number of Puerto Ricans, he said.

The DNC: Crawling From The Wreckage

Many say Obama's first appointment after being elected was his worst appointment ever. That would be Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff and I couldn't argue against the characterization. But, keep in mind that it was Obama who also appointed Debbie Wasserman Schultz to chair the DNC. Wassermann Schultz had tried-- really hard bribes flying-- for the DCCC chair and Pelosi snubbed her by picking the equally worthless Steve Israel for the job. Wasserman Schultz's self-pitying caterwauling was so loud and unceasing that Obama gave her the DNC job just to shut her up. What, after all, could go wrong?

Well, she stunk the place up so bad, she had to be fired but her stench has damaged-- severely damaged-- the core of the organization, perhaps fatally. Establishment hacks go wild when someone reminds them that Wasserman Schultz and her DNC did all they could to fix the primaries for Hillary Clinton, helping the worst possible candidate to win the nomination and, setting in motion a series of events that led to the country's biggest political catastrophe since the Civil War.

Today, the DNC is still a smoldering ruin-- primarily because Obama insisted that his guy, Tom Perez, be the new chair. The Democratic base isn't buying it and the DNC is essentially bankrupt. Michael Sainato wrote last month that "The organization reported that May 2017 was its worst fundraising month since the Iraq War in 2003, and April 2017 was its worst fundraising month since 2009. In May, the DNC also reported that it has $1.9 million in debt. Despite the fact that former Secretary of Labor Tom Perez was recruited by Barack Obama to appease the party’s donors, lobbyists and PACs, even they have refused to prop up the failing brand.

Democratic voters have so far refused to fill the fundraising void left by the party’s corporate and wealthy donors. Tom Perez is a painful reminder that the Democratic establishment has suppressed reforms that would prove to voters that the party is prioritizing their interests. Democratic leadership subverted pro-Sanders DNC chair candidate Congressman Keith Ellison’s candidacy, ignored demands to ban superdelegates, and failed to re-enact the ban on lobbyist and PAC donations that Debbie Wasserman Schultz lifted to enable Hillary Clinton to keep up with Sen. Bernie Sanders’ fundraising. Perez’s Unity Tour with Bernie Sanders backfired; he was met with boos at several of the tour’s stops and supporters showed up in favor of Sanders-- not the DNC.

Every opportunity for reform has been shut down by leadership, and Clinton campaign officials have been rewarded with leadership positions in the party or cushy mainstream media gigs. Facing calls for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to step down, top Democrats have made excuses for her unpopularity and the fact that Democratic congressional candidates lose when opponents say the candidate is her ally. Perez gave Keith Ellison a fabricated position as deputy DNC chair, which Ellison has used to try to manufacture party unity while the party’s establishment remains in power. In May 2017, former Emily’s List Executive Director and Clinton supporter Jess O’Connell was appointed to DNC CEO. Even though former DNC Interim Chair Donna Brazile left resigned in embarrassment after leaked emails revealed she violated the DNC Charter to help the Clinton campaign, she has remained on the organization’s payroll and the DNC sent out two separate fundraising emails from her in July.

Instead of acknowledging that reform is needed to change the direction of the party, Democratic leadership is doubling down on failed strategies and rallying behind unpopular, failing leadership. The DNC has tried to enthuse its supporters with marketing campaigns and slogans, but its efforts have fallen short.

...The DNC has failed to salvage its reputation after former Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned in disgrace for rigging the Democratic presidential primaries. The DNC needs a drastic overhaul to recoup its losses. The party needs to stop relying on Trump’s ineptitude and develop clear messaging of its own. Unfortunately, the current Democratic leadership isn’t capable of mitigating failure in this respect.

This kind of thing is great for late night TV ratings but if this is what the Democratic Party is counting on to wingback Congress-- this and a slate of sub-par "ex"-Republican self funders and Blue Dogs as candidates-- they won't. Voters don't care about this and they don't care about the careers of self-absorbed politicians; they care about what the politicians offer them.

Which GOP Garbage Will Be Swept Away In The Great Wave?

The wave that's forming up now could well be an anti-Trump/anti-Ryan tsunami by 2018. When Republicans say there are 18 months and a lot can change they are sweating under their suit jackets because they know the intensity of voters' reaction against the Republican agenda is intensifying, not dissipating. It won't just be Republicans in the blue districts that the DCCC has botched who get decimated but Republicans in districts who represent districts with R+4 and R+5 PVIs, seats that are normally considered "safe." I was struck by a conversation between Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley and Chris Hayes Tuesday night. Merkley, who makes a point of visiting every county in his state, including the blood red ones where he's lost massively-- like Wallowa (34.4%), Lake (30.9%), Grant (32.8%), Malheur (27.6%), Linn (42.5%) and Klamath (36.3%). Merkley recalled that in the past he has been booed and heckled in some of these rural counties where people get their information from Hate Talk Radio and Fox. This year, he said, he's walking into town halls and getting standing ovations. "They are looking for champions to stop this craziness, this destructive set of strategies that trump is putting forward." Watch the last couple of minutes of the video above.

While Hayes and Merkley were chatting on MSNBC results were starting to come in from special election to fill red legislative seats in New Hampshire and on Long Island-- results that help explain why it isn't just Republicans like Carlos Curbelo (FL), John Katko (NY) and Erik Paulsen (MN) in districts Hillary won, but also Republicans like Steve Chabot (OH), Mark Amodei (NV), Steve King (IA), Tom Reed (NY) and Paul Ryan (WI), who the DCCC traditionally declares too red to contest, who are in trouble.

Both the legislative districts last night were won by Romney and Trump. The Long Island district-- right in the heart of Peter King's congressional district (Massapequa, West Babylon, Babylon Village, West Islip and West Bay Shore)-- had gone to Trump with a massive 23 point margin over Hillary! Last night, progressive activist, Berniecrat Christine Pellegrino defeated Conservative sociopath Tom Gargiulo 5,590 (57.89%) to 4,049 (41.93%). In a victory statement Pellegrino made it clear she isn't just another garden variety Democratic hack politician. "This is a thunderbolt of resistance," she said. "This is for all the supporters and voters who understand a strong progressive agenda is the way forward in New York." She had been a Bernie delegate to the Democratic National Convention last year.

In New Hampshire, GOP state Rep. Harold Parker had resigned to join the Sununu administration, triggering the special election in Wolfeboro (Carroll County). Democrat Edith DesMarais defeated Republican Matthew Plache 811 (52%) to 755 (48%), the first time a Democrat had ever won the seat.

Every time Ryan and Trump do something to further undermine working families, the enthusiasm to defeat Republicans ticks up, even in "safe" Republican districts like these two. Once again, the DCCC has adamantly refused to target Steve Israel-crony Peter King. But there is no doubt there will be a grassroots candidate running against him in 2018, with or without assistance from Pelosi and her clueless DC Democrats.

The most important lesson to remember from last night is that these candidates do NOT fit the DCCC candidate profile which results in the recruitment of loser candidates who are wealthy self-funders and Republican-lite conservatives. This morning DNC chair Tom Perez may have been happy but he wasn't particularly inspiring in his remarks: "To rebuild the Democratic party, we need to win from the school board to the Senate. No seat is too small, and to be competitive we have to get back to the basics of grassroots organizing as a party. Last night, two Democratic women won upset victories in down-ballot races where Trump won by a large margin, and held on to a key Democratic seat in New York. They did it by talking to every voter. As President Trump and Republicans across the nation push budgets and policies that help the rich get richer at the expense of the rest of America, Democrats are focused on lifting people up and on the issues that matter to working families. As we saw last night, the Democratic Party continues to turn this moment into a movement and this movement into votes." He should have let Keith make the statement.

Obama and the Perez Election — Are the Democrats Trying to Fail?

Bernie Sanders: "Are they going to welcome into the Democratic Party the working class in this country and young people, or is it going to be party of the upper middle class and the cocktail crowd and the heavy campaign contributors? Which to a significant degree it is right now."

by Gaius Publius

[Obama] called DNC members himself [on behalf of Tom Perez], and had aides including confidante Valerie Jarrett, former political director David Simas and his White House director of political engagement Paulette Aniskoff working members by phone through the votes on Saturday afternoon.

—Politico

I recently wrote about the recent race for DNC Chair between Sanders-endorsed and CPC co-chair Keith Ellison on the one hand, and Obama- and Clinton-wing-endorsed Tom Perez on the other (see "Field Notes from the Battle Within the Democratic Party"), and concluded the following.

Four points:

• Whatever his other merits, there's no question that Tom Perez is running at the behest of the Obama wing of the party as a counter to Keith Ellison, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

• There's also no question, whatever the organizational merits of any of the DNC Chair candidates, that for medium- to low-information voters this is seen as a proxy battle between the Obama-Clinton wing and the Sanders wing of the Party (search here for the phrase "proxy battle").

• And there's absolutely no question that one of Sanders' big issues in the primary was (a) the role of money in politics, and (b) the role of money in the way the Party does business. Needless to say, that message resonated with a great many supporters who had no interest in seeing the Party's current leadership continue. That was not only true for all Sanders voters in the primary; it was true for many Sanders supporters who failed to turn out in general election as well.

• Which means, finally, that if Perez wins this contest, those medium- to low-information voters may well think the Party hasn't changed much after all, and just stay home again in 2018.

After all, don't you think that if every Sanders supporter had pulled the lever for Clinton, she'd have won in a landslide instead of lost in a squeaker?

Whatever the merits of the two leading candidates, Perez and Ellison, with respect to this position, it could not be more obvious that the Party establishment, including and especially its outgoing, still-popular, eight-year president, really really wanted Perez to win.

Why?

Control, the Appearance of Control...

For whatever combination of reasons, the need of many long-time Party insiders, from the county level up through the national level, for control of the Party is extremely great. This may be in part due to the nature of humans to protect territory, especially long-held territory. The local clique that has always run Cub Pack 257 our of your local church, for example, may resent like hell the influx of a group of new parents who start thinking, "Why are you running things this way?"

(And imagine their irritation if those parents discovered that much of their Cub Pack money went into the hands of a "preferred supplier" of equipment who happened to be married to the Assistant Pack Leader?)

Of course, organizations don't always end up filled with insiders holding tight to power for its own sake. My local HOA, for example, went in two years from having a self-protective, angry, clique-led insider club to a welcoming, "let's hear from the owners" inclusive leadership group — but only after a series of electoral coups took out the lower-level insiders and finally, the board chair himself (who suddenly discovered a need to move to a penthouse in a different city).

But it happens often enough, and it's certainly — and for those with eyes, obviously — happening inside the modern (post-Reagan) Democratic Party. There may be any number of causes, but the result is the same.

Control of the Party. However it came about — I have a private opinion on the source of this need for dominance — starting with Bill Clinton in the 1990s, when the Democratic Party reshaped itself in response to 12 years of Republican rule, hatred by establishment Democrats directed at those to their left grew fierce. It also became quite noticeable.

For example, Matthew Karp recently wrote at Jacobin:

Two stark facts have defined the 2016 Democratic primary since the campaign began last spring. The first is the remarkable success of self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders, who appears to be mobilizing far more support from lower-income voters than any other Democratic underdog in a generation.

The second fact, evident since the beginning of the campaign but even more visible in recent weeks, is the fierce determination of the Democratic Party elite to nominate Hillary Clinton.

With both Sanders and Donald Trump surging in the polls, many observers have framed the 2016 race as one that pits insurgent populist campaigns against consolidated party establishments. It’s easy for this kind of insider versus outsider analysis to become sloppy and conspiratorial. In fact, the contours of “the establishment” are often difficult to define, and a closer examination frequently reveals several different elite factions facing off against each other.

Yet there is abundant evidence that the Democratic Party elite has thrown its full weight behind Clinton — and against Sanders — in ways that surpass any other primary campaign in recent history.

I won't comment here about the reasons for this animus, but I will state it as a fact. "Third way," establishment Democrats, by and large, hate "the left." Jesse Jackson and his supporters used to be the incarnation of those "to the left," which explains and accounts perfectly for Bill Clinton's cruel and public Sister Souljah moment.

Today, Sanders and his supporters are the current incarnation. Establishment Democrats' need to keep control of the Party — to keep the rest of the Party in line and under their thumb — is still clearly one of their guiding principles.

Top Clinton fundraiser who whipped votes for Perez says Ellison was blocked to stop the left https://t.co/juxHQxjeoY pic.twitter.com/O8Kq2X6flK

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) February 27, 2017

The Appearance of Control. Once a leadership elite seeks that degree of control  — as linked just above, Chuck Schumer reportedly preferred to see Republican Pat Toomey re-elected to the Senate than let someone as independent as Democrat Joe Sestak into the insider club he's in charge of — the appearance of control is also critical. (It should be noted that Schumer was an early supporter of Ellison's candidacy.)

Much of the press commentary about this race, in attempting minimize the split between the Sanders wing and the Obama-Clinton wing, saw either of the choices, Perez and Ellison, as good ones for the Party. For example, US News concluded prior to the voting, "Ellison would likely serve the party well, and his Muslim faith would serve as clear symbolic counterpoint to the policies of the Trump administration. However, the party should resist the factionalizing between Sanders and Clinton supporters and focus on the candidate who can build the infrastructure, organization, messaging and fundraising networks to make the party more competitive across the 50 states." Nathan Robinson writes much the same in the piece linked near the end. Neither is alone in this view.

So if these two candidates were presented as roughly equivalent (note the word "presented"), why did winning DNC Chair matter so much that Barack Obama, personally, whipped for Perez? Two of the three answers are obvious — not only did control of the DNC matter to him and his fellow insiders, but the appearance of control matters as well.

Put crudely, a machine boss can't be seen to lose, even when next to nothing is actually lost. To those for whom power matters very very much, they can't even seem to be losing it.

...And Money

Which bring us to the final point, the third reason Obama-insiders wanted Perez to beat Ellison for this position. It's not just about control. There are real dollars at stake if power within the DNC, the smaller than 500-member insiders club, passes into the "wrong hands."

Remember my Cub Scout example above, the one about the "preferred supplier" of equipment being the spouse of a pack leader? What if that "preferred supplier" derived all of his income from dealings with the scouts? How motivated would his pack leader-spouse be to keep complaining parents, all of them, off of her pack committee? The answer is obvious. Very motivated.

Nomiki Konst, investigative reporter for TYT Network, who covered the DNC Chair contest closely (see also here), had this to say via email after the election (my emphasis):

I keep saying to any reporters who plan on writing about Bernie vs Hillary/Obama Wing proxy fight that this was actually a proxy battle between Unity democrats vs. HRC & OFA elitists.

Keith had so many establishment Dems and progressives. Unions and even most state party chairs.

Perez still won because he had elitists Dems -- the biggest bundlers and political operatives, as well as the president and VP, working on his behalf.

Remember, Perez had barely any union endorsements, a couple state Party Chair endorsements, did not have the minority leader of the senate and absolutely NO Sanders supporter endorsements.

And he still won by 35 votes.

"The biggest bundlers and political operatives" means, first, the bag men and women ("bundlers," collectors of the millions that come into Party hands) and, second, those to whom that money goes ("operatives," consultants, pollsters, campaign advisors and very well paid media buyers). "Bundlers and operatives" are, in other words, the suppliers and recipients of what, in a presidential election year, amounts to billions of dollars spent per candidate, and all the political favors big money purchases for its ultimate sources.

Konst highlighted that problem in a striking interview with Perez just a few days before the election (written up here):

Konst: Aren't conflicts of interest a concern? If you're going to change the culture on the ground, how do you change it without banning these conflicts of interest who want to keep the party bloated?

Perez: When you say that someone wants to keep the party bloated, I don't know. The people that I talk to want to build a Democratic Party that works for everyone. ... The folks that are running the Unity Commission, there's going to be a lot of different perspectives that are put to bear — that's what we want!

Konst (incredulous): Including consultants?

Perez: We have a big tent in the Democratic Party....

Keeping the party "bloated" means keeping corporate money, hedge fund money and cash from very high wealth individuals (example, Haim Saban) flowing freely into Party hands so it can just as freely pass out to the hands of its friends — who in turn help Party insiders stay in power.

Few will write the story this way — Konst is one of the exceptions — but following the "flow of funds" explains much of what's behind the fierce determination of Democratic insiders (that is, the 447 women and men who actually vote for DNC Chair) to keep things just as Nancy Pelosi wants — the way they are right now, thank you very much.

The miracle is that Ellison got even 200 votes at all, and lost by only 35. Still, despite the support of "unions and most state party chairs," he lost by a significant margin. Ellison gained zero votes from the crowded first round of voting to the two-person second round, while Perez sprinted to a win.

What's Next for Democrats?

What's next for Democrats deserves an essay by itself. But needless to say, an increase in #DemExit is one of the anticipated options, even by several of the delegates Konst interview on the floor at the DNC meeting.

A worst-case scenario is painted below. First, consider this from NBC News on whether the public views insiders of either party favorably, (my emphasis): "One sentiment that unites the fractured nation is fury at the establishment in Washington. Fully 86 percent of those surveyed said they believe that a small group in D.C. has "reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. That includes 88 percent of Republicans and 85 percent of Democrats."

Then consider how that broad unpopularity of insiders may intersect with this DNC election. Of that, Nathan Robinson, editor at Current Affairs, writes, "By failing to appoint Keith Ellison to chair the DNC, Democrats have written their suicide note."

Here's just a taste of the longer piece:

They Must Be Trying to Fail

At this point, one has to conclude that the national Democratic Party has a death wish. ...

[I]t was incredibly important that the Democratic Party take some steps to indicate that it cared about progressives. Since the election, it hadn’t been doing a very good job of this. (Nancy Pelosi’s insistence that nothing needed to change, and her rebuke to a young leftist, demonstrated the prevailing attitude.) Appointing Keith Ellison to chair the DNC was the perfect opportunity. After all, chairing the DNC is a pretty minor role. It would mostly have been a gesture of friendship and unity, showing that even after the catastrophic mistake of ignoring leftist warnings not to run Clinton, the party was capable of valuing its leftmost members.

But no. Instead of granting the tiniest possible concession, the party has decided to affirm precisely what Nancy Pelosi has indicated: democratic socialists and social democrats don’t belong in the party. It’s not for them. What the party does depends on what billionaire donors want it to do.

This is politically suicidal.

As if that wasn't enough, Robinson adds, "Now, progressives in the party are further alienated. Good luck getting them to vote for Democrats. ... The progressives needed to receive some kind of gesture. And they have received one: an enormous middle finger." Indeed.

Your Bottom Line

Consider these facts:

1. It clearly mattered very much, to Obama, to high Party insiders, and to the support ecosystem around them, that no one representing the Sanders camp be allowed real power in the Party. (Sanders himself is in charge of "outreach" and reports in that capacity to Chuck Schumer.) Even when the role is highly visible but "minor." The DNC Chair does have a modicum of control, unlike those who hold "messaging" roles, but even that much control won't be allowed.

2. Yet all you hear from Democrats, correctly in my view, is "Defeating Trump is Job One." The nation, indeed the world, is at a crossroads — on the climate front, a crossroads of world-historical proportions.

3. Yet there's an obvious disconnect between the Party's rhetoric and its actions. Is control of the Party more important than bringing in the groundswell of popular support needed to defeat the Republicans in all branches of government?

4. And people do notice that disconnect, more now than before. Some might even call it, not a disconnect, but a contradiction. Or hypocrisy. Some, those who couldn't pull the lever for Clinton, may even call it that at election time.

5. If so — if the insider-controlled Democratic Party puts its own need for party dominance over the needs of the nation — the nation and indeed the world will suffer greatly. Will insider Democrats suffer to the same degree as the rest of us? If they think they're getting what they want, no.

So a question for those who gaze into the future. None of this dire predicting is certain, but it's certainly possible. Will there be a price, for the Party and the world, attached to adherence to power at any price? If there is, establishment Democrats sure are flirting with it.

Again.

Scheduling note: My comments appear regularly here on Monday and Thursday, or Tuesday and Thursday if Monday is a holiday.

GP
    

Saturday The DNC Finally Picks A New Chair-- Let's Pray It's Not Another Disaster Like Wasserman Schultz

The DNC charter says a new chairman has to be elected before March 1st. Saturday is as close to the deadline as they could have gotten. It's been a long race, primarily between the progressive wing represented by Keith Ellison and the status quo establishment wing represented by Tom Perez. Obama has been quietly making calls on Perez's behalf. The energy of the Resistance in fully behind Ellison.

This week New Hampshire Democratic Chairman Ray Buckley-- also the chairman of the Democratic chairmen organization-- dropped out of the race and, significantly, endorsed Ellison. That's a very big deal that the media largely missed. This is what he told his supporters when he endorsed Keith:

We need to reform the DNC and strengthen our state parties if we are to win back power. After helping win 11 of the last 13 statewide elections in New Hampshire-- and electing the nation's first all-female, all-Democratic congressional delegation-- I wanted to help lead this national effort.

Many of the 10 of us who were running spoke about these issues. But Keith's track record of winning elections, increasing voter turnout in Minnesota, being an organizer, partnering with the progressive grassroots, and helping to change the national debate in a way that favors Democrats all stood out.

I have 100% confidence that with Keith Ellison as our Chair, the Democratic National Committee is going to become much more accountable and that the grassroots will be the top priority of the DNC. With Keith's leadership, we will start winning again.

...Keith Ellison also knows elections are not won and lost in the DC beltway, but on the ground across the country. We both believe in providing support and investing resources to help every state party succeed, and organizing in every county across this great country.

There are only 447 voting DNC members. As I've talked to the DNC membership, it's clear that nobody has all the votes they need yet. It's also clear Keith has widespread and growing support.

Yesterday John Lewis, one of the moral centers of the Democratic Party, once again threw his weight behind Ellison (see video above). And remember, Lewis was not just a supporter of Hillary Clinton's campaign, he went out of his way to disparage Bernie during the primary. His endorsement of Keith is an important step in healing the gap between progressives and a political establishment that blundered and failed and brought us the disaster of Trump and Trumpism.

"We need his leadership. We need his vision. We need his commitment and his dedication now more than ever before," said Lewis in his announcement. "Keith wants our party not just to wait until the next election but to organize now for the long haul."

Yesterday many of us got an e-mail from Michael Moore under the subject line: Do These 10 Things, and Trump Will Be Toast. They were all good. #6 is especially relevant to this post though:

TAKE OVER THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY: The old guard of the party has twice in 16 years presided over the majority of Americans electing the Democrat to the White House-- only for us all to see the losing Republican inaugurated as president. How is it that we have won the popular vote in SIX OF THE LAST SEVEN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS-- the Republicans have only won ONCE since 1988-- and yet, we hold NO power in any branch of government?! That, plus losing 1,000 local seats in this election that the Dems use to hold-- plus watching many Dems in Congress unwilling to stand up to Trump ― PLEASE, the old leadership has to go. God love ‘em for their contributions in the past, but if we don’t enact a radical overhaul right now, we are doomed as far as having a true opposition party during the Trump era. And that, more than anything, will help to usher in the vice-grip of a totalitarian culture.

You must do two things:

Let the DNC know that THIS SATURDAY, February 25th, the Democratic National Committee MUST elect reform and progressive candidate, Congressman Keith Ellison, as the new DNC chair. Keith is a former community organizer, the first Muslim elected to Congress, and a key backer of Bernie Sanders. He not only has Bernie’s support-- and mine-- but he’s also backed by Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, Gloria Steinem, John Lewis and many others. Sign his petition of support at www.keithfordnc.org/howyoucanhelp. Let the DNC know how you feel.

And locally, you need to start attending your county Democratic meetings. If possible, organize your friends and others and take over your local Dem organization. More on this at a later date.

The DNC chairman's race worked to benefit the Resistance. Can you imagine if a universally despised piece of shit like Wasserman Schultz was still chair and attempted to make herself part of the grassroots movement? It would have died an ugly death. Keith is largely seen as a part of the Resistance and can help channel its energy into the 2018 electoral cycle. I doubt many people would be interested in Perez's attempts to do something similar. Yesterday, Bill McKibben addressed concerns about the party and the Resistance in an OpEd for The Guardian. "If Keith Ellison wins," he asserts, "the party might just be able to win back its lost credibility."

The resistance is doing as well as anyone could realistically hope. Deprived by the elections of any institutional power, we’ve marched in record numbers with courage and wit. That’s helped journalists to find their footing, and President Needy’s poll numbers have begun to tumble. But only a crazy person could keep up this plate-spinning pace for long. Since he clearly will, those fighting Trump need to find a fortress to call home-- a place to find shelter in and from which to sally forth.

One of those fortresses may be the Democratic party, depending on how this weekend’s vote for a new DNC chairman comes out.

There are a number of candidates, but two appear to be in the lead: former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, and Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison. Both, by all accounts, are good guys, and not greatly divided by ideology. But they clearly represent the two wings of the party.

Perez is from the ruling wing, the institutional party. He’s closely identified with Barack Obama, who he worked for, and Hillary Clinton, who he supported. Ellison is from the movement wing. He’s closely identified with Bernie Sanders. Indeed, he was one of the few members of Congress who actively supported his insurgent candidacy.

The choice is actually about the best way to unite the opposition to Trump, at least for the purposes of winning elections.

We don’t need the Democratic party to tell us what to think-- we have vibrant and engaged movements out there that are reshaping public opinion every day, in the airports and on Facebook. Black Lives Matter leads our movement intellectually in a way that the Democratic Party never will. But we may need the Democratic party for the fairly limited purpose of winning elections and hence consolidating power. What would best serve that utilitarian need?

The answer, I think, is pretty clear.

Ellison-- and by extension the movements he represents-- offers the party the items it lacks and needs. Credibility, for one. You could (and this is the argument of Perez and his establishment team) begin in the middle, with as unthreatening and centrist a party as possible, and then reach out to the various movements and try to bring them on board. But I doubt that will work.

The deep-seated anger at the elites, who have compromised serious principle time and time again, is simply too strong. If the polls are to be believed, most Americans don’t trust any of Washington’s power centers, the DNC included. No one looks at Steny Hoyer and thinks ‘what barricade can I die on?’ The last chair of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, was the embodiment of this kind of non-principled power-based thinking, and she did tremendous damage. [Editor's note: She'll still have to be dealt with for the DNC to ever regain any kind of confidence form grassroots progressives.]

And if that’s true of Americans in general, it’s doubly true of young people. In fact, more than doubly: the single most remarkable statistics of the 2016 election season were the four- and five- and six-to-one margins by which Bernie won young voters.

That he was able to overcome that inherent distrust means he may be able to do the party a great service, and deliver it a generation of voters who are not otherwise inclined to affiliate with institutions of any sort. Ellison is the bridge to that world, and it would be political malpractice to draw it up. But he’s also the bridge to the world of movements, which supply the passion and spirit and creativity that the DNC requires at least as badly as it needs credibility.

A typical Ellison supporter is someone like Jane Kleeb, the whirlwind Nebraska organizer who spearheaded much of the fight against the Keystone Pipeline, and is now assembling a coalition of farmers, ranchers, and other unlikely activists across the Midwest to fight fossil fuel infrastructure and demand renewable energy.

Kleeb’s just been elected chair of Nebraska’s Democratic party, giving it a transfusion of organizing energy that had been lacking-- if you want to compete in the heartland, she’s the kind of person you need.

These folks are serious about winning elections-- Ellison himself has been a remarkably successful campaigner in his Minnesota base, expanding his margins year after year and lending effective support to the rest of the ticket. And they know how to raise money, one of the key jobs of a party: Bernie’s 27-bucks-at-a-time model is clearly the future of political fundraising, a welcome change from simply finding plutocrats or shaking down Wall Street.

Ellison is in a very real way the safe choice. If the institutionalists are put in charge, then much of the DNC’s energy in the years to come will be spent trying to deal with people who distrust institutions. But with Bernie’s implicit backing, Ellison can short-circuit that conversation and simply get to work.

Few people will accuse the black Muslim Berniecrat of being an apparatchik. And since he’s simultaneously a modest Midwestern track-and-field coach, he’ll be able to get a message across to the broad middle.

I don’t know whether that will be enough to save the Democratic party. We’re in an era of rapid deinstitutionalization-- our political parties may just become hollow shells that cannot compete against insurgent candidates like Bernie (who was an Independent most of his career).

But there are, unfortunately, strong forces in the Constitution that favor a two-party system. So even if parties are not as important as protest, it’s still worth seeing if they can serve a useful role going forward. Keith Ellison is the best chance of finding out.

Moments after McKibben's OpEd was published, Steve Phillips' powerful-- and contrarian-- endorsement of Ellison hit the NY Times, urging DNC voters to "choose a leader who will resist the pressure to pursue the wrong white people. Hundreds of articles have been written about the imperative of attracting more support from white working-class voters who supported Barack Obama in 2012 but then bolted to back Donald J. Trump. The far more important-- and largely untold-- story of the election is that more Obama voters defected to third- and fourth-party candidates than the number who supported Mr. Trump. That is the white flight that should most concern the next D.N.C. chairman, because those voters make up a more promising way to reclaim the White House. The way to win them back is by being more progressive, not less. To be clear, all white voters matter. But Democrats must make tough, data-driven decisions about how to prioritize their work. Right now, too many are using bad math and faulty logic to push the party to chase the wrong segment of white voters. For example, Guy Cecil, who spent nearly $200 million as head of the progressive “super PAC” Priorities USA, urged the party to rebuild trust with the “millions of white voters who voted for President Obama and Donald Trump.” The math underlying that conclusion is incorrect (Mr. Trump picked up not “millions,” but only 784,000 white votes in the 10 battleground states he won by single digits). And it misses the bigger-- and more fixable-- problem of white Democratic defections to third- and fourth-party candidates."

Hillary Clinton lost the decisive states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan by 77,744 votes; the number of Democratic votes dropped significantly from 2012 levels, and the Republican total increased by about 440,000 votes. The third- and fourth-party surge, however, was larger than the Republican growth, with 503,000 more people choosing the Libertarian or the Green candidate than had done so in 2012. When you look at the white vote in those states, the picture is even more stark.

In Wisconsin, according to the exit poll data, Mrs. Clinton received 193,000 fewer white votes than Mr. Obama received in 2012, but Mr. Trump’s white total increased over Mitt Romney’s by just 9,000 votes. So where did the other 184,000 Wisconsin whites go? A majority went to third and fourth parties, which, together, received 100,000 more white votes than they did in 2012.

In Michigan, where 75 percent of the voters were white, Mrs. Clinton received about 295,000 fewer votes than Mr. Obama did, but the Republican total increased by just 164,000 votes. The ranks of those voting third and fourth party leapt to more than 250,000 last year from about 51,000 in 2012, and Mrs. Clinton fell short by just 10,704 votes.

In Pennsylvania, the Democrats’ problem was not with white voters, but with African-Americans. Mrs. Clinton actually improved on the Democratic 2012 results with whites, but over 130,000 unenthused black voters stayed home, and she lost by about 44,000 votes.

If Democrats had stemmed the defections of white voters to the Libertarian or Green Parties, they would have won Michigan and Wisconsin, and had they also inspired African-Americans in Pennsylvania, Mrs. Clinton would be president.

If progressive whites are defecting because they are uninspired by Democrats, moving further to the right will only deepen their disillusionment. But if the next D.N.C. chairman can win them back, the country’s demographic trends will tilt the field in Democrats’ favor. As Mrs. Clinton’s popular vote margin showed, there is still a new American majority made up of a meaningful minority of whites and an overwhelming majority of minorities. Not only is there little evidence that Democrats can do significantly better with those white working-class voters who are susceptible to messages laced with racism and sexism, but that sector of the electorate will continue to shrink in the coming years. Nearly half of all Democratic votes (46 percent) were not white in 2016, and over the next four years, 10 million more people of color will be added to the population, as compared with just 1.5 million whites.

Keith Ellison, a D.N.C. chairman candidate, has a proven record of engaging core Democratic voters rather than chasing the elusive conservative whites, and the party would be in good hands under his stewardship. (Thomas E. Perez, the former labor secretary, has less electoral history, but his reliance on political superstars such as the strategist Emmy Ruiz, who delivered victories for Democrats in Nevada and Colorado, is encouraging.)

Whoever prevails as chairman must resist the pressure to follow an uninformed and ill-fated quest for winning over conservative white working-class voters in the Midwest. The solution for Democrats is not to chase Trump defectors. The path to victory involves reinspiring those whites who drifted to third-party candidates and then focusing on the ample opportunities in the Southwest and the South.

Mrs. Clinton came closer to winning Texas than she did Iowa. She fared better in Arizona, Georgia and Florida than she did in the traditional battleground state of Ohio. The electoral action for Democrats may have once been in the Rust Belt, but it’s now moving west and south.