What will the Republicans say?
By Tom Sullivan
D.R. Tucker at Washington Monthly‘s Political Animal Blog believes the election for DNC chair on February 25 in Atlanta may have just tipped:
Did former Vice President Joe Biden just do a favor for Rep. Keith Ellison?
Biden’s endorsement of former Labor Secretary Thomas Perez to become the next chair of the Democratic National Committee may have provided an unintentional boost to Ellison’s hopes to defeat Perez. Ellison’s backers have been promulgating the notion that Perez is an “establishment” hack who just can’t wait to betray progressives in favor of political insiders; Biden’s formal support of Perez could well destroy the former Justice Department official’s hopes to succeed Debbie Wasserman Schultz by further energizing Ellison’s already-passionate support base.
Either man could do the job, Tucker believes. What concerns me most is the ability of the next chair to organize, not just fund raise. Whether either has the organizing chops I want to see is an open question. Democrats with any sense will get behind whichever candidate wins and, as Tucker urges, not run off to join a circular firing squad. Both the country and the world are at stake. Fighting Republicans will be hard enough without Democrats fighting each other:
The next chair of the DNC will have an enormous task, far harder than the challenge Howard Dean faced when he became DNC head in 2005. The power of right-wing propaganda is far stronger than it was a dozen years ago. Citizens United wasn’t a factor back then. Mainstream-media false balance is arguably even worse now than it was when the Fourth Estate aided and abetted the invasion of Iraq.
One thing I’m not worried about at all is what Republicans might say about the next chair. For years, skittish, old-school Democrats have clutched their pearls over what attacks Republicans might launch against this or that Democratic candidate, always preferring the “safer” choice. That lack of guts is a big reason they are where they are. A U.S. Senate candidate once told me to my face that the DSCC (Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee) supporting him in the Democratic primary had assured him that his Bronze Star from Iraq would trump anything the Republicans could throw at him. That told me all I needed to know about his naivete and theirs. (He never even cleared the primary.) Tucker perhaps agrees, saying either Ellison or Perez will “be greeted by the usual slurs and sarcasm” from the conservative media machine.
Over the weekend, DNC members met in Detroit at Wayne State University to consider next steps. The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel was there and shot video of front-runners for chair, Ellison and Perez.
Keith Ellison at the Detroit DNC meeting
Perezmentum
I’m not the U.S. Park Service, but it appears that Ellison drew the bigger, more enthusiastic crowd. Not that I have any Trump tweets to back that up.