There are dozens
A Newsweek headline on Saturday caught my attention:
Democratic 2024 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson compared the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Florida Democratic Party to the now defunct Soviet Union, telling Newsweek on Saturday that their actions ahead of the primaries are “essentially authoritarian.”
Williamson, along with fellow Democratic contenders Cenk Uygur, a political commentator and creator of the The Young Turks, and Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, has slammed the Florida Democratic Party’s decision to not include their names on the primary ballot. Instead, Democratic voters in the southern state will only see Biden’s name listed—unless the decision is reversed.
In an earlier story, Newsweek reminded readers that Uyger is ineligible to serve as president. But that’s an aside. As for the Florida Democratic Party, it’s been a mess for some time. Not that we can talk here in North Carolina where Democrats in 2022 opposed Green Party recognition. Unwisely, I think. I hope that’s changed.
As for Democrats nationally and the DNC, let’s review. There is no The Democrats (from 2020):
One of the leaders of North Carolina’s Bernie Sanders delegation to the 2016 national convention in Philadelphia called to say he’d just come out of his first caucus meeting with the convention’s 57 delegations.
Fifty-seven? Right. Fifty states, the territories, the District of Columbia, and Democrats Abroad. As often as critics condemn the Democratic Party, the call brought home that there is no The Democrats. There are 57 party organizations that trickled into the union over nearly two centuries, each with its own charter and bylaws, local history, and local languages and customs (not all of them European). The Democratic National Committee may organize the quadrennial convention and administer the national voter file, but it is not the One Ring that rules them all. Chairman Tom Perez runs the DNC. He does not run the party.
Beyond those 57 delegations are several other major players pursuing independent agendas.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) recruits and raises money for state legislative candidates.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) recruits and raises money for congressional candidates, including for reelecting its congressional incumbents.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) recruits and raises money for U.S. Senate candidates, including for reelecting its Senate incumbents.
See a pattern?
Guess what the Democratic National Committee’s primary job is? And it’s not running the other 60 organizations. That it does is an internet rumor, an urban legend.
That’s not to say that a lot of thinking among the old boys in many of those groups is not medieval (and defensive when it needs to be aggressive). But changing that won’t happen by changing the top. Change happens from the bottom up.
FYI.