It’s another Sunday, so for those who tune in, welcome to a diary discussing the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic campaign. If you’ve missed out, you can catch up any time: Just visit our group or follow the Nuts & Bolts Guide. Every week I try to tackle issues I’ve been asked about. With the help of other campaign workers and notes, we address how to improve and build better campaigns, or explain issues that impact our party.
With the election behind us, and a new year beginning, the national party begins to think about where to go next. The DNC will conduct an election for DNC party chairmanship, Vice Chairs, and other officers. Until 2017, this election was largely a formality. While anyone could run, the selection of a president-elect or an overwhelming candidate determined the leadership of the Democratic National Committee. It is widely assumed that Jaime Harrison will be the next Democratic National Committee chairman, though there will be at least one other candidate — Sam Ronan, a candidate eliminated on the first round in the last election with no support — Harrison isn’t just the front runner, he is the right candidate at this time. Winning the presidency certainly will be a help for the national party, but the results in state legislators and the US house were less than could be desired. Harrison’s background provides him the insight to know where to go next in building a party of the future.
Widespread support
Jaime Harrison’s position as a candidate to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee has widespread support. With letters circulating from the members to public support by representatives, most find Harrison to be the choice that makes the most sense to the party moving forward. There are a lot of reasons for that, but most crucial to many is that Harrison, as a former state party chair, as a keen understanding of the value of state legislatures, as well as the value of state party survival.
Harrison has been seen as a bridge that has been a fair broker to both progressives and more moderates within the party, and kept an open mind to proposals while never dismissing any possibility of helping those who wanted to have a voice within the party.
In 2017, I interviewed Jaime Harrison in his original run for party Chair. During that interview with Harrison, he provided two quotes I found most compelling:
Like many chair candidates, Harrison pointed out that one of the great problems we face is one of culture and expectations. “The DNC cannot be the Democratic National Committee to Elect a President, we have to be the Democratic National Committee to elect all Democrats, at every level.”
”Our party sometimes seems as though it hibernates, then we come out and beg for votes every other year and go away. We need an ongoing conversation to build the candidates and party leaders of tomorrow.”
This is the issue that many in our party feel is among the most crucial. That outside of presidential elections or close to election day, the Democratic Party feels absent, without an ongoing conversation with the public to help spread the message into all communities. Harrison’s understanding of that reflects a new future for the Democratic party — one where we will fight to hold on to a state like Georgia and work to see about inroads elsewhere. This has to be the true party of the future.
There are issues ahead that need to be resolved.
While Harrison has the benefit of leaping in with a new Democratic president, there are issues the party will face immediately, issues where members have voiced concerns and hope that a Harrison will pay heed. Within the Democratic National Committee, the chair selects 75 “At Large” members. These members have typically come from inside the beltway, a large swath from the eastern coast and no real reflection of geographic diversity. In that same vein, this group is built to help add to our overall party diversity and lead to growth. The unfortunate death of one of our own in Frank Lamere, combined with the loss of other DNC members who were not re-elected means that Harrison will need to select more Native Americans by my count to keep the Native American Caucus within the standard of a caucus. This is imperative.
Also within that category, Harrison is being asked by progressives to open up the committee structure, and choose more elected members, and embrace a view of the party that seeks to understand in an open discussion how we can improve. We are going to need to look and guiding our party into meetings that are less dog & pony shows, and actually offer meetings with actual useful data. At numerous national meetings, as well as ASDC — the organization of State Chairs and Executive Directors, I have walked away where I was told more often than not: “This information should have been in email”, and that the information dispensed was simply not relevant to them at all. Truth be told, if you were in a swing state, resources flow. If you are in a solidly Democratic state or a state that seemed out of reach, you might find yourself on the island of misfit toys.
This is where the election of someone who has served as a state party chair in red state matters. Understanding the difficulty of expanding the base, where winning in red counties might mean getting 30% of the vote and running up the score in metro counties. This is the methodology for many successful red-state Democratic campaigns. Make sure you don’t get blown out 90-10 in rural counties where there are fewer votes, and make sure that you do well in blue counties and create turnout.
I stand firmly in support of Jaime Harrison, and hope others will follow. There will be elections in 2021. Special elections, spring elections, municipal elections, and statehouse elections in a few states. We can be the party that focuses on winning at all levels. Or, we can be the party that, as Harrison says, disappears when federal races aren’t going in the news.
I would much prefer to be the party that refuses to hibernate.