Neither Ellison nor Perez should be chair. It should be Jason Kander (or someone like him). [View all]

[grantcart]

Last edited Wed Feb 22, 2017, 04:19 PM - Edit history (1)

This seems rather obvious to me but there are two important reasons why the DNC leader should be viewed as a process leader and leave all ideological battles alone and concentrate on candidate recruitment and process issues like vote suppression and vote security. It seems equally obvious why ANY SURROGATE like Ellison or Perez should NOT be considered for chair.

1) If a surrogate is chosen then at lease half of the party is going to bear a grudge and feel that they were screwed.

2) The DNC chair really has zero impact on legislative issues. The job of the DNC is to boost involvement of Democrats in every area. The new chairperson should be seen as someone that will have no problem getting people more involved in Memphis, Salt Lake City and Tucson as they do in San Francisco, Seattle and Vermont.

We have people that can do this.

Here is my favourite, Jason Kander




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Kander

Jason Kander (born May 4, 1981) is an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of State of Missouri in 2012, serving from 2013 to 2017. He previously served as a state representative. He was an intelligence officer in the Army National Guard, achieving the rank of Captain. He was the Democratic nominee for the United States Senate, losing the 2016 Senate election to Republican incumbent Roy Blunt.[1] Kander is also the founder of an organization called "Let America Vote", a campaign dedicated to ending voter suppression and gerrymandering.

I fault Sanders for taking the first shot with his early endorsement of Ellison, especially galling that he continues to interfere in a party he refuses to join. I also fault Clinton/Obama forces for taking the bait.

Both Ellison/Perez have shown that they are poor choices for playing out the endorsement game. Each should have said that they are not surrogates for anyone and concentrated on process issues. If Ellison thinks that by becoming chairperson he will be in a position to advance his personal agenda then he is not very clued in to what the constraints of the DNC chairs is going to be and is going to find a lot of areas of the country that are not going to respond.

Kander is a Democrat who wins in a red state and founded an organization dedicated to stopping voter suppression and gerrymandering.

He also knows how to send a message