Tag: Democratic National Committee

Rahm Emanuel Rules Out Interest in DNC Chairmanship, 2020 Presidential Run

Rahm Emanuel – the mayor of Chicago and one of the architects of the Democrats’ big wins in the 2006 election as one of Nancy Pelosi’s top lieutenants – told the Chicago Tribune that he would not be running for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Emanuel was in Washington D.C. for several days last week. At a panel organized by the Brookings Institution, he described the nation’s capital as “Disneyland on the Potomac,” after which he apologized because “I don’t want to insult Disneyland.”

The kicker: according to The Hill, Emanuel was at a bar when political consultant Neil Hare asked if he would run for president in 2020. Emanuel responded by giving him the middle finger twice, prompting laughter from others at the bar who witnessed it, including the reporter who broke the story.

Jaime Harrison Opposes Rex Tillerson Nomination

A few hours after the DNC Forum in Ohio, Democratic National Committee chairman candidate Jaime Harrison issued this statement:

“Putin and his henchmen helped Donald Trump win the election, and it appears that the nomination of Putin pal Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State is Trump’s way of saying ‘spasiba.’ The Senate must act in the U.S. national interest and say ‘nyet.’”

The subject of Tillerson or the Trump cabinet in general did not come up during the forum.

For those who skipped Russian in school, “spasiba” means “thank you,” and “nyet” means “no.”

DNC Forum Live Blog

The DNC Forum organized by the Ohio Democratic Party is about to begin. Watch this space for highlights.

All times are Pacific Standard Time

1:00 – Opening statements.  Up first is New York Assemblyman Michael Blake, who announced his candidacy for Vice-Chair yesterday.  He noted that one third of all House Democrats come from three states, and party only has seven Secretaries of State across the country.

1:05 – Ray Buckley starts his opening comments. He is participating via Skype because of conflicting commitment with the New Hampshire Democratic Party today.  Buckley notes NHDP has all Democrat, all female congressional delegation for the first time in history, have similar electorate to many Midwestern states Hillary Clinton lost.

1:10 – Jaime Harrison begins his opening comments.
“We’ve lost our way. We’ve allowed our party to deteriorate.”
“33/50 governorships controlled by Republicans, 69/99 state houses controlled by Republicans, but we only obsess about the White House.” Harrison praises Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy from 2005-2009, notes that he had to fight with Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer (then-DCCC and DSCC chairs)
“It’s about building trust again in our communities with our party.”
Harrison gets a laugh from the crowd with a House of Cards reference.

1:24 – Keith Ellison begins his opening comments. Compares his day to the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Ellison points out that his congressional district went from having the lowest turnout in Minnesota when he was elected in 2006 to having the highest turnout now.
“We went from a squeaker for Al Franken to a blowout. We went from a squeaker for Mark Dayton to a blowout.”
Ellison acknowledges the need for a fulltime DNC Chair. Closes his opening comments with: “If you elect me, get ready to work.” #DNCForum

Q&A Begins

Q: Ellison – will you eliminate the superdelegate system?
KE: Listen to the Unity Commission. Superdelegates must follow the will of voters of their state.  You want them to be involved but you want them to represent will of the voters.  JH: Let the Unity Commission work. Agrees with KE
MB: Agree on commission, take to the next step. There needs to be changes. Think on other side, if there had been a superdelegate process, probably less likelihood of a Trump nomination.  Let’s figure out how to improve the process first rather than dramatically change it.
RB: Yes, I believe state vote at convention must reflect what vote was in primary or caucus. Last 8 years, been member of Rules and Bylaws – worked on this issue unsuccessfully.  One of the reforms on how we do business at DNC that allow people out there to trust the DNC once again.

Q: Steps to recruit candidates at state and local offices.
JH: Starts with state parties.  Some only have $50K in cash, have elections in 2 years.  25 of 33 Senate seats up in 2018 are Dems, 10 of them in states like Montana, Ohio, etc. that went for Trump.
When I became SC chair, I thought hardest part of my job would be raising money. The hardest part of the job is finding good candidates. I decided to create something to recruit and train good candidates – James Clyburn political fellowship.

Q: Ideas to keep rural Democrats competitive and feeling welcome in the party?
KE: I’m from DFL – Democratic Farm and Labor Party.  Go to rural communities, speak to them on how rural values are important to our Democratic values.  Respect individuality and personal choices.  Show up, be there. Also critical in rural America that money from DNC to rural communities has to be there.  Talking to people in WV – they don’t even have a state party office.  Go do strong listening sessions all over the country. Have to believe we can win in rural communities.
Indebted to Howard Dean for 50-state strategy, but we need a 3,141-county strategy.

Q: How do you plan to thwart right wing propaganda machine?
RB: In NH 2014, Koch brothers invested heavily here.  We reelected our governor, outspent 2-1. There’s nothing more powerful than one neighbor talking to another neighbor. Donald Trump going to be using Twitter feed, celebrity. He has no relationship to honesty when it comes to talking about issues or policies.  We can send all the mail we want, all the TV ads.  Reestablish state parties… have a permanent HQ in every congressional district across the country.  Have offices out there, so people can utilize them, year in year out.  Have to find new innovative ways of communicating.  TV ads not working, more mail isn’t working.  Get down to neighbors talking to neighbors.  NH said hell no when Brooklyn said they would do GOTV based on analytics.

Q:
MB: Make sure both campaigns sharing the data – doesn’t happen often enough.  Look at our track record. All I’ve done over 11 years is how to build organization.  We can’t just win on Election Day and leave.  Too often what we do is change staff all the time.  There are 219 counties that Obama won twice that Trump won. Counties made decision twice to elect/re-elect Obama with 50-60 percent approval.  This will be leadership not just for 2018 midterms, this will be leadership for 2020.

Q: Everyone running agree states should get data immediately?
All candidates raise their hands.

Q: How are you going to unite Democratic Party?
JH: When I was floor director in 2006, one of most diverse caucuses. 15-seat majority.  Difficult when you have issues ranging from hate crimes legislation to withdrawing from Iraq, Lilly Ledbetter. All Democrats for that… Not necessarily.  One of strengths we have as party is diversity, but sometimes comes with great challenges.
One thing I learned from Clyburn – go to people, respect them, and feel that you respect them and appreciate them, it’s amazing how far you can come and how united you can be.
It wasn’t easy. Didn’t think we would pass Matthew Sheppard bill. You have to make it real for people, have to show them, not tell them.  We passed the legislation overwhelmingly.  If you listen to people and understand, you can bring people to do that.  I’ve done that, had a united party going into the convention.

MB: We have to listen and make changes.  Have to appreciate that yes, we had very intense primary which I think was good.  8 years ago, we also had an intense primary.  Irony is I went from Iowa to South Carolina to Minnesota.  One thing we have to learn from this, are we going to make concrete changes so everyone feels they’re in power? I represent most diverse county in America.  Don’t talk about BLM and then be silent on DAPL.
I want you not just to have seat at the table, want to ensure that you have a seat and you have power at that table. Have to recognize we overcome many things.
It took 9 years for Civil Rights to happen.  This is moment for us to build. Has to be moment for us to unite. We have to be Democrats right now, because on other side you have someone doing everything possible to disrespect us as a people.
We want to go around the country to we can build together.  Cant just sit around and hope somebody will show up.  Cannot assume somebody going to vote for you when you haven’t talked to them in a year and a half.

KE: I started as a Bernie Sanders supporter. I told Bernie supporters I’ve carried bills with Hillary. After primary, I hit 7 states for Hillary Clinton.  I was in Ohio, NC, Florida, campaigning for Hillary because I believed in her candidacy.
We cannot form circular firing squad. We must unify and need the talents of every single person to do it.
Unity is something everybody is for, but achieving it is much harder.
Unity is listening, unity is talking. We can all unite around a real infrastructure plan because that puts workers to work and gives us a green economy.
There is a reason why I get elected with 70 percent of the vote. It’s not because district is very liberal. It’s because we work together to reach level of understanding.
When we fall out, I will be the chair in the room to nail us all back together.

RB: I was state party chair in 2008 and 2016. I went to ballot commission to defend Bernie’s right to be on the ballot.  When he went to file, I escorted him into the Secretary of State’s office. I did that not because I favored Bernie, but because it was fair thing to do.
2018 going to be critical election, need to make sure everyone is involved. Everyone has a place at the table.

UPDATE: The Ohio Democratic Party has posted the full video of the forum online. You can watch it here.

DNC Chairman Election Calendar Revealed

Mark your calendars: Patrice Taylor – the Democratic National Committee’s Director of Party Affairs & Delegate Selection – has announced the timetable and process by which the next DNC chair will be selected. You can read her full Medium post here.

First, as announced in Denver last week there will be four regional forums for the DNC chairman candidates to address Democrats directly scheduled for January and February.

  • January 13-14: Phoenix, AZ
  • January 27-28: Houston, TX
  • February 3-4: Detroit, MI
  • February 10-11: Baltimore, MD

The next DNC chairman and officers will be elected during the DNC winter meeting, scheduled to take place in Atlanta from February 23-26.

 

CIA Concludes Russia Wanted to Help Trump Get Elected, Will Congress Investigate?

The Washington Post dropped a bombshell yesterday revealing the existence of a secret CIA assessment that Russia’s interference in the 2016 election was done with the intended purpose of helping him get elected, as opposed to the previous theory, which was that it was about creating chaos and mistrust in the American political process:

Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.

“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”

The article also notes that the intelligence was challenged by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Donald Trump himself repeatedly questioned the accusation that the Russians were behind the hacked DNC and John Podesta emails being published by WikiLeaks during the presidential campaign, and the Trump Transition put out the following statement last night in response to the story:

Setting aside the inaccuracy of their claim of “one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history,” the Post’s reporting was subsequently confirmed by the New York Times, which added another detail to the story: Russians hacked Republican National Committee computer systems, but did not publish any of the information they obtained.

Democrats and some congressional Republicans are asking (and in some cases, promising) investigations into various angles of the Russian hacking.

From the Trump transition team’s perspective, this Russia hacking assessment would put another asterisk on their election victory, the first being that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes. The fact that Trump himself and Republicans in general gleefully cited the emails being dumped daily by WikiLeaks during the campaign, as well as the fact Trump himself called on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s email, does not help their case either.  The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake wrote a good article about the political dilemma Republicans find themselves in regarding how to handle this. As national security columnist John Schindler pointed out on Twitter:

Watching this story play out from the perspective of international leaders who will have to deal with President Trump for the next four years, those leaders can draw two conclusions: first, the President-elect only receives an intelligence briefing once a week, according to Reuters; second, that the president will not believe or openly dispute the findings of his own intelligence agency. The latter may wind up undermining Trump himself later on. If he has to rally international support for diplomatic action against a country or organization, and he cites U.S. intelligence findings as his evidence, who is to say that a skeptical country such as China or Russia or Venezuela won’t come back with a response along the lines of “Why should we believe your intelligence when you don’t even believe in it yourself?”

It will be interesting to see to what extent the Republican Congress is willing to investigate this in the months ahead, and if they do, how deep the rabbit hole goes.

UPDATE: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell is reporting that Donald Trump has chosen Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as his Secretary of State, according to two sources. According to the Wall Street Journal, Tillerson has ties to Putin and Russia:

Among those considered for the post, Mr. Tillerson has perhaps the closest ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, having negotiated a 2011 energy partnership deal with Russia that Mr. Putin said could eventually be worth as much as $500 billion. In 2012, the Kremlin bestowed the country’s Order of Friendship decoration on Mr. Tillerson.

This pre-existing relationship with Mr. Putin complements Mr. Trump’s push to improve U.S.-Russia ties. A number of Republicans have urged him to be wary of working closely with Russia, warning that it is trying to expand its influence in a way that runs counter to U.S. interests in places such as Ukraine and Syria.

Exxon has a large global presence, and this could introduce sticky conflicts of interest if Mr. Tillerson is selected. The company explores for oil and gas on six of the world’s continents and has operations in more than 50 countries.

Mr. Tillerson, who is slated to retire next year, has retirement funds worth tens of millions of dollars, a value that could potentially be affected by State Department activities. For example, he could benefit from such potential department actions as the lifting of sanctions on Russia.

In light of the CIA assessment on Russia’s role in the election, this confirmation hearing will be a lot more interesting than if Trump had chosen a more conventional nominee like Mitt Romney or Bob Corker.

UPDATE II: Mitchell also reporting that former Undersecretary for Arms Control and UN Ambassador John Bolton is Trump’s choice for Deputy Secretary of State. Democrats wouldn’t allow a confirmation vote on Bolton for the UN ambassador nomination during the Bush years, so he was a recess appointment.

Former Obama White House Aide Announces Run for DNC Vice Chair

New York State Assembly member Michael Blake tweeted this yesterday:

Blake – a veteran of both Obama presidential campaigns and the Obama White House – points out in his campaign biography, “I have worked – and won – at the grassroots organizing level in several states, including Iowa in 2008, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan (winning all 7 down ballot races), Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.” That will be a crucial skill for any Democrat with national aspirations – either at the presidential level or who simply wants to be involved in the decisionmaking at that level – while being the minority party in Washington for at least the next two years.  Read his platform here.

AFL-CIO Endorses Keith Ellison in DNC Chairman Race

The AFL-CIO released a statement this morning endorsing Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) to be the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee. The key part of the statement:

“Representative Ellison meets the high standard working people expect from leaders of our political parties,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. “He is a proven leader who will focus on year-round grassroots organizing to deliver for working families across America. Under his leadership, the Democratic Party will embody the values that our members stand for every day.”

UPDATE: NBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald points out a key caveat to the AFL-CIO endorsement:

The endorsement comes with an asterisk, critics note, as Ellison’s name was the only one on the AFL-CIO endorsement ballot. Trumka gave voters just three options: Support Ellison, make no endorsement, or abstain.

Harold Schaitberger, the president of the firefighters’ union, blasted the endorsement in a letter to Trumka, calling it a “contemptible…attempt at a coronation.” Schaitberger, whose union less progressive than others, added that the outcome “will not be the ‘unified endorsement’ that you hope to proclaim.”

The other thing to keep in mind is the possibility that the outgoing Secretary of Labor Tom Perez might decide to throw his hat in the ring for DNC chairman, though there are also rumors he is considering a run for the Maryland governor’s race in 2018.

New Hampshire Congressional Delegation Endorses Ray Buckley

The Granite State’s congressional delegation issued a joint statement endorsing New Hampshire Democratic Party chairman Ray Buckley to be the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee. The statement, posted on the Facebook page of the Ray Buckley for DNC Chairman group, reads in part:

We write to you as the first all-female, all-Democratic Congressional delegation in our country’s history to urge you to support Ray Buckley as the next chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Each of us survived Republican tides that swept across the country this year and in 2014 in no small part because of the strong state and local Democratic Party organizations in New Hampshire. As the chair of the NH Democratic Committee for the last ten years and vice-chair for the preceding eight years, Ray Buckley led the effort to build the state Democratic Party into the effective grassroots operation it is today.
Ray has the vision, energy and commitment to reform the DNC and utilize it to reinvigorate state and local parties across the country.
Beyond the state’s congressional delegation, Union Leader political reporter Dan Tuohy also noted, “DNC members from NH also cheering Buckley on.”

Jaime Harrison Calls Trump Twitter Feud with Union Official “Disgusting”

The Carrier deal that got Donald Trump an initial blitz of good press a few days ago took a twist when Chuck Jones, president of United Steelworkers 1999 which represents Carrier employees, told the Washington Post that the president-elect “lied his ass off” by embellishing or exaggerating the number of jobs saved by the deal.

As was the case with Khizr Khan and Alicia Machado during the presidential campaign, President-Elect Trump couldn’t let it go. He took to Twitter to strike back at his critic:

South Carolina Democratic Party chairman and DNC chairman candidate Jaime Harrison took to Twitter for his own response:

There are no statements from Ray Buckley or Keith Ellison about the controversy, though Buckley did retweet several comments about it, including one by Jaime Harrison.

Here’s the response from United Steelworkers:

UPDATE: Here’s the response from AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka:

Ellison Will Resign from Congress If Elected DNC Chairman

Following up on this report in the Washington Times yesterday, as well as pressure from other DNC candidates and Democratic Party insiders, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) told his hometown newspaper he would commit to being a full-time Democratic National Committee chairman if he is elected to the position:

WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison will vacate his congressional seat if he wins the chairman job at the Democratic National Committee, he told the Star Tribune Wednesday morning.

Ellison conceded Wednesday that a full-time chair is what the party wanted after the losses of the 2016 presidential and congressional elections. He said he came to the decision after difficult soul-searching and hearing from the more than 400 voting members of the DNC who said they wouldn’t vote him as long as he was a sitting member of Congress.

The previous chair, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was a Florida congresswoman.

“Serving my neighbors in Congress and fighting for them has been the best job I’ve ever had,” Ellison said, in an e-mail. “Whether it was for immigration reform, worker’s rights, gender equity, or social justice, we stood side by side so that every person in American … is treated with respect and given every opportunity to succeed. Until the DNC Chair election, I plan to continue doing just that.”

If Ellison wins and vacates his seat, Minnesota governor Mark Dayton – a Democrat – will call for a special election in 2017 to fill the seat, which represents the reliably Democratic stronghold of Minneapolis.  Ultimately, the Democratic minority in the House of Representatives wouldn’t change or be affected much.

By pledging to do so, Ellison takes the issue off the table for the rest of his candidacy. Whether that will lead to more support for his candidacy among committee members – the 447 party insiders who will elect the next chairman – remains to be seen.