Keith Ellison is a fighter. He’s in North Carolina and is calling on the DNC to act.
www.huffingtonpost.com/...
On the call Friday, Ellison said the DNC had an immediate responsibility to take on the Republican legislature in North Carolina.
“The DNC has an election protection program and this is at the heart of their mission,” Ellison said. “It needs to step up right now to say this is outrageous, and get lawyers to oppose this undemocratic action that is happening right now. You gotta be in the fight … I will be.”
On the other side is Obama, who just gave a careful, measured response to the DNC hack. A response that disappointed many here. Obama’s candidate is Perez, who is not a bad guy, Perez should be running for governor of Maryland, even though that might not be easy:
they hoped Perez would run for governor of Maryland, where a Republican, Larry Hogan, currently runs a traditionally Democratic state. (A top Democrat said that Hogan’s high-approval ratings has convinced strategist that he is nearly unbeatable).
Obama’s previous choice for DNC Chair, in 2011, DWS, is not popular here. Less known is that he drained the DNC of resources, according to this article:
Obama made a strategic choice to deploy time and resources into his own Obama-branded Organizing for Action group rather than the dysfunctional Democratic Party organization. Democrats hemorrhaged seats in state legislatures across the country and suffered steep setbacks in both chambers of Congress in Washington.
Ellison opposed TPP; Perez supported it. Ellison supports expanding social security; Obama tried to work with the GOP to cut it. On most other issues, they may not be far apart, but Ellison is more liberal, has more labor support, and wants to focus the party on the needs of working families. You should hear him speak, which you can do in the video where he explains what he wants to do for the DNC: ourrevolution.com
I believe that the choice is between fighting and accommodation. The party needs to change. It needs a backbone. It needs to fight. It needs Keith Ellison.
And the vote won’t be until the third week of February, so we get this fight for two-and-a-half months.
Of course, this fight — between moving left and moving right — will play out in the states too. Some state Democratic parties will move right, cutting benefits and taxes. Others will move left, raising benefits and taxes. Perhaps Sanders should run for governor of Vermont in two years. We lost the VT governorship this year, but there’s an election every two years.
And finally, cribbed from BiPM: