Tom Perez: The New Head of Democrats

Newly elected Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez wants to change his party’s focus.

If Ellison had won, Buckley would have had a leading role at the DNC, steering support to the state parties.

This experience is particularly relevant now, as the Trump administration plans to wage war on voting rights, Jeff Sessions is already reversing Obama-era directives on LGBTQ rights and private prisons, and congressional Republicans are pushing a national right-to-work law.

Well, Ellison didn’t win.

After the first ballot the two candidates who had 200 or more votes were Perez with 213.5, and Ellison with 200 votes.

Nor can the Democrats win by emulating the tactics of the Republican Party.

No, they forgot all about the Farrakhan connection, at least for the moment, and simply found another wedge issue to exploit-the still unhealed Clinton/Sanders divide. He didn’t elaborate on how would the party get the point across, but recognized that the jobs message gave President Donald Trump the upper hand during the election.

Earlier this Sunday he also wrote that Ellison and Bernie Sanders didn’t have a chance because Hilary Clinton wanted Perez. The American Civil Liberties Union raised a record-breaking million the weekend after Donald Trump and the Republicans enacted an immigration ban.

Steve Rabinowitz, a Democratic consultant in Washington D.C. who helped Perez in his outreach to Jewish Democrats, said in an email that he was pleased Israel “was not an issue” in the campaign, and said that there’s an “important place for Keith Ellison in our party’s leadership”. The Republicans experienced similar rejection when they went to the far right of their party and nominated Barry Goldwater. He said economic erosion of the middle class, with benefits funneled to the country’s richest people, was a crisis deserving of bipartisan action.

“I now believe the Perez is going to take the foundation of what was built under Gov. Dean and I think even expand it, Buckley added”. It’s not like one is a saint and the other is Satan.

Perez had better ties among the DNC electors, comprised of state party officials and state officials, including governors, lieutenant governors, and attorneys general, as well as representatives of special interests.

And with that, they were off. Bannon railed against the media – “the opposition party” – and drew cheers as he outlined plans for the “deconstruction of the administrative state”.

But, hell, it’s not like Perez is a corporate stooge. For the last four years he served as Obama’s labor secretary. “Sanders’ wisdom and [former] President [Barack] Obama’s wisdom”, said Perez.

But two can play this game.

Keith Ellison, although not practicing, was brought up Catholic in the archdiocese of Detroit, Michigan, having attended the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy.

But the Wall Street Journal warns Republicans that it would be foolish to gloat.

Hey, man, everyone can play this game. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the party’s more liberal wing.

But Shaheen said he is confident Perez will be a first-in-the-nation supporter. But this, bizarrely enough, wasn’t self-criticism of the moderate establishment wing of the party. This was the first time in over 100 years that we saw NO states vote for a different party in the Presidential and Senate races. Martha Fuller Clark, DNC at large member Joanne Dowdell, and DNC committeeman Billy Shaheen all voted for Ellison, with DNC committeewoman Kathy Sullivan backing Perez. Leadership needs to come from people who have won elections, and there aren’t many of those on the Democratic side. “What we need to do is talk directly to [voters’] fears and to their hopes”.