Democratic Party’s new chair should be chosen democratically, not by executive order

Edi­tor’s Note: This post reflects my own per­spec­tive as a Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty offi­cial. As an insti­tu­tion orga­nized to fur­ther the com­mon good, NPI does not take posi­tions in Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty lead­er­ship elec­tions or hold a posi­tion on how the par­ty should be run.

Ear­li­er today, for­mer Vir­ginia Gov­er­nor Tim Kaine announced that he resign­ing as Chair­man of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee (which he should have done months ago fol­low­ing the par­ty’s appalling per­for­mance in the 2010 midterms) to run for U.S. Sen­ate. (Incum­bent Sen­a­tor Jim Webb, who is a fresh­man, revealed a few weeks ago that he does not intend to seek a sec­ond term).

Kaine’s depar­ture from the DNC has cre­at­ed a vacan­cy which Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and his cir­cle of advi­sors are anx­ious to see filled. So anx­ious, in fact, they’ve already got some­body lined up to take his place, as if the posi­tion was to be filled by appoint­ment, even though that’s not how it’s sup­posed to work.

I belong to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty because I want to do my part to make sure that it is, in fact, a demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty. My loy­al­ty as a Demo­c­rat is to the val­ues our par­ty rep­re­sents, and to the thou­sands upon thou­sands of oth­er activists who call them­selves Democ­rats. I believe in a par­ty that serves and empow­ers them, and is not mere­ly an aux­il­iary corps for the cur­rent occu­pant of the White House.

But Barack Oba­ma and his entourage seem to think that they’re enti­tled to pick the next DNC chair, sim­ply because in the past, the pres­i­dent has been allowed to hire and/or fire the chair of his or her respec­tive party.

That “tra­di­tion” needs to end. And not just because it goes against how the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty should be run as a mat­ter of prin­ci­ple. There’s a more prac­ti­cal con­sid­er­a­tion: Par­ty lead­er­ship elec­tions help increase the like­li­hood that the next chair will actu­al­ly be qual­i­fied for the job, and will enjoy the con­fi­dence of the peo­ple he or she is sup­posed to be account­able to. 

It does­n’t make sense that the only time the posi­tion of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee chair should ever be con­test­ed is right after we’ve lost the White House. We can’t even afford to be in that kind of a posi­tion again, giv­en how far back­wards this coun­try has slid. That means who­ev­er is serv­ing as chair needs to be com­pe­tent, trust­wor­thy, and respon­sive to the needs of local par­ty organizations.

Under Tim Kaine, we lost our hold on the major­i­ty of gov­er­nor­ships and state leg­is­la­tures. We lost con­trol of the U.S. House, with all the gains we made in 2006 and 2008 wiped out. And we lost sev­er­al seats in the U.S. Sen­ate, dimin­ish­ing our major­i­ty and leav­ing us in a poor posi­tion for 2012. All of those loss­es were the result of the par­ty’s inabil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate what Democ­rats stood for and had accom­plished, and the par­ty’s fail­ure to turn out key constituencies.

The respon­si­bil­i­ty for those fail­ures rests with Tim Kaine. He inher­it­ed what Howard Dean had built, at Barack Oba­ma’s insis­tence. But in a tough cycle, he did not do what was need­ed to pro­tect Demo­c­ra­t­ic majori­ties, and he did not even man­age to sub­stan­tial­ly mit­i­gate Demo­c­ra­t­ic loss­es. He failed.

Now Barack Oba­ma and his entourage want anoth­er Belt­way insid­er run­ning the DNC: Deb­bie Wasser­man-Schultz, who they some­how think will have time for the job despite the fact that she’s a mem­ber of Congress:

In select­ing Deb­bie to lead our par­ty, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma not­ed her tenac­i­ty, her strength, her fight­ing spir­it, and her abil­i­ty to over­come adver­si­ty. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma expressed great admi­ra­tion for her as a leader, and he was hon­ored that she accept­ed this impor­tant chal­lenge on behalf of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

No one should have any doubt that Deb­bie will work hard to strength­en our par­ty and our coun­try. I hope you will wel­come her as Pres­i­dent Obama’s choice for the next Chair of the DNC.

- Excerpt from a ghost­writ­ten email signed with Joe Biden’s name

Nice plat­i­tudes, huh? Notice the absence of any actu­al cre­den­tials. This mes­sage does­n’t both­er to explain what makes Wasser­man-Schultz qual­i­fied for the posi­tion, address the ques­tion of how she can be effec­tive while hold­ing anoth­er job, or dis­cuss who else might have been con­sid­ered. It’s pre­sump­tive­ly writ­ten in a way that sug­gests it’s already a done deal.

I have seen no evi­dence to date that would lead me to believe that Deb­bie Wasser­man-Schultz would make a good Demo­c­ra­t­ic Chair. Maybe she could be. But she has­n’t had to cam­paign for the job, so it’s hard to know.

I believe the job to be a demand­ing and impor­tant one, and I’d like it to be held by some­body who believes in build­ing the par­ty from the bot­tom-up. Howard Dean was such a per­son, and look at the job he did. He rein­vig­o­rat­ed and revi­tal­ized the par­ty at a cru­cial time. We are not in such dire straits as we were fol­low­ing the 2004 elec­tions, but we are in dan­ger of in an unthink­able posi­tion two years from now. 

That’s why it’s imper­a­tive that we have a DNC chair from out­side of the estab­lish­ment who is com­mit­ted to peo­ple-pow­ered pol­i­tics. The health of our par­ty depends on strong lead­er­ship that lis­tens — not to the White House, but to state par­ties, and to coun­ty par­ties, and to dis­trict par­ty organizations.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, if his­to­ry is any indi­ca­tion, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee will defer to Barack Oba­ma and his entourage rather than assert­ing their right to select the next chair themselves. 

I wish they’d take a stand for a more demo­c­ra­t­ic Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and tell the White House they want to have an actu­al par­ty lead­er­ship elec­tion to fill the post.