Ellison calls for '3,007-county strategy' in DNC bid
By David Weigel December 14 at 9:56 PM
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) rallied with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday night, taking over a room of the American Federation of Teachers in Washington, D.C., to pitch his "bottom-up" campaign to run the Democratic National Committee.
"We need a 3,007-county strategy. We need a town strategy. We need a precinct strategy," said Ellison, as Sanders and AFT President Randi Weingarten looked on proudly. "The resources need to be moved down closer to the voter. ... If you got same-day registration in Minnesota, it's because the state says so. If you've got a lifetime ban on voting for felons, like they do in Florida, it's because the state says so."
The rally, organized days earlier by Sanders's group Our Revolution, ended up raising the curtain for Thursday's expected announcement that Secretary of Labor Tom Perez will enter the DNC race. Perez is holding a call with a half-dozen state party chairs all of whom can vote on the DNC leadership on Thursday afternoon. Ellison's opponents, numerous but divided, point out that he has trumpeted support from state chairs who can vote as well as big name pols who cannot.
Sanders fit that bill. In a short speech introducing Ellison, he repeated the themes of his primary campaign, and of Our Revolution, created when that campaign ended. "We must transform the Democratic Party from a top-down party to a bottom-up party, to create a grass-roots organization of the working families of this country," he said. "Whatever the leadership of the Democratic Party has been doing over the last many years has failed."
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/12/14/ellison-calls-for-3007-county-strategy-in-dnc-bid/?utm_term=.58f58113a113&wpisrc=nl_politics&wpmm=1