Who needs to lead the DNC and why?

[Horse with no Name]

I will start with traits that I think are important and should be included:

Youth

Diversity

Success

Someone who has a fucking plan to get the 50-state strategy (or facsimile thereof) back on the ground.

[elleng]

1. Leadership,

wisdom, organizational skills

[SharonAnn]

2. Maturity and strategy for "the long game". Not distracted by bright, shiny objects.

There's a lot of hard organizational and structural work to be done. I think it's called "blocking and tackling" in football lingo.

That stuff may not be glamorous, but it's incredibly effective. Think of the effect the Koch Brothers and ALEC (American Legislative Council) and the GOP have had on most of our states. The effect is gruesome and it's all due to organizational and structural work that laid a solid foundation for them.

[hunter]

3. Our party needs to stop pandering to insecure affluent white guys.

It's bad enough we've got to suffer Republicans, but our own party has got its share, and in leadership positions too.

I think our party could field more woman candidates without compromise, some who might possibly tip the scales in "red" states.

When we're bending over backwards not to offend this thin-skinned minority we are unable to achieve the goals of the majority and there will be no progress.

[Horse with no Name]

4. completely agree.

there are other folks that aren't white males that are qualified. I'm pretty certain they have had their turn.

[LAS14]

5. What about Barack Obama?

I was heartened to hear this at a press conference. It echoed my thoughts after attending a Democratic town committee meeting after the election. We were making a list of things for Massachusetts Dems to push this year, and those of us who wanted to put "attend to the mid-state rust belt" couldn't even get it on the list. Finally a note was made in the lower right corner of the white board.

Does this excerpt from the press conference appeal to Sanders supporters?

What I've said is that I can maybe give some counsel advice to the Democratic Party. And I think the -- the -- the thing we have to spend the most time on -- because it's the thing we have most control over -- is, how do we make sure that we're showing up in places where I think Democratic policies are needed, where they are helping, where they are making a difference, but where people feel as if they're not being heard?

And where Democrats are characterized as coastal, liberal, latte- sipping, you know, politically correct, out-of-touch folks, we have to be in those communities. And I've seen that, when we are in those communities, it makes a difference. That's how I became president. I became a U.S. Senator not just because I had a strong base in Chicago, but because I was driving downstate Illinois and going to fish fries and sitting in V.F.W. Halls and talking to farmers.

And I didn't win every one of their votes, but they got a sense of what I was talking about, what I cared about, that I was for working people, that I was for the middle class, that the reason I was interested in strengthening unions and raising the minimum wage and rebuilding our infrastructure and making sure that parents had decent childcare and family leave, was because my own family's history wasn't that different from theirs even if I looked a little bit different. Same thing in Iowa.

And so the question is, how do we rebuild that party as a whole, so that there's not a county in any state -- I don't care how red -- where we don't have a presence and we're not making the argument, because I think we have a better argument. But that requires a lot of work. You know, it's been something that I've been able to do successfully in my own campaigns