Ellison: Once your grass roots is funding the party the lines of accountability run the right way
Echoes of 2016 fight shape race to run the Democratic National Committee
David Weigel
Washington Post
None of Ellison’s four rivals has challenged the left-wing rewrite of the Democratic Party platform, which Ellison was part of. Ellison and Ray Buckley, the chairman of New Hampshire’s Democrats, have published the most about their ideas. They generally agree on ideas such as upping funds for state parties, boosting turnout (Ellison’s goal is a boost of 3 to 7 percent), and guarding against voter suppression.
When they drill down, all three candidates, as well as South Carolina’s Jaime Harrison and Idaho’s Sally Boynton Brown, came to the same conclusions about 2016: The national Democratic Party focused on swing states and let state parties wither behind the “blue wall” — which promptly cracked. Democratic voters in rural areas, rarely contacted by the Clinton campaign or by state parties, switched to Trump.
A lot of people said, “ ‘No one owns Bernie because he’s funded by the people. No one owns Trump because he funds his own campaign,’ ” Ellison said. “I’m telling you that the Democratic Party must be perceived as funded by the people.”
“Once your grass roots is funding the party,” he said, “the lines of accountability run the right way.”
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