Ellison holds edge in DNC race survey

[DonViejo]

Last edited Wed Feb 22, 2017, 05:00 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: The Hill

BY BEN KAMISAR AND OWEN EAGAN - 02/22/17 06:00 AM EST

As Democrats head to Atlanta this weekend to vote on their partys next chair, the race to lead the Democratic National Committee chair is coming down to its two leading candidates.

Rep. Keith Ellison (Minn.) has the edge over former Labor secretary Tom Perez in The Hills new survey of DNC members. But while both men claim they are close to securing commitments from the majority of the 447 voting members, neither candidate is assured victory.

The Hill has identified the stances of 240 DNC members, either through their private responses to a survey circulated over the past week or from public endorsements.

Out of those who responded, Ellison leads with 105 supporters to Perezs 57. The remaining major candidates have less than a dozen supporters each, while more than 50 DNC members remain undecided.

Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/320553-ellison-holds-edge-in-dnc-race

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DNC Chair Race Remains Tight As Energized Democrats Combat Trump

By LISA LERER, BILL BARROW Published FEBRUARY 22, 2017, 2:51 PM EDT


ATLANTA (AP) — Just days before Democratic activists pick a new party chair, the contest to head the Democratic National Committee remains fluid, as national leaders grapple with how to turn an outpouring of liberal protest against President Donald Trump into political gains.

The tight race between former Labor Secretary Tom Perez and Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota marks the first heavily contested battle to run the organization in recent history, a reflection of a newly energized Democratic party struggling to find the best path forward after years of losses in Congress, governor's mansions and statehouses.

Perez, who was encouraged by Obama administration officials to run for the post, has emerged as the front-runner with the backing of 205 committee members, according to independent Democratic strategists tracking the race. The strategists spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss the voting publicly. Ellison, backed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and his supporters, has the support of 153 members.

South Carolina Democratic Party chair Jaime Harrison has support from 27 members, creating a role for him to become a potential kingmaker in the race.

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/keith-ellison-tom-perez-dnc-chair-race

[hrmjustin]

1. I can live with both. Both are good men.

[yallerdawg]

2. I can't imagine why so many decline to announce their pick?

(vicious trolling)

[leftynyc]

3. I've already said

numerous times, if it's Ellison, they wont see one dime from me.

[FSogol]

8. Disagree. We gotta pull together behind whoever wins. They are all good candidates. n/t

[Fast Walker 52]

10. why?

[leftynyc]

14. The views of Louis

Farrakhan have been well known for decades. Anyone who EVER aligned with him is not someone I would ever trust to LEAD the party. I also don't think he can unite the party.

[Fast Walker 52]

16. what is Ellison's connection to Farrakhan?

[leftynyc]

17. Took about 5 seconds to google

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/01/politics/kfile-keith-ellison-nation-of-islam/

But several outlets have resurfaced Ellison's past writings as he runs for DNC chair, raising new concerns about his own views and what they would mean for the Democratic Party if he were to be its leader. A CNN KFile review of Ellison's past writings and public statements during the late 1980s through the 1990s reveal his decade-long involvement in the Nation of Islam and his repeated defense of Farrakhan and other radical black leaders against accusations of anti-Semitism in columns and statements to the press. None of the records reviewed found examples of Ellison making any anti-Semitic comments himself.

In one scathing column from 1990 unearthed by CNN's KFile, Ellison accused the university's president of chilling the free expression of black students by openly criticizing a controversial speaker invited to speak on campus by the Africana Student Cultural Center. That speaker, Kwame Ture (also known as Stokely Carmichael), had publicly claimed that Zionists had collaborated with the Nazis in World War II and has been quoted as saying "Zionism must be destroyed."

University of Minnesota President Nils Hasselmo said he "personally found the statements in Ture's speech concerning alleged Zionist collaboration with the Nazis deeply offensive." Ellison, writing under the name "Keith E. Hakim" for the Minnesota Daily, the student newspaper at the University of Minnesota where Ellison attended law school, argued that Hasselmo "denounced Ture's comment without offering any factual refutation of it," and defended Ture's right to speak on campus and to question Zionism.


I have ZERO desire to feel I have to defend this shit when we're at a point of having to unite the party.

[Fast Walker 52]

18. Thanks. That is disturbing. Not sure why it hasn't killed his candidacy, frankly...

Unless he's repudiated his prior support of Farrakhan.

[leftynyc]

19. I think he has

but that's pretty much meaningless to me when it comes to someone who is looking to get elected. He was sympathetic to the Nation of Islam for a decade - certainly long enough for anyone with a brain to know what they're all about.

[phleshdef]

12. Thats ok, I'll donate extra.

Thus making your personal protest irrelevant.

[leftynyc]

15. Knock yourself out

If you were a aiming to embarrass me, you missed the mark by a mile.

[harun]

13. Believe me, I will be glad to pay your share.

[Uponthegears]

4. What a shame to see such divisiveness

I am not sure how it benefits our party to have our national slate of candidates hamstrung because some Democrats are no longer willing to contribute if a particular DNC candidate is elected.

Let me go on the record right now, even though our party has not been everything I would like to see when it comes to issues disproportionately affecting young black men and women, I will continue to contribute time and money to see to it that Democrats and Independents aligned with Democrats are elected across the board regardless of who is our next chair.

[BeckyDem]

5. Two great people whoever wins. Lets get ready for 2018.

[brooklynite]

6. This is a multiple round election...

...after each round, the lowest vote-getter is dropped, and voting continues until someone has a majority.

[stuffmatters]

7. I'm for the candidate who wants to move up the Ca Primary to the Spring

Ca Dems were given no say in the 2016 presidential primary...it was 'called" before our voting day and our Dem debate was called off too.

We are probably the state with the most Dems in the Country yet with such a late primary our voices were silenced.

It also badly hurt the down ballot Dems. Calling for Hillary before the election and not having a national
debate here, completely weakened our turnout on primary day. San Diego now has a mayor who won because so few Dems turned out (in a majority Dem City!) that he did not have to run in Nov.

I've not heard either Ellison or Perez present any plan to change the Ca Primary to the Spring and wonder why such
silence on an issue that frustrated and angered millions of Dem voters.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

9. I think if the big states vote early, it would change much

I think Hillary would have just wrapped up her second term, and nobody would know about some guy from Illinois named Obama.

Put CA, NY, FL up front, and the nomination goes to the known name with the early big money. Nobody would have a chance to "get known" through the battles in the small states.

CA's current position allows it to bring the hammer down on any close primary.

[stuffmatters]

11. That's not what happened in 2016; Ca was rendered irrelevant

I'm not saying we should be first, but the state with the largest number of Dem voters should at least be able to chime in by being somewhere at least in the late middle.