The Next DNC Chair

Candidate Jason Paul responds

In response to The Grassroots Connector article on qualifications for the Democratic National Committee Chair, which garnered more than 7,000 views, we received many comments. Some affirmed the list, others suggested additional qualifications, including:

• Personal experience in engaging real life working class and Main Street Democratic voters and independents in order to reorient what the Democratic Party stands for and

• Focused leadership that recognizes the effectiveness of grassroots activists.

Readers want to see a DNC leader who:

• Offers change in the form of economic justice;

• Commits to providing housing, healthcare, child care, elder care, and bringing down the cost of EVERYTHING, which is breaking the budgets of working families;

  

• Will press for reform of ActBlue’s practices with respect to its overhead;

• Will stop the out of control begging for money. One commenter said she deletes 400-600 emails a day.

Readers also seek a DNC leader who prioritizes communication in order to:

• Reach the 70 percent of eligible voters who don’t identify as “Democrat;”

• Craft messages with “a touch of fire;”

• Communicate Democratic successes as part of ongoing messaging;

• Create a process by which ordinary citizens can make suggestions or comments to the party that can help us win.

One response, however, came from a candidate for the DNC chair, 37-year-old Jason Paul. Because Paul's platform contains some unique forward thinking, we decided to print his response.

While Paul and others have thrown their hats in the ring, the two front runners remain Ben Wikler, Chair of the Wisconsin Dems, and Ken Martin, Chair of the Minnesota Dems. The Grassroots Connector has invited both Wikler and Martin for an interview and we hope each will agree to talk with us.

In the meantime, Jason Paul

My name is Jason Paul and I am a candidate for DNC chair. I am running because I know what it’s like to toil in the grassroots while ineffective strategies doom Democrats to poor performance. I knocked on doors in and near Wilkes Barre, PA the weekend before the election and saw how our message had been drowned out by right wing media slogans posted on too many lawns. And the chilly reception I got at too many doors reinforced my long standing view that people are more likely to be swayed by people they know than by out-of-state strangers dropping in just before election day. I see a need for fundamental change and you can read my plans here.

I think you will see substantial resonance between my plan and the priorities The Grassroots Connector set out in your Jane and Michael Banks-inspired list. Your approach shows a rare dedication to genuine reform. Most complain without a plan, yet you provide an excellent one. I will use your stated requirements to introduce my “Yes and. . .” strategy.

Yes, grassroots groups and my fellow candidates offer promising ideas for reform. These ideas will remain mere ideas, however, unless we add plans on how to make them a reality. How, in short, we will deliver Mary Poppins?

Several of your wish-list requirements are essential parts of my campaign.

We need first, as I put it, to Stop the Damn Texts. As you highlight, digital fundraising has become shrill, hyperbolic, and counterproductive. False urgency, used to get money quickly, is creating junkies, not change.

In a letter I sent to DNC members, I called for something much like your suggested DNC Research Institute to develop new approaches and test their effectiveness. Without such research, we will just adapt new tools and technologies to fit old patterns. We also need to train new leaders and candidates to implement new approaches. We can start by hiring a full-time Democratic staffer in every U.S. county, preferably a staffer with local roots.

Next, we need to open lines of communication with all groups that make up the Democratic family. Some groups wish chiefly to help the Party. Others go beyond party loyalty in favor of pushing the party on issues such as climate change or radical criminal justice reform. Still others push the Party ideologically but stand ready to return to the fold on election day.

Each of these perfectly valid approaches requires a different communication strategy. If a group’s main goal is to make war on consensus positions within the party, it’s harder to include it at family dinners. Yet, the DNC must be even-handed. Step one is a complete census of supportive groups to permit appropriately tailored communication.

Moving on, we must make the DNC more transparent by publishing a complete and up-to-date list of its voting members. Grassroots groups should have this information. Faulty internal communication is hurting us, but we should also recognize that making DNC members’ contact information public would flood inboxes and phones. Group leaders should only receive this information after demonstrating they can be trusted (as almost everyone reading this has). But we need to be candid about the dangers of sharing information too widely.

Yes, we need to establish “Grassroots Coordinator” as an official position on the DNC Executive Board and convene monthly town halls with volunteers.

Whether a new board position is needed is a tougher call. A grassroots coordinator might work best as a full-time staffer, rather than as a volunteer board member. The best solution is to hire a staffer and assign someone within the current DNC membership, such as the Vice Chair for Civic Engagement, to focus on the grassroots.

Yes, we must review the track record of current chairs and consult with state party groups to field new leaders, particularly where chairs have poor track records. Here’s the deal. The principal metric for judging performance is election results, and those results turn primarily upon a state’s overall electorate. Yes, we can and should measure election margins against historical and comparative trends. But state party chairs, who are almost all volunteers, face daunting challenges, particularly in red states. A more rewarding job, rather than a punishment model, will likely produce better results.

I would ask each Chair, “What do you need to be successful?” And certainly I would encourage these Chairs to work with grassroots leaders to develop an agenda that draws more people to our cause. Should it turn out that the flood of Chair requests exceeds DNC resources, I would expect state parties to work together, perhaps creating regional sharing arrangements, that would stretch dollars further.

Yes, we should report quarterly on fundraising and spending. Although the FEC already requires this, the DNC should issue quarterly statements explaining what it has spent and what it has accomplished.

And we must halt the selling of donor lists to anyone. This huge problem has a relatively easy solution. ActBlue, now essential to any successful Democratic fundraising effort, should ban campaign committees that abuse their access to donor lists. These committees must register with the FEC to get on ActBlue and thus can be identified fairly easily. They should be kept off the platform and shunned by Democratic campaigns, as should their officers. That is how we stop the trash.

Yes, we must present a clear plan for strengthening Democratic branding. Yet this isn’t easy. The Republican media system works for them in ways that won’t work for us. Republicans are the party of those with low trust in institutions. We are the opposite. We need to overcome mistrust by building community and connection. I agree, as you imply, that there should be a Democratic media network.

Fledgling efforts along those lines have already begun, and I think a good strategy here would be to address right wing messaging via confrontation. So our side has to listen more carefully to what is said on Fox and similar places and respond directly. We err gravely when we assume the mainstream media is Democratic media, an illusion fed by Trump and Fox. Although we can’t simply mirror the other side, we can more effectively amplify our messaging through our own media and our prominent supporters. Democrats also must emphatically clarify who does not speak for us.

The Grassroots Connector’s final three points, involving a review of technology, can be solved if we simply buy the technology companies and make the technology available to all Democratic candidates. The cost is worth it. Restrictions on Voter File access is a travesty. Let’s end it now.

In sum, I strive to be the kind of DNC Chair who delivers for and listens to the grassroots. Without broader based participation in our party and our country, we lose.

A full interview with Jason Paul can be found here.

Contributed by Susan Wagner with images from Rini Templeton and Victor Dubreuil

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