With just hours left before the 447 voting members of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) choose their next chair, leaders of progressive groups are making their final case for “the candidate who has most consistently been in the trenches with the grassroots progressive base that Democrats need in this moment”—Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.).
The joint letter issued Friday from the leadership of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, Presente Action, and 350 Action argues that with Ellison in the post, “we can hit the ground running” as he “has worked collaboratively for years as partners with groups like ours.” The letter states:
The letter urges the voting members “to be heroes” and choose Ellison.
National Nurses United (NNU) also reaffirmed its backing of the congressman on Friday, with its executive director, RoseAnn DeMoro, saying in a statement: “Selecting Keith Ellison to chair the DNC is exactly the direction the Democratic Party needs to go to rebuild and strengthen its ties with working class Americans, young people, communities of color, and the full diversity of the 99 percent of Americans who should be the base of the Democratic Party.”
“With allies of the far right and corporate interests now in control of all the branches of the federal government and a majority of state governments, it could not be more clear that the Democratic Party needs a new path that represents a fundamental break with reliance on Wall Street donors and the corporate class,” said DeMoro.
The other front-runner for the spot is former Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, who, as The Intercept wrote this week, “has an established record of not taking on the banks; both at the Department of Justice and the Department of Labor.”
350.org-co founder Bill McKibben, one of the signatories to the joint letter, wrote this week that Ellison and Perez “clearly represent the two wings of the party.”
Making his pitch for Ellison, filmmaker Michael Moore said Thursday the party has “a real chance to change things.”
“To just put in what the old guard wants again—what’s the message to young people out there?” he asked.
[block:block=30]
Click Here: essendon bombers guernsey 2019
Another observer offered similar thoughts about what the choice of either Ellison or Perez would represent in a “tweetstorm”:
As NPR puts it, whoever wins
According to Ajay Singh Chaudhary, executive director of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, the choice will be “about the future of the Democratic Party—and perhaps even if it has one.” He writes at Quartz:
The vote takes place Saturday in Atlanta, and as NBC News wrote: “Balloting could go multiple rounds before a victor emerges and back-room deal making for endorsements is expected. “