By Eli Watkins, Gregory Krieg and Eugene Scott
As Democrats reel in the wake of Donald Trump’s stunning victory, a new storm is brewing inside the party as competing factions begin to grapple for its leadership.
Howard Dean, who ran the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009, announced on Thursday he would again seek its top role.
“Since the election, I have been approached by many Democrats who believe our party needs new leadership. I’m taking a hard look at DNC Chair because I know how badly we need to reform our nominating process, articulate a bold progressive vision, recommit ourselves to higher wages and a stronger middle class, and return to our roots as a nationwide, grassroots party.”
But two more politicos expressed interest in the job Friday. Former presidential candidate Martin O’Malley announced that he is throwing his hat in the ring.
“Since the election, I have been approached by many Democrats who believe our party needs new leadership,” said the former Maryland Governor. “I’m taking a hard look at DNC Chair because I know how badly we need to reform our nominating process, articulate a bold progressive vision, recommit ourselves to higher wages and a stronger middle class, and return to our roots as a nationwide, grassroots party.”
And New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman and DNC Vice Chair Ray Buckley is exploring a run, according to the Boston Globe.
“.@ChairmanBuckley on DNC chair, not officially running yet, but “I am definitely being strongly encouraged to consider it by DNC members,” reporter James Pindell tweeted.
But former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders — a registered independent who caucuses with Democrats and fought a lengthy primary battle for the party’s nomination this year — and top allies are touting Rep. Keith Ellison for the job. The Muslim-American congressman from Minnesota currently co-chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
In an email to supporters late Thursday, the Vermont senator said Ellison was uniquely qualified to take on “the political establishment and billionaire class,” and that “his experience and perspective would be key to leading the fight against Trump.”
Sanders also made the case for the institutional value of the DNC, an organization he and his backers clashed with repeatedly during the primaries.
“I’m sure a lot of you have some feelings about the Democratic National Committee,” he said. “The truth is that it is an important entity to build, support, and maintain if we are to have the chance to organize and win in the coming elections while Trump is president.”
Ellison supported Sanders in the primary, but emerged as a vocal Hillary Clinton supporter after she clinched the nomination. Sanders named Ellison to the Democratic convention’s platform drafting committee this summer, filling an influential slot given to the Vermont senator as a concession from the party after an unexpectedly tense nominating contest.
Ellison’s office refused to comment to CNN on the record, but he said on a Democracy For America call late Thursday that he would make an announcement about his intentions on Monday.
A former governor of Vermont, Dean served as head of the DNC following his own insurgent, though ultimately unsuccessful bid for the party’s 2004 nomination. As part of his leadership, Dean championed a “50-state strategy,” a plan intended to broaden the electoral map for Democrats.
“The dems need organization and focus on the young,” Dean tweeted on Thursday, proposing to renew the strategy. “Need a fifty State strategy and tech rehab. I am in for chairman again.”
But Dean, despite his considerable ties to the more liberal wing of the party, looks to be in for a struggle against a progressive left emboldened by Sanders’ primary bid.
On Thursday night, People for Bernie, a tech-savvy progressive group with ties to Sanders, told CNN it was backing Ellison as a first step in displacing Clinton loyalists with “a leadership untainted by cozy relationships to Wall St. moneymen, corporate behemoths, dictators, or monarchs.”
In a jab at Dean, People for Bernie co-founder Charles Lenchner added, “Any 50-state strategy must begin with a 50-state accountability project; we reject any effort to unite the party behind the agents of a failed leadership.”
The current head of the DNC is Donna Brazile, a longtime Democratic operative and former CNN contributor, who is leading in an interim capacity after Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned on the eve of the convention. Hacked emails appeared to show Wasserman Schultz and other since-departed DNC officials discussing ways to undermine Sanders’ effort to oust Clinton in the primary.
Brazile has come under increasing scrutiny after another trove of hacked emails showed her forwarding questions from a town hall jointly hosted by CNN to the Clinton campaign.
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