Former president
Barack Obama, whose legacy is being rapidly dismantled by President
Donald Trump and a Republican Party dominating all levels of government,
was instrumental in the election of Tom Perez as the new head of the
Democratic Party. Perez defeated Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota,
the initial front-runner in the Democratic National Committee Chair
race, by a 235-200 vote on Sunday.
Obama, whose presidency oversaw a catastrophic collapse in electoral
power for Democrats, and who paved the way for Hillary Clinton as the
failed Democratic presidential nominee, has publicly expressed his
intent to continue to direct the party now that he is out of office.
Ellison entered the race with backing from influential leaders across
the Democratic Party, appearing to unify the interest groups of the
party that had been split into the camps supporting Hillary Clinton and
Bernie Sanders during the 2016 Democratic primary. Ellison’s career
includes
environmental-justice
and civil-rights organizing, local and national electoral organizing,
and effective public engagement on the national stage—perhaps most
notably his warning to the
nation
to take Donald Trump’s presidential campaign seriously in the summer of
2015, while political pundits were treating Trump as a good-for-ratings
joke.
Ellison’s campaign faced concerted public
attacks
against Ellison’s candidacy from anti-Muslim activists and party funders
who accused Ellison of being an anti-Semite despite a long record of
alliance with and advocacy for progressive Jewish politics.
In addition, Ellison ran a campaign publicly discouraging
engagement
by the grassroots members of the party, contradicting his own declared
vision of a grassroots-driven party.
Meanwhile, Perez rose in favor among the DNC
membership after gaining the public endorsement of key Obama allies,
foremost among them former Vice President Joe Biden. That Obama was
personally backing Perez was widely
understood
but never directly confirmed.
In the wake of Perez’s victory, Politico’s Edward-Isaac Dovere has
reported that Obama himself selected Perez to
run
and then personally lobbied DNC members on
behalf of Perez:
[T]he distaste for [Ellison’] approach and profile . . . helped
push former President Barack Obama to urge Perez into the race — and
continue the support all the way through. He called DNC members
himself, and had aides including confidante Valerie Jarrett, former
political director David Simas and his White House director of
political engagement Paulette Aniskoff working members by phone
through the votes on Saturday afternoon. Former Vice President Joe
Biden, who officially endorsed Perez, also worked the phones with
members.
Obama and Biden made a four-point pitch, according to a person
familiar with the call strategy: Perez’s unimpeachable progressive
credentials at the Justice and Labor departments, his ability to bring
people together, his management skills and how he was one of the stars
of the Obama administration.
(Some progressive critics have
impeached
Perez’s record at Justice and Labor, particularly his strong support
for the
TPP.)
Obama’s direct involvement in the race was not reported until after
Perez was elected. Soon after Perez won, Obama made his first public
statement on the race, congratulating Perez and his own “legacy”:
Congratulations to my friend Tom Perez on his election to lead the
Democratic Party, and on his choice of Keith Ellison to help him lead
it. I’m proud of all the candidates who ran, and who make this great
party what it is. What unites our party is a belief in opportunity –
the idea that however you started out, whatever you look like, or
whomever you love, America is the place where you can make it if you
try. Over the past eight years, our party continued its track record
of delivering on that promise: growing the economy, creating new
jobs, keeping our people safe with a tough, smart foreign policy, and
expanding the rights of our founding to every American – including the
right to quality, affordable health insurance. That’s a legacy the
Democratic Party will always carry forward. I know that Tom Perez will
unite us under that banner of opportunity, and lay the groundwork for
a new generation of Democratic leadership for this big, bold,
inclusive, dynamic America we love so much.
Obama’s depiction of the Democratic Party as the party of “opportunity”
hearkens back to President Ronald Reagan, who frequently
described
the Republican Party as the party of “opportunity.” After his victory,
Perez
told
Meet the Press “we are the party of opportunity and inclusion.”
In post-election exit interviews, Obama made clear that he intends to
maintain control over the Democratic Party, whose problems he perceives
to be rooted in messaging failures, not policy weaknesses. He told
Rolling
Stone
that it would be “incorrect” to conclude that the Obama administration
neglected rural or working-class communities; instead the discontent is
a result of a “communications” problem to be solved by a new “common
story” and then “figuring out how do we attract more eyeballs and make
it more interesting and more entertaining and more persuasive.”
If you look at the data from the election, if it were just young
people who were voting, Hillary would have gotten 500 electoral votes.
So we have helped, I think, shape a generation to think about being
inclusive, being fair, caring about the environment. And they will
have growing influence year by year, which means that America over
time will continue to get better. This is a cultural issue. And a
communications issue. It is true that a lot of manufacturing has
left or transformed itself because of automation. But during the
course of my presidency, we added manufacturing jobs at historic
rates… The challenge we had is not that we’ve neglected these
communities from a policy perspective. That is, I think, an
incorrect interpretation. You start reading folks saying, “Oh, you
know, working-class families have been neglected,” or “Working-class
white families have not been paid attention to by Democrats.”
Actually, they have. What is true, though, is that whatever policy
prescriptions that we’ve been proposing don’t reach, are not heard, by
the folks in these communities. And what they do hear is Obama or
Hillary are trying to take away their guns or they disrespect you.
I’ll spend time in my first year out of office writing a book, and I’m
gonna be organizing my presidential center, which is gonna be focused
on precisely this issue of how do we train and empower the next
generation of leadership. How do we rethink our storytelling, the
messaging and the use of technology and digital media, so that we
can make a persuasive case across the country? And not just in San
Francisco or Manhattan but everywhere, about why climate change
matters or why issues of economic inequality have to be addressed.
Well, the most important thing that I’m focused on is how we create a
common set of facts. That sounds kind of abstract. Another way of
saying it is, how do we create a common story about where we are. It’s
gonna require those of us who are interested in progressive causes
figuring out how do we attract more eyeballs and make it more
interesting and more entertaining and more persuasive.
Obama told
NPR
and David
Axelrod
that his post-presidency plan is to focus on “developing young
Democratic leaders” to continue the same policies as his administration
but with a better messaging approach to ex-urban and rural voters.
Now, with his pick as the head of the Democratic Party, a newly
re-launched Organizing for
Action,
and a foundation overseen by Silicon Valley and Wall Street
executives, the
former president is in a strong position to put his plan to defend his
presidency’s reputation through a new generation of Democratic politics
into action.
Late Friday, the Trump administration announced it
was nominating CSX executive Howard R. “Skip”
Elliott to be Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials
Safety
Administration
(PHMSA) in the U.S. Department of Transportation.
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