How Perez defeated Ellison, and what's next

Jonathan Easley at The Hill.

One vote.

That’s how close former Labor Secretary Tom Perez was to defeating Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) on the initial ballot and becoming the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in the first contested race in more than a decade.

The hundreds of DNC members and liberal activists gathered inside the Atlanta Convention Center hall gasped when interim chairwoman Donna Brazile read the results. None of the candidates received a majority and there would have to be at least a second round of voting where anything could happen.

When Perez supporters gathered at a party at the Westin Hotel in downtown Atlanta on Friday night, they thought they had about 220 votes, which would have given them a majority. Instead, they clocked in at 213.5 in the first round — some Democrats abroad and from the territories only get half votes — with eight DNC members abstaining. That left the door open for Ellison, who was only 13 votes behind.

The narrow miss struck fear in the hearts of Perez supporters who were frustratingly close to victory.

Many DNC members had told the campaigns they could only count on their support through the first round of voting. After that, all bets were off, sending the whip operations for both campaigns into high gear. With fringe candidates dropping out and DNC members susceptible to flipping, there were more than enough votes free to shift to Ellison.

“I thought Ellison would win on the second ballot,” said one Perez supporter. “I have never been involved in something that intense.”

Ellison’s campaign was confident that they would pick up all 12 of the supporters from Idaho Democratic Party executive director Sally Boynton Brown, who bowed out after the first round but notably did not endorse any candidate.

Boynton Brown, who is in her early 40s, is a rising party star who fits the mold of a progressive. The conventional wisdom was that her supporters would back Ellison, who ran with the blessing of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). “We’re going to win on the second ballot,” an Ellison campaign source said in a text. “Some folks didn’t vote in the first round and we’re getting all of Sally’s supporters.”

Perez’s allies weren’t just rattled — they were also angry.

Naturally.  Anger when their entitlement is threatened has been the Clinton Dems' knee-jerk response to everything for practically two years running.

Before the second vote, a text went out from Ellison’s campaign to DNC members claiming that South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who dropped out before the first vote, was casting his support to Ellison. “Keith is grateful to have the support of Mayor Buttigieg and we’re in a strong position to win on the next ballot,” the text said. “Can he count on your support?”

The problem: Buttigieg did not endorse anyone after dropping out.

One Ellison ally described the mistake as fog-of-war confusion. They quickly sent a follow-up text admitting the error. Instead, former DNC chairman Howard Dean — who was originally a Buttigieg supporter — announced he would be backing Ellison. Dean’s emailed endorsement included a parenthetical disclaimer: "This is real."

This contains an element of what may have been gaslighting the Ellison crew by Dean.  The Hill also reported Friday afternoon that Dean called Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer's endorsement of Ellison 'the kiss of death'.  (Juxtapose that against Alan Dershowitz's ugly threats to leave the party had Ellison prevailed.) 

Establishment Democrats like Schumer and Dean endorsed Ellison so that when Tom Perez wins #DNCChair they can say, "We tried, Berniecrats."

— Nicholas Youngren (@NSYoungren) February 25, 2017

Back to the neoliberal rage.

Perez’s supporters were irate, believing the Ellison camp was playing dirty. Some grumbled that if the Perez camp had made the same mistake, Ellison’s supporters would have never let them live it down.

“Such a double-standard,” one Democrat said.

As this drama unfolded, the whip operations on the convention hall floor had become infinitely more complicated.The campaigns were supposed to get lists of candidates everyone had voted, for but the DNC had to abandon its digital voting tools over fears the Wi-Fi would give out. They would go to the back-up plan of hand-counting paper ballots instead. That meant there wouldn’t be a master list of who voted for who.

“Total chaos,” one Democrat fumed.

You probably could have guessed that Gil Hinojosa was right in the middle of the action.

Still, the campaigns had their own lists of people they thought might be susceptible to flipping. On the Perez side, South Carolina Democratic chairman Jaime Harrison, Texas Democratic chairman Gilberto Hinojosa and DNC finance chairman Henry Muñoz III went to work whipping.

The Perez campaign was thrilled to have Harrison drop out of the race and join their side on Thursday, believing he brought at least a dozen votes. (But) they think Muñoz might have put them over the top. The finance chairman, who spends his weeks jetting across the country and raising millions of dollars from wealthy donors and celebrities from Miami to San Francisco, is among the most connected people at the DNC.

On the Ellison side, key labor leaders including Randi Weingarten and Stuart Applebaum, as well as Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), worked the floor.

The Perez operation won out. Ellison registered 200 votes — the exact same number he had in the first round.

Perez increased his count by 21.5 votes to 235 overall. That means he likely got most of Boynton Brown’s 12 and most of the eight members who abstained from voting in the first round, as well as at least a couple of former Ellison supporters.

In a show of unity, Perez immediately tapped Ellison as deputy chair, and everybody in the hall screamed and cried.  It was high drama, but it doesn't mean nearly as much as people think ... or are complaining about.  Those who supported Perez, or just opposed Ellison -- and vice versa -- are members of two distinct Democratic Parties: one of them can't win elections outside of safe districts and metropolitan areas, and the other can't quit the losing team.

But count on the one Democratic Party to stumble on, dysfunctions intact and disconnected from a progressive caucus that keeps threatening to leave but, like a battered spouse, won't.  Talk of a third-party movement is just that; until the Sanders/Ellison faction suck it up and vote their hopes and not their fears, it won't ever be anything more than social media blather and fodder for Vox sentences.

It's all about the cash ...

[...]The Democrats have raised more money than ever and lost more seats than ever (1,000+ seats nationwide since 2009). They had an elaborate convention, beautifully crafted marketing, what was praised as the most sophisticated data operation to date and teams of veteran campaign strategists working in what was supposed to be the easiest Presidential race in recent history. But around 9:45pm ET on Nov 8, it was clear that the house of cards was on the verge of collapse. And that by the next day, the DNC would have to not just answer how they lost the Presidency and so many other races, but: Where did all that money go?

Former chair candidate and NH state Chairman Ray Buckley broke the news during the Phoenix DNC forum that as an executive member he had never seen the budget — -- and that most leaders at the DNC, as well as all of the members, had no idea where the record amount of money raised was being spent. When the DNC chair candidates debated over whether the party should accept lobbyist money (which was banned under Obama’s administration), Buckley stated “the question should not be about whether we need the lobbyist money, but rather where we’ve spent all this money we’ve raised.”

[...]

Several DNC members have privately disclosed that they received calls on behalf of Tom Perez from Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, a partner of Precision Strategies and former Executive Director of the DNC when the OFA was housed within it. Dillon is also a Co-Chair of the upcoming Unity Commission, forged out of the 2016 rules committee. The goal of the Unity Commission is to set the DNC’s new rules.

Members have repeatedly discussed the frustration with the conflicts of interests within the Democratic party. For Dillon — whose firm received $571,573 from HFA and $593,397 from the DNC, totaling almost $1.2 million — having a seat as a co-chair of the DNC’s rules committee, raises red flags.

One DNC member voting for Mayor Pete Buttigieg stated, “When a firm with a large contract with the DNC co-chairs the new rules committee and makes calls on behalf of a DNC candidate, you can’t help but wonder whether Perez’s interests lie with the DNC members or if he’s cut a deal to keep the contract with Precision.”

I'll stop there; you can go on without me.

I got no votes left in me for this breed of mule.

Update: In his first media appearance on yesterday morning's talking heads, Perez screwed the pooch.  "Mostly False".

Sunday Oscar-Winning Funnies

'Post-election stress disorder' sweeps the nation

Big weekend on tap for Democrats *two updates

Both the locals and the nationals are choosing new leaders.  Let's look at the DNC race first, with the AP having already reported that Tom Perez is on the cusp of victory.

DNC race whip count—via @AP

Perez 205
Ellison 153
Harrison 27
Brown 10
Buttigieg 8
Greene 0

(224 required to win)https://t.co/JLEfnqj92O

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) February 22, 2017

Last night's CNN debate (Twitter hash here) between the field was informative.

The 447 DNC members will vote during the party's meeting in Atlanta on Saturday, with as many rounds as required for a candidate to get 224 votes. The candidates will meet for a forum hosted by CNN on Wednesday night and spend the next several days wooing the state party chairs, longtime activists and donors who make up the voting members.

Even in the final days, the race remains highly volatile as DNC members try to determine which candidate could best lead a party with no formal hold on power in Washington and no unifying national leader after President Barack Obama's departure from the White House and Hillary Clinton's loss of the presidential election.

Update I: Jaime Harrison has withdrawn and thrown his support to Perez, which all but seals the deal for the former labor secretary and Clintonite.

So it appears that the progressives are going to be turned back again, and as with the primary skirmish last year, are threatening to bolt (again).  It would be nice if that would happen, but after spending half of 2015 and all of last year blogging about my expectations for it, I watched with grim face as Berniecrats slowly marched back into the fold, too scared of a Trump victory to risk a vote for Not Hillary even in Texas, where none of them mattered in the ashes of her polls-defying upset loss.

If I had more time to excerpt and comment at length on the following links, I'd do so.  Since I don't, I leave it to your reading and interpretation to decide if the Democratic Party will choose a path toward relevance or continue off into the weeds.  I'll simply say that no hope and not enough change among the blue sheep seems to be forthcoming.

-- Is the Democratic Party with the Resistance?  This weekend should tell us, says 350.org's Bill McKibben, in his endorsement of Keith Ellison.

-- If the Democrats won't take the risks, it's up to the people.  Duh.

-- Some thought-provoking 2016 autopsy from pollster Cornell Belcher, who IMO misuses the word 'progressive' but makes important points about race trumping gender.

-- The NYT asks if all this protesting is enabling Trump to some degree (maybe, but who really gives AF) and two takes on the activists and the PAC, We Will Replace You, targeting Blue Dogs in 2018 (important but also potentially self-defeating).

-- Using the word 'progressive' properly, DC Rutledge at HuffPo writes an open letter to Bernie Sanders, distilled as: at some point Pops, you've got to get off the D train.  I'm pretty sure it's already derailed, but maybe that's just me and a very small percentage of others.  If you make a move, however, you carry about 25-33% of the Democratic base with you.  So please hurry up and figure it out before this latest movement dies.

-- Some state party leaders think Obama's organizing arm is "some Grade A bullshit".  Heh.

Update II: two more things, one from Cait Johnstone trying to get a message through, and one from Matt Taibbi and his book "Insane Clown President".

"The maddening thing about the Democrats is that they refuse to see how easy they could have it. If the party threw its weight behind a truly populist platform, if it stood behind unions and prosecuted Wall Street criminals and stopped taking giant gobs of cash from every crooked transnational bank and job-exporting manufacturer in the world, they would win every election season in a landslide.

"But they won’t do that, because they don’t see what just happened this year as a message rising up from millions of voters. 

"Politicians are so used to viewing the electorate as a giant thing to be manipulated that no matter what happens at the ballot, they usually can only focus on the Washington-based characters they perceive to be pulling the strings.

"Through this lens, the uprising among Democratic voters this year wasn’t an organic expression of mass disgust, but wholly the fault of Bernie Sanders, who within the Beltway is viewed as an oddball amateur and radical who jumped the line. Nobody saw his campaign as an honest effort to restore power to voters, because nobody in the capital even knows what that is.

"In the rules of palace intrigue, Sanders only made sense as a kind of self-centered huckster who made a failed play for power. And the narrative will be that with him out of the picture, the crisis is over. No person, no problem.

"This inability to grasp that the problem is bigger than Bernie Sanders is a huge red flag. As  (Paul) Thacker puts it, the theme of this election year was widespread anger toward both parties, and both the Trump craziness and the near-miss with Sanders should have served as a warning. “The Democrats should be worried they’re next,” he says. 

Finally, the pathetic TDP chair weighed in with a Captain Obvious understatement yesterday (that would be 2/23, or first posting without updates) which turned laughable and ridiculous within 24 hours, in the context of the Harrison withdrawal/Perez endorsement (Update I above) which he surely knew was coming.  On my observation, this kind of deception, misdirection, obfuscation, etc. is a consistent habit of Gil's.  The only thing he seems to have mastered.

"Nobody really knows what's going to happen on Saturday," said Texas Democratic Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa, who's backing Perez.

Hinojosa, as I have blogged repeatedly, is anathema to the prospect of Democratic fortunes in the Lone Star State and the most obvious walking, talking symbol of Donkey incompetence found anywhere in the country.  His support of Perez reflects a continuation of the patron neoliberal model which Hillary Clinton and every statewide candidate from Wendy Davis to Jim Hogan has ridden to defeat in years past.  It's the definition of insanity, an executable program in the TDP, and it's been going on since Bill White was the chair in the '80's.

Texas Democrats should be looking to the Harris County example from 2016, a solid set of wins pulled off by their outgoing chairman, Lane Lewis, who is to be succeeded in a vote by county precinct chairs on March 5.  There is a forum for candidates also this weekend.  Andrew Cockburn at Harper's has written the most glowing account, in "Texas is The Future":

Ask anyone who was present at Hillary Clinton’s presumptive victory celebration on November 8 and they will tell you of the stunned silence, broken only by sobs, that settled across the vast glass enclosure of the Javits Center in Manhattan. Upstairs, in the suite where the candidate was closeted with her family and associates, the trauma was even more intense. As one attendee later reported to me, it featured the “full range of human emotions: screams, shock, fainting. Bill moved immediately to blame.” The former president, I was told, singled out campaign manager Robby Mook: “ ‘We should have fired that asshole months ago!’ It was awful.”

This funereal atmosphere was replicated wherever Democrats were gathered across the nation — with one instructive exception. In the Heights neighborhood of Houston, hundreds of revelers thronged bars along Studewood Street late into the night. “Any Houston Democrat who was anybody was there,” Doug Miller, a local reporter, told me later. “I looked up at the TV screens on the walls, I could see the whole country turning red, but everyone there seemed happy!”

The reason was simple. Unlike the rest of the country, Houston Democrats had a full-scale Republican rout to celebrate. The party had swept the polls in Harris County, the vast region encompassing Houston, arguably the nation’s most diverse city (as locals never tire of repeating). With 4.5 million inhabitants, the county is more populous than half the states in America. Now Harris voters had elected a Democratic district attorney — a very powerful post in Texas law enforcement — for the first time in thirty-six years. The Democrats had also captured almost every other slot on the ballot, including the tax assessor’s office, which oversees voter registration: a crucial win in an age of Republican voter suppression.

Furthermore, these local victories carried over to the top of the ticket. Though it probably did little to lighten the mood in the Javits Center, Hillary Clinton trounced Donald Trump by more than 160,000 votes in a county that Barack Obama had carried by fewer than a thousand in 2012. While others in the defeated party were subsiding into melancholy, hand-wringing, and consolatory tales of Russian hackers, the county’s newly elected sheriff, former Houston police sergeant Ed Gonzalez, was assuring supporters that he would defy any orders to round up undocumented immigrants. Across the street, the new D.A., Kim Ogg, promised her exuberant audience a progressive agenda: “We’re going to have a system that doesn’t oppress the poor.”

Voter endorsement of such progressive positions, well to the left of anything Clinton promoted during her message-lite campaign, was all the more dramatic in this reddest of red states. The prospect of life under an administration populated with avaricious plutocrats, xenophobes, and religious fanatics may chill the blood of countless Americans, but Texans have been living in such conditions for decades. Pertinent examples abound, not least the unremitting legislative assaults on Texan women, the latest being a proposed rule requiring that fetal tissue from abortions or miscarriages be expensively interred or cremated. Add to that cash-starved public schools, cuts in services for disabled children, record-breaking numbers of uninsured, lack of compensation for injured workers, the wholesale gutting of environmental regulations, soaring inequality, hostility to immigrants, and multiple restrictions on voting rights. Texas may therefore serve as an example of what could be in store for the rest of us. “The Texas Republicans have done a good job on voter suppression,” Craig Varoga, a Democratic political consultant and veteran of many election battles across the state, told me gloomily. “Now you’re going to see the same thing happening nationally, with the blessing of the Department of Justice.”

Read on from there.  The author spotlights the sheriff and DA's races, where Ed Gonzalez and Kim Ogg ran on actual liberal policies against hapless Republican incumbent opponents, and gives kudos to the Texas Organizing Project for turning out the vote.  These are election strategies that can be duplicated here again and elsewhere across the state.  If Lillie Schechter or Dominique Davis is elected, then I suspect either one of those women has the chops to keep the roll going.  If some pretender like Rob Collier or Keryl Douglas gets in, something tells me the momentum will be endangered.  Twenty-eighteen is going to be a rough enough cycle for the Blues without committing the usual unforced errors.

Blogging less and enjoying it more

At least through the end of tax season.

Trump's had a quiet week so far, don't you think?  Outside of the continuing developments surrounding Russians named Felix Sater, this piece about the James Comey letter and its ensuing debacle may spark some discussion.

The Texas Lege has been getting a little busier, however.  My go-to source remains Quorum Report's Daily Buzz; even if you can't read the full story about the rural high-speed rail pushback (setting up a confrontation between Trump's stated priority and the hicks that rule this state), or the $11 trillion in financial interests standing up to Dan Patrick's Not Free to Pee bill, or Dan Patrick being a jerk in other ways, Harvey's crew is always first with the news that breaks.

Some polling is out this week: Americans are worried about war but still favor support for the NATO alliance.  And the TexTrib surveyed Texans and finds that Republicans love their president and everybody likes their weed, and even Obamacare if it went by another name.  But they don't care about where people do their business in public even if they support (scroll down) the bathroom bill's intentions, and they still despise Ill Eagles.  Way to go once again, Texas Democrats!  We obviously need more independents in this state.

Most poll respondents — 54 percent — said Texans should use the public restrooms based on their birth gender, while 31 percent said they should base their choice on their gender identities.

Note also that Governor Hell on Wheels hasn't stimulated much interest for his constitutional convention.  Some of this poll's takeaways are actually positive; let's hope it doesn't hold to the typical track record of the TexTrib in specific and the recent history of polling generally.

Much more but out of time.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance will light a scented candle outside IKEA in solidarity with the confused people of Sweden as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff thinks that many opportunities to make gains in 2018 will exist for Texas Democrats, and they should plan accordingly.

Libby Shaw at Daily Kos is amused by the Republicans hiding from their constituents. No wonder. The GOP has been serving the interests of billionaires and oligarchs for decades, both domestic and Russian, apparently. No Republicans, we are not about to move on. This is more dangerous than Watergate.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston supports Lillie Schechter for Chair of the Harris County Democratic Party.

The last few months have been perplexing as we try to figure out life on the Trump train. UGH. But as Texas Leftist points out, some things are slowly coming into focus. After seeming to be free from consequences, we're finally seeing that the president and his administration can be held accountable for their actions.

SocraticGadfly, on hearing about the death of Norma Jean McCorvey of Roe v. Wade fame, offers an extended take on her, the plaintiff in a simultaneous suit, and the state of abortion in America today.

Shadetree psychologist PDiddie at Brains and Eggs diagnoses President Trump as in desperate need of an intervention.

Easter Lemming Liberal News showcases Pat Van Houte's grassroots campaign (website) for Pasadena mayor, which relies on small donations and prohibits donations from city contractors.

The Lewisville Texan Journal reports that a city council candidate in that city updated her website after being confronted with accusations of plagiarism.

Texas Vox was on the scene at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission public hearings in west Texas as local residents gave officials an earful about proposed changes to storing waste out there.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme warns that the disrespect the Republicans show the US Constitution is only getting worse. Now they want to actually write their hate and kleptocracy into the document itself.

Neil at All People Have Value made note of the climate change art exhibit made by the construction crew on Memorial Drive in Houston. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

=================

More news from across Texas!

RG Ratcliffe's weekly roundup at Burkablog spotlights sex trafficking, a discussion about race in context with Black/Blue/All Lives Matter, and a voter fraud unicorn.

Texas Observer photographer Ray Whitehouse met Vaughan Neville, a conservative activist known on social media as the Man Spot, at the third annual Texas Firearms Festival held last October in Liberty Hill.

The Man Spot, aka Vaughan Neville, photographed by Ray Whitehouse at the Texas Observer

Jonathan Tilove at the AAS blog First Reading celebrates The Rag's long history of politics and weirdness in Austin.

Grits for Breakfast explains why indigent defense costs have risen as crime has declined.

The Texas Election Law Blog analyzes two election-related bills that have been filed in the Lege, and the Texas Freedom Network explains that other bills intend to redefine 'religious freedom' as being able to use religion to discriminate.

Paradise in Hell notes that Trump is now 0.00002% closer to proving his claims about election fraud, and Somervell County Salon sees Trump's "fake news" as just another name for gossip -- in which he also engages.

In the latest Chronicles of an Angry Black Queer, Ashton P. Woods at Strength in Numbers calls out the racism and mediocrity of the white LGBTQ community.

Raj Mankad wants to see multiple approaches taken to make Houston streets safer.

Julie Rovner takes a deep dive into four GOP talking points on health care.

Better Texas Blog describes how the commissioner of Texas education re-interpreted a statute in order to give $100 million in homestead exemptions to already-wealthy homeowners in already-rich school districts.  

Raise Your Hand Texas explains why voucher advocates are becoming irritable.

And Eater Houston notes that several Houston restaurants will be raising money for the ACLU in support of their immigrant employees.