After a difficult 2016 campaign that saw them lose in the White House, both chambers of Congress and in state houses across the country, Democrats elected Tom Perez, the former labor secretary during the Obama administration, to lead the Democratic National Committee on Saturday.
Perez won in the second round of voting during the 2017 Winter DNC Meeting in Atlanta, earning 235 votes from the 447 DNC members — the voting bloc that decides the chairmanship. Perez was considered the heavy favorite of the Democratic establishment.
Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, the preferred candidate of the Bernie Sanders wing of the party, came in second, earning 200 votes in the second round of votes. Half ballots are given to Democrats voting abroad.
I have to admit that though I followed this with interest I really did not have a dog in this fight.
In my opinion all that matters with a new DNC head is that they recognize what is happening all across the country right now in response to the election of Donald Trump and that they find some way to harness that activism and organize it into overwhelming voter turnout for the next election cycles.
With that goal in mind I think that having somebody from the Obama administration is not exactly a bad thing since it means that our former President will likely become more involved, and with his sky rocketing approval numbers that can only help moving forward.
Perez also had the good sense to appoint Keith Ellison as his deputy chair. So this is clearly not a dumb man.
Source http://ift.tt/2lS9HmN
