Following any electoral disaster, the recriminations come think and heavy, and after watching an election all America’s left-wing elites thought was in the bag slip away, Democrats have thrown an absolute hissy fit of rage.
It’s against that backdrop, and the backdrop of Bernie Sanders supporters disgruntled at Debbie Wasserman Schultz putting both thumbs, a big toe, and half a cankle on the scale to tip the primaries to Hillary Clinton, that Democrats will choose their next Democratic National Committee chair sometime between now and March 31, 2017.
So here’s a roundup of the contenders, pretenders, and offenders in the DNC Chair race:
- Bernie Sanders.
- Massachusetts Senator progressive sweetheart and pretend Indian Elizabeth Warren.
- Outgoing Senate Minority Leader and mysterious accident victim Harry Reid
- Incoming Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer.
- Both of Minnesota’s Senators (Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken).
- Michigan Rep. John Conyers, who is, in fact, still alive, having spent more than 51 years in congress. (Congrats on your son showing up safe, by the way.)
- Alex Soros.
Former Maryland governor and presidential candidate Martin O’Malley got into the race and then dropped even more quickly than he dropped his Presidential bid, which was plenty quick. Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm has also bowed out.
Baring an unlikely heavyweight stepping in (like Hillarysaurus or the Golfer in Chief), the race will probably come down to Ellison vs. Dean.
As DNC chair from 2005 to 2009, Dean was either very effective at pursuing a 50-state strategy that paved the way for Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008, or else he was very lucky at coming in just as Republican dissatisfaction with Bush43 was cresting. (As Charlemagne notes in the musical Pippin, “It’s smarter to be lucky than it’s lucky to be smart.”) Dean won his chairmanship the first time around as a liberal firebrand (“Yeaggggh!”), but as a prominent Hillary backer in 2016, he’s getting pegged as the default “status quo” candidate compared to Ellison.
And Ellison is something else:
Ellison was the first Muslim elected to federal office when he won his seat in 2006. Ellison also has had ties with Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.
Ellison repeatedly has been regarded as one of the most liberal members of Congress.
He supported impeaching then-Vice President Dick Cheney, compared President George W. Bush to Hitler, and blamed Bush for the September 11 attacks.
Ellison also has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood:
Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Yet ISNA has actually admitted its ties to Hamas, which styles itself the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Justice Department actually classified ISNA among entities “who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood.”
It gets worse. In 2008, Ellison accepted $13,350 from the Muslim American Society (MAS) to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The Muslim American Society is a Muslim Brotherhood organization: “In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation’s major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members.”
Given that, it’s no surprise that Ellison is not a fan of Israel, supporting the “divestment” movement and hanging around with anti-Israel groups like The U.S. Campaign.
As a result, Jewish Democrats are becoming increasingly alarmed at the prospect of Ellison heading the DNC: “The rise of Ellison could drive Jews out of the Democratic Party, according to Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a private wealth manager who worked in the administrations of New York City Mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat, and New York Governor George Pataki, a Republican. “There are many longtime Jewish Democrats who are on the fence about whether to stay in a party that has been tilting away from Israel—and if Ellison is elected, I believe a good percentage of them will leave the party.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Scott Johnson at Powerline has been following Elison’s rise for a decade. He’s not a fan:
As the Minnesota’s Fifth District representative in Congress, Keith Ellison has a good gig. He’s a hustler who is accustomed to exploiting the ignorance of voters in a one-party district in a town with a one-party newspaper. Ellison has exploited the ignorance of his constituents in lying repeatedly about his personal history, as I tried to show in “Louis Farrakhan’s first congressman.”
As a Republican, I’d be delighted to see Ellison win. Like Wasserman Schultz, he’s be a part-time Chair at a moment in history they desperately need a full-time chair. More importantly, he’d drag the Democratic Party even further left, double-down on the victimhood identity politics that’s driving normal people out of the party, and do everything possible to make 2018 look an awful lot like 2010. On the plus side, as a Bernie backer, he might finally cleanse the DNC of the Clinton Machine’s stench once and for all (assuming current felony investigations don’t do that for him).
I fear that Dean, far closer to being a centrist, would concentrate on building up the Democratic Party’s election infrastructure in all 50 states like he did in his previous tenure. Dean was also very successful at fundraising, and would probably be far more likely to keep “big money” donating to the Democrats in the Age of Trump than Ellison. Dean would be bad for the Republican Party, but possibly good for America if he also junked the Social Justice Warrior wing of the party and put a stop to the endless victimhood identity politics race baiting. That would be a real service. The downside is that the Clintonistas would probably keep lurking in the party machinery.
“The first big test for those running will come [when] the candidates meet with state party leaders at the national gathering of Democratic chairmen in Denver.”
