A Crisis of Leadership

The Democratic Party needs an effective DNC

Dec 04, 2024

The members of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) will elect a new Chair on Feb 1. Will that change anything? Not unless the DNC takes responsibility for the success of the Democratic Party as a whole. Right now, no one is responsible for telling people, “This is what a Democrat is and why you should be one.” No one is responsible for planning and building past the limits of a single election cycle. This has to change, and we all need to help.

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Why the Democratic Party Matters

I have spent the bulk of my career working to improve the Democratic Party. Why? Having Democrats in office is the difference between democracy and dictatorship, between a stable climate and the catastrophic unknown.

The world is impacted by the actions of the United States government. The actions of the United States government depend on who is in power: who controls executive offices, legislatures, and courts. In a majority rule system, there are only two viable parties. It’s scary, but the fate of the world actually rests on the ability of the Democratic Party to operate at its very best.

Needless to say, it is not functioning as well as it should be. Our policies have broad public support. Our elected officials? Mixed reviews. Let’s just say that’s a story for another newsletter. It’s the campaign and communications side that seems to be stuck in a rut, getting blindsided by reality and making the same mistakes all over again, particularly when it comes to the party committees at the national level.

What is the problem?

One big reason is that many of our political party committees aren’t allowed or enabled to do their jobs. Candidates and elected officials want the “Party” to provide money and services, but not to make decisions, not to establish a common message or brand, and not to invest in building capacity over the long term. This shortsighted desire to squeeze out every penny for this one election hurts every candidate in the long run.

Way back when I was Executive Director of the Fairfax County (VA) Democrats, after each monthly meeting I would have the same argument with the “top guy” for one of our congressmen. He would argue that the party was not “allowed” to do any messaging of its own, because the congressman needed to run to the center to win in the purple-ish district. I would argue that it was a self-defeating spiral and that making the case for being a Democrat was the better strategy. Finally, after about 8 months of this, he broke down and said, “You’re right -- but it’s hard!” We both laughed. He was a great guy. It is hard. But doing hard things is what leaders do.

In this election, we spent $1.5 billion on campaign activities that delivered the Harris-Walz ticket approximately 3.5 points over Trump. We know this by comparing our performance in targeted states where we campaigned versus non-targeted states where we did not. Unfortunately, everything we did in the campaign wasn’t enough to overcome the 7–10 point drop in support for Democrats that we saw in almost every state. I say “drop” rather than shift Right, because the data shows that the bulk of the 7-10 point loss in vote share came from Democratic voters staying home.

We need to talk about what is happening outside that campaign cycle and what we are going to do about it.

What can we do?

We cannot wave a magic wand and reallocate a billion dollars toward fixing our toxic party brand and investing in year-round local organizing. Most of those dollars are donated to candidates for their campaigns and they have the right to spend them as they see fit.

We can elect a reform-minded new Chair for the DNC, but that Chair has to fight for a DNC that is responsible for the entire Democratic Party and empowered to succeed. If you read the bylaws of the DNC, you will see that it is defined as being responsible for the function of the party as a whole, including between elections.

Every member of the National Committee, and every one of us who has a stake in the success of the Party, has to stand up and say, “WE NEED TO DO THIS.”

We need to tell candidates, “YOU need us to do this. You will win if the party brand lifts you up instead of drags you down. You will win if our organizers are on the ground, listening to voters and building relationships with them all year round. Plus, you will have more political capital to spend once you are elected.”

We have to stand up to donors, both great and small, and say, “YOU will get more bang for your buck by investing in this.”

If we learn nothing else from this election, we should learn this. We cannot survive if we continue to give the Republican Party and Fox News 100% of the control over defining who we are. We cannot survive if we continue to be out of touch with life outside the beltway.

How could we do it?

This is going to require a serious commitment, but not just to improving how we do what we currently do. Critical responsibilities are falling through the cracks because nobody believes it’s their job.

Leadership means looking at the big picture and figuring out what needs to be done that is currently not being done, assigning somebody the responsibility, and delivering them the capacity to do it. We need to find out what the people need from the DNC and its leaders, and then figure out how to finance and build what we need. The DNC can’t do this alone.

The Blueprint

In 2018 and 2019, working with Arizona state Democratic party leadership, I created a process that involved serious community input, re-envisioning the role of the Party, and preparing us for serious expansion over the following years.

I started by interviewing more than 120 party stakeholders across Arizona. I listened to their complaints, but I also asked them what they really needed from the Democratic Party. They had very different ideas about where the problems were, but rather than trying to figure out which problem was the “right” one, we tasked people with finding solutions to the problem they believed to be most important.

Casting a wide net and empowering every disgruntled activist might seem like a recipe for chaos, but people quickly coalesced around common gripes and zeroed in on specific areas for potential for improvement. Because they were passionate about their particular area, they were willing to both compromise and do the hard work.

The plan was to create working groups for each of these areas that would work with members of the state party steering committee and staff, meet regularly, do research, get input, and develop detailed proposals for reforms and new programs that would be ready to fund and launch.

Where do we start?

We don’t have to wait until the DNC election. Let’s stop arguing over who is right about what’s wrong, and just get to work. We can do this right now:

Collectively compile all these diagnoses of “the problem” into a clear set of areas to look into, and
Connect ourselves with other people who agree with our diagnosis and start comparing notes.

Here are some of the categories that we used in Arizona. You can read descriptions of them here: Blueprint for a Better Party. I added a few more areas that seem to be emerging now.

Working Group Topics:

Year-round voter and community relations
Branding and messaging
Volunteer engagement
Creating local offices and community centers
Voter data quality
Social media and disinformation
Reimagining coordinated campaigns
Internal culture (transparency, communication, openness, etc.)

I would be delighted if you would add your own diagnoses and areas for potential improvement in the comments below! Introduce yourself to people who you agree with!

It is true that I have let our elected officials off the hook a little bit here. We absolutely do need elected officials to speak for the Party, to articulate our values, to champion our causes, to fight our opposition, to show the American people that we are willing to stand up for them even if - God forbid - the MAGA or the media might yell at us. We have to show some spine all the way around.

I just believe that the Party has to be bigger than any one of us, than any one candidate or even the DNC Chair.

We won’t be strong until we start thinking of the Democratic Party as all of us, from the President to every volunteer, to every voter who thinks of themselves as a Democrat, and we all take responsibility for the success of the Democratic Party, for telling and showing people every day, what a Democrat is and why they should be one.

We can do this.

In solidarity, always,

Antonia

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Reframing America