DNC Chairman candidate: Make voters, not Donald Trump, "focal point" of messaging
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota), who’s running to be the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Sunday that Democrats should oppose President-elect Donald Trump -- but not make him the “focal point” of their national message going forward.
“I would say to Democrats, we-- we should not make Donald Trump the focal point of all of our energy,” he said. “We need to make the people, the average worker -- day American, who we are fighting for and make that crystal clear every single day.”
Ellison, outlining his plans at the DNC if he’s elected the next chairman, said the party needs to be “seen to be democratic” -- a reference to the concerns that the DNC favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders during the 2016 Democratic primary.
“We’ve got to make sure that the Democratic Party is not just Democratic but seen to be democratic,” he said. “That means we’ve got to have systems in place to make sure that everybody who participates in a primary is perceived to have an equal shot with everybody else.”
Ellison didn’t specifically make mention of summer’s scandal over the trove of hacked DNC emails -- which showed favoritism toward Clinton among DNC staffers -- but as a Sanders supporter, it’s clear that’s what he was referring to.
Ellison, one of several Democrats jockeying for the position, has earned the support of Sanders and several other top Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the incoming Senate Minority Leader. The Minnesota pol also said if he helms the DNC he’ll “prioritize voter turnout” beyond just the traditional get-out-the-vote efforts in the lead-up to each Election Day, work to strengthen “the grassroots” of the party and encourage collaboration and cooperation between Democrats at all levels of government.
“We have got to just make sure that the Democratic rank and file really owns the party and feels that it is theirs, that it is fair and that’s what we’ve got to do,” he said, referring to groups like veterans, organized labor and college Democrats.
Asked where President-elect Donald Trump fits into that plan, Ellison said Mr. Trump is not a “normal” president and that Democrats can’t “normalize” his behavior -- but that the party needs to make sure it’s paying attention to American voters, in addition to Mr. Trump
“We’re going to fight him because he stands against our value system,” he said. “The average American’s needs our priority, people who want to retire, people who want to see their kids go to college, people who want to earn a decent living, people anxious about the plant closing down, moving to another country and selling them back the products that they used to make, if we make those people the priority, we will win.”
“And Donald Trump will be relegated to be a footnote in the dustbin of history,” he added.