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This is an adapted excerpt from the Nov. 25 episode of “The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle.”
On Monday, the Democratic National Committee announced that it will elect a new chair Feb. 1, just days after President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. As a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, I know what qualities it takes to run a party, especially after such a devastating result.
Americans are asking not only where the Democratic Party is going, but also who is going to lead it moving forward.
When I came in as chairman in 2009, the Republican Party had just been shellacked by Barack Obama in the 2008 election. That defeat came just two years after Republicans lost control of both the House and the Senate in the midterms. In 2006, I was on the ballot running for Senate in Maryland, and it didn’t matter how much folks liked me or the job I was doing as the sitting lieutenant governor; what they were concerned about was where the Republican Party was going under George W. Bush’s leadership.
That’s exactly the situation the Democratic Party finds itself in now. Americans are asking not only where the party is going, but also who is going to lead it moving forward.
The next DNC chair must have a grounded understanding of where the country is and what it is telling the party. The chair needs to understand that the middle of the country matters as much as the East Coast and the West Coast, and that the South matters as much as the North. The Democrats need a chair who understands how to win across the country.
Now that the next chair is freed from the political whims of the White House, the goal of the next Democratic leader is to rebuild the brand of the party and incorporate it into a 50-state strategy that empowers their candidates to win competitive races across the country.
But an essential ingredient to any future success of the party is understanding that elections aren’t just won top-down, but you also win elections bottom-up. Creating strategies for those down-ballot candidates to win county executive races, mayoral races and state legislative races will be of immense help to your candidates running statewide and for federal office.
A chair who understands how the country is changing, connects the message and the messengers of the party to that change, and understands that winning is not a one-way effort will better position Democrats to be competitive once again. Don’t overthink it.
Allison Detzel contributed.