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2019-08-28 Home Front: Politix
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Democrats disavow Obama's creation of rival political group
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 [Politico] To this day, many Democratic Party officials still fume about Barack Obama’s decision to create his own political group outside of the Democratic National Committee, Organizing for Action.
Now they’ve ensured it won't happen again if a Democrat wins the White House in 2020.
The Association of State Democratic Committees announced Tuesday that every leading presidential contender has vowed not to create "any organizing or messaging infrastructure that is parallel or duplicative" to the DNC or state parties. The signed pledge also binds candidates to publicly call on their supporters not to launch outside groups on their behalf.
It's an enormous change for the party, one that will likely strengthen the DNC and state parties after what many Democrats considered neglect of the party infrastructure during the Obama years. It also throws into question the future of Our Revolution, the Bernie Sanders-created grass-roots organization, which state party leaders say would appear to violate the agreement if Sanders wins the general election.
"It's a huge shift," said Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party. The move sends two messages, she added: "You cannot create another OFA," and "the DNC is an important national infrastructure, but it's not in the states ‐ we are."
"[State parties] are never the shiny object that gets funded with all the appeals from podcasts or big donors," Kleeb added.
Organizing for Action, the political group that grew out of Obama's first presidential run, decentralized power from the DNC by building a parallel infrastructure that competed for donors. It was a move that many state party chairs loathed, and in the years since have faulted for Democrats' losses at the gubernatorial and statehouse level.
“It wasn't helpful to the political work that needs to get done in building a bench,” said Stephen Handwerk, executive director of the Louisiana Democratic Party. "We have a political tool in the state parties and the president should use them."
The pledge, signed by Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg and 16 other contenders, requires candidates to use state parties as their organizing, messaging and political arm should they become their party's nominee. Many state parties are run by full-time and unpaid chairs who are expected to recruit, train and get candidates elected. But many have few resources at their disposal, and the deal announced Tuesday is an attempt to fix that.
The agreement also mandates the eventual nominee to share all of the data he or she collects during the campaign with the DNC and state parties, which is already a requirement to get access to the party's voter file. The new agreement doesn’t require the nominee to share his or her email list, a notable concession and one that party officials hope could be revisited.
Harris was the first leading candidate to sign the pledge, drafted by the Association of State Democratic Committees, according to multiple sources. Warren had already signaled that she wanted to operate within the existing party infrastructure, donating $5,000 to each of the 50 state parties last year. 
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Posted by Besoeker 2019-08-28 08:23||
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Posted by Besoeker 2019-08-28 08:40||
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Posted by Mercutio 2019-08-28 09:27||
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Posted by Lex 2019-08-28 12:31||
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Posted by Lex 2019-08-28 12:34||
2019-08-28 12:34||
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"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."