Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez told a University of Minnesota audience (over Zoom) Monday that that the job of Democrats between now and Election Day is to avoid any complacency about Joe Biden’s big lead in many current polls, to not let Donald Trump turn the election into a “roller coaster,” and not let up until Joe Biden has been sworn in and can remind Americans what it’s like to have a “commander in chief,” not a “tweeter in chief.”
Former Rep. Vin Weber, the Republican on the panel of questioners, suggested that the election is really very little about Biden because most voters would be voting either for or against Donald Trump. Perez rejected that framing (although I suspect there’s plenty of basis for it).
Perez, who has run for but never held elective office above the municipal level (unless you count being elected DNC chair), has held Cabinet and subCabinet positions (including secretary of labor, during the Obama administration), and has been DNC chair since 2017, which makes 2020 his first presidential election in that capacity.
In yesterday’s forum, he was a bit bland but steadfast. Democrats (and some Republicans) “know that this president is unfit to serve” in that office, Perez said.
Weber also suggested that the leftward drift of Democrats could be a problem for the Biden-led ticket. Perez replied that the platform was already drafted, that it stands for such “radical concepts” as the idea that “every person in this country ought to have access to quality, affordable health care.”
He is well aware that Republicans will try to label everything Democrats want to do to help Americas as “socialism,” but he reminded the virtual audience that Republicans complained in the 1960s that Medicare would lead to “socialism,” and in the 1930s denounced Social Security as “socialism.”
“I understand those attacks. They will undoubtedly come. But, as my uncle used to say, ‘That dog won’t hunt.’”
He mentioned that the Democrats’ lineup of convention speakers included anti-Trump Republicans “not only on the first night but other nights. … You’re going to hear from Americans who believed Donald Trump when he said he would stand up for Social Security, when he said good jobs would be coming, and we’re going to hear from everyday Americans who took Donald Trump at his word and found out they couldn’t trust him.”
The Democrat on the panel was Justin Buoen, who managed Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s presidential campaign. He predicted that Democrats will make the campaign about “decency and leadership.”
As for the various complaints and tactics Republicans are attempting to use to make it harder for people to vote by mail and otherwise to avoid crowded Election Day polling places, Perez called such arguments “unfounded and unrelenting attacks on the reliability and integrity of vote by mail.”
“I think there’s a fundamental difference between the party of Trump and the Democratic Party on this issue,” he said. “Democrats believe that we should have a pitched battle in the marketplace of ideas on whatever the issue is, and then at the end of the day we should make it as easy as possible for eligible people to vote. I want people to vote. I want to increase turnout. I want to get as close to 100 percent as possible. I think our democracy works best when we do that.”
Perez suggested it’s a simple matter of one party favoring as much voter participation as possible, and the other favoring as little as possible.
Apologizing that he didn’t want to “paint this [difference between the parties] with too broad of a brush,” Perez asked permission to play a tape of the late Paul Weyrich, a Republican and conservative activist of the previous generation, espousing what he called the philosophy of Donald Trump and other Republicans. He played the Weyrich tape. It went like this:
So many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome. Good Government. They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.
Weber objected that Weyrich has been dead for years. Perez agreed, but said the sentiment lives on and explains Trump’s opposition to making it easier to vote, including the current question of allowing Americans to vote by mail during a pandemic.
He contrasted Weyrich’s attitude with that of the recently deceased civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis, whom Perez said “gave us our marching orders” when Lewis said:
The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it, because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.
Lastly, I should mention that the choice of Weber to balance the panel was an interesting one, because Weber was a never-Trumper in 2016. He didn’t discuss this yesterday, but in 2016 he denounced the rise of Trump and said he ended up voting for (former Republican Speaker of the House) Paul Ryan as a write-in.
Perez was asked whom Biden would pick as his running mate. Perez shocked no one and said he didn’t know, but he predicted it would be a woman.
(And one more thing from 2016: As it became increasingly clear that Donald Trump would win the Republican nomination in 2016, Weber said:
“I won’t vote for Trump. I can’t imagine I’d remain a Republican if he becomes president.”
He wasn’t asked about that yesterday.
He also wasn’t asked yesterday how he would vote, but I googled around on it. Weber has been a tad cagey, but in the most recent clip I could find, Weber said that he wasn’t sure, but he “probably” would vote for Trump this year.
Therein lies the problem with Perez and the DNC: “the idea that ‘every person in this country ought to have access to quality, affordable health care'” is a “radical concept.”
In context he means the opposite, implying opponents have the audacity to claim affordable health care is “radical.”
The question is how many ‘Never Trumpers’ became Trumpeters when they realized that he might win after all.
All of a sudden all of Trump’s flaws became minor things that could be easily overlooked in the broader cause of winning the election.
I admire Weber if he managed to keep a straight face when he tried to disassociate the Republicans from what Weyrich said. Weyrich might be dead, but the strategy of voter suppression, by whatever means possible, should be chiseled into one of the cornerstones of any Republican headquarters. They’re a patriotic bunch who spout the democracy b.s. at the drop of a hat, but the vast majority of them believe their vote should count more than the vote of a poor person, especially if that person is of a different color.
It’s not interesting at this point whether Never-Trumpers will vote for Trump or their goldfish. What’s interesting is if they will try to rid their party of Trumpism or wake up in January to welcome — with a wink — a New Tea Party into the fold.
Weber is the American political success story, well at least a story.
Normal working class kid from Marshall MN runs the local newspaper, get’s involved in politics and heads to Washington as a “working class” Republican, doing the people’s work.
Soon get’s caught up in the perks of the good life in DC and exists congress in the House bank scandal.
Does he head back to Marshall and work covering local high school teams? Nope!
Stays in DC, only works in politics, here, there and everywhere (Ukraine) and the next thing you know he is a multi-millionaire without ever really contributing anything that could be classified as productive work. And we still listen to (expletive deleted) like this guy…
It’s even worse. Weber is now presented as the paragon of Sensible Conservatism!
To be fair, his parents owned the newspaper that he worked on.
That’s not much better, is it? In that case, let’s focus on his many legislative accomplishments, like . . . um . . . well . . . there was that one, no, sorry, that wasn’t him . . .
Does getting mad that Tip O’Neill ordered the C-Span cameras to pan the gallery to show that he was bloviating to an empty room count as an accomplishment?
Well, I hope Perez is ready to combat both the Repub vote suppression machine and the 10 or 12 major election-results lawsuits that will be raging across a dozen states. Essentially, folks need to be ready for a dozen Bush v Gores. These will be necessitated by the various “electorate managing” schemes Trumpolini and McConnell’s Repubs are daily cooking up, from 6+ hour waiting lines in Dem cities in Red States to the new tactic of manufactured delays in receiving, delivering and counting the 50-fold Covid-caused increase in mailed-in ballots. How else to explain Trumpolini and McConnell sabotaging and defunding (of all things!) the very postal service that every informed person in America knows will be essential to voting during Trump’s Pandemic? (Blue MN has proven 10 times over that any wait of more than 20 minutes (producing a traceable paper ballot) is the result either of gross incompetence or intentional vote suppression.) Trump’s ultimate “asset” in this battle, of course, is the democratically-illegitimate 5 man conservative Supreme Court majority he and McConnell installed, which will be the unfortunate endpoint for many of these cases. It’s starting to look like this election will be America’s Reichstag Fire, and Trump is pretty much openly assembling the gasoline stocks, as the nation watches, hypnotized or thrilled (depending on political persuasion).
Anyway, the idea that the “conservative” movement and Repub party doesn’t still hold to Weyrich’s essentially anti-democratic views of voting and the electorate as we watch their machinations in the 21st Century is an insult to one’s intelligence, including Weber’s. Indeed, the views and stratagems of today’s Repubs are much more toxic than Weyrich’s.
So good luck, Mr Perez, you have a top command in the horrific existential battle coming our way, but you volunteered for it!
Well, if the Democrats ever allow the penetration of common sense into their strategies and candidate selection we just might see an increase in voters turnout. As it is, they remain convince that popular candidates with popular agendas cannot win elections. It’s a paradox of their making, they keep expecting huge turnout for mediocre candidates. The problem is only magnified by the delusion that the only way they can get more votes is to appeal to Republican voters. Whatever.
Democrats only win presidential elections when the Republican candidate is complete dud, or somehow self destructs. Even THAT wasn’t enough to get HRC into the White House in 2016. Biden will likely win, but not because Biden or Democrats will turn out voters, rather Trump and the Republicans happen to be imploding this year. And once again, Democrats will celebrate their political genius rather breath a sigh of relief that they got lucky again.
Popular candidates with popular agendas win primary elections. I’m not sure why a candidate who loses primaries by wide margins would ever be considered popular. You can blame the DNC or whoever you want, but ultimately it is the voters who decide.
“but ultimately it is the voters who decide.”
And that is the main problem Paul and others holding his beliefs see:
Most folks are incapable of making a judgement as “correct” as their own. Those folks can be manipulated and mind controlled to vote for Candidate “A” over Candidate “B(ernie)”.
Sanders failed because he could not increase voter turnout in his most loyal and enthusiastic demographic: young voters. And because he failed to do this we are now depriving ourselves of the one candidate who could drive voter turnout. Go figure?
AOC, Talib and Pressly are among the new members of congress who can show voters the results of a more progressive agenda leading to the possibility for national candidates meeting Paul’s criteria to gain enough votes to win. In the meantime, he will just have to take comfort in Trump’s words that the “ultra radical far left has taken full control of the Democrat party”.
Curious how no matter who the Dem party nominates, “conservatives” always declare “the radical far left is in full control of the party!!”
An approach that treats people as unthinking, ignorant lemmings and seems to work on a great bulk of American voters every time…
Pat and Edward simply illustrate the mechanism by which Democrats continue to put losers on their ballots. Yeah, these losers “win” your primaries… THAT’S the the point. When people who can defeat Republicans win your primaries you’ll have a political Party people can trust and support. Right now all we can do is hope that you run up against Republicans who are self destructing. This business of losing to Trump and then bragging about your turnout is simply vacuous. Right now the only thing that gets Biden into the White House is a failed attempt to steal the election… IF if fails.