You think Marty Frost should be the next chair of the DNC? Or maybe you’re for Simon Rosenberg? Or Donnie Fowler? Or maybe Howard Dean?
But let’s be honest. Who cares what you think? You don’t have a vote.
For all the crackling enthusiasm ones sees across the web or in various new activist groups for this or that candidate, as Howard Wolfson lamented last month in the Times, only the 440 members of the Democratic National Committee have any say in the matter. They’re the only ones who have a vote.
As this page on the DNC website explains, those 440 DNC members are a mix of state party officials and bigwigs, a smattering of office-holders nationwide, various folks appointed by the sitting chairman and others.
Like Howard, I think it would be a bad idea just to throw the whole thing open to some sort of national party primary. Choosing from amongst the elected officials of the state parties adds experience and consensus-building to the equation. It also makes for various sorts of diversity, though not in all respects. But certainly active, rank-and-file Democrats should have some say in the matter, especially now when there seems to be more widespread and impassioned interest in the choice then there’s been in a very long time.
Obviously, it’s too late to change the rules now. But if you do have a candidate, find out who the DNC members are in your state and let them know what you think, what you want. There are also members chosen from different constituencies and different sectors of government. Find out about them too.
Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a knock against party officials, as such. And I think smoke-filled rooms (or, given our Democratic sensibilities today, I guess, non-smoke-filled rooms) have more to recommend them than we sometimes imagine. But this is a big decision for Democrats, one that will help shape the party in a period when Democrats are both coming off intensely demoralizing defeats but also witnessing what I believe are exciting signs of new vibrancy and growth. This one’s too important to be left to the vagaries of chits and glad-handing.
