Democrats' New Regime May Forever Change The Face Of The Party
Candidates vying to lead the Democratic Party out of the void it was thrust into after November’s election are entering the final stretch of a battle over the party’s future that has raged since Sen. Bernie Sanders presented an unexpectedly formidable challenge to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential primaries.
The top candidates for chair of the Democratic National Committee will participate in a live debate hosted by CNN on Wednesday night, shining an unusually bright spotlight on a race that has rarely been this hotly contested.
The 447 voting members of the DNC will cast their votes in Atlanta Saturday for what many observers see as a proxy fight between the progressives who backed Sanders and the party establishment that supported President Obama and Clinton.
“You can see that they’re struggling with the idea, do they hew to traditional Democratic norms or do they break further to the left,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell.
Is The Tom Perez Fight Worth Having?
Republicans have mounted another high profile political battle, this time by opposing Tom Perez, President Barack Obama's pick for the Department of Labor Secretary. A committee vote planned for Wednesday afternoon was postponed at the last minute, forcing the vote to be rescheduled for May 16.
Conservatives who oppose Perez cite concerns about his fitness for the office, due in part to accusations levied against him during his time leading the civil rights division in the Justice Department.
But while Republicans may have legitimate reasons to question Perez's nomination, they risk furthering the stereotype that they are anti-Hispanic.
"In a lot of ways we could argue that Perez stands as the antithesis of the views of the GOP, but this has the potential for bad optics – at a time when Republicans need to garner a greater share of the Hispanic vote," says Ford O'Connell, a Republican political strategist who worked on the McCain-Palin campaign in 2008.
O'Connell says Republicans should scrutinize Perez, but not go overboard with their review.
"They should certainly scrutinize his credentials and qualifications and if they don't find a red herring, they should let him proceed to confirmation," he says, adding that the GOP is clearly aware of the potential for bad optics since Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., an African-American, has taken the lead in criticizing Perez.
