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Posted on 04/21/2017 7:21:03 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Didn’t Barack Obama brag about this three months ago, calling himself “the father of the Tea Party“? Not exactly, as DNC deputy chair Keith Ellison explains in this exchange on a panel at the University of Minnesota. Ellison argues that Obama failed to rebuild the party’s ground apparatus after his two presidential elections, and that this failure has put his “wonderful achievements” at risk. The truth, however, lies somewhere in between:
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
“Look I’m a great fan of President Obama. I totally voted for many of the things he supported — Dodd Frank, Affordable Care Act, Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — I could keep going,” Ellison said at an event Wednesday at the University of Minnesota.
“Wonderful achievements. But Barack Obama could have been a better party leader, and I think the fact that he wasn’t put his legacy in jeopardy,” he said.
Ellison added that Obama was “great at getting himself elected” but said he should have worked closer with party leaders to ensure the Democrats were in power to protect his accomplishments.
“Your legacy is not a building that he’s going to construct in Chicago housing his presidential papers,” Ellison continued. “His legacy is the work he’s done, which I believe is tremendous. But given we lost a lot of statehouse seats, governorships, secretary of states, his true legacy is in danger, and I think he can’t say that he wasn’t part of those losses. Who else, right?”
First, there is some truth to Ellison’s allegations about Obama’s lack of party-building, which is ironic considering his status as the country’s most famous “community organizer.” Obama built unprecedented campaign organizations, both in size and innovation, for his 2008 and 2012 elections, about which I wrote in Going Red. However, at the end of both cycles, Obama held onto the organization and the people within them for his Organizing for America/Action activist efforts to support his agenda. Significant resources had been taken from Democratic Party infrastructure to build Obama’s campaigns and groups, and that sapped their ability to work on the ground. In that sense, Ellison’s correct.
However, Ellison also argues that Obama’s “tremendous” work has nothing to do with the losses the party has suffered on all levels, and that’s simply not true. It was that agenda, those “accomplishments” for which Ellison voted and the sharp left turn they represented, that created a vacuum that the Tea Party and right-leaning populism filled. The problem in 2010 wasn’t a lack of Democratic resources, but the radical nature of their legislative agenda the previous two years and the contrast it made from Obama’s promise to be a “post-partisan,” middle-of-the-road president.
The acid test of this came last year, which Ellison somehow manages to avoid in this calculation. Hillary Clinton raised a lot more money, and ran against a candidate who was more disliked than liked during the entire political cycle. And yet, not only did she lose, Democrats failed to win back control of the Senate despite overwhelming odds in their favor, and barely dented the Republican majority in the House. The GOP under Reince Priebus did a much better job of organizing than in 2008 and 2012 to be sure (also covered in Going Red), but Democrats had plenty of resources with which to compete. And yet voters at all levels rejected the candidate who promised continuity with Obama’s “tremendous” work, and sided with the party committed to dismantling it.
So yes, Obama’s to blame for the Democratic Party’s standing — but so are all the Democrats who think that Obama’s work is widely embraced outside their coastal and academic bubbles, and who are doubling down on it after losing the last election.
Keith Ellison? Haven’t we seen him in a red suit with gold trim being called “Captain Obvious”?
The puppet master behind obama are to blame
He was way too stupid to be behind all this, alone
Wow, is he just NOW beginning to understand the whole process of the last 8 years and how the Demos lost touch with their base. Well, someone must of gotten to Ellison and gotten through to him, and now he sees that they have been HAD.
Somewhat plausible, but Ellison's real point is anybody but Hillary.
What does he mean by it: obama not left enough ?
I wonder how long it must have taken him to figure that out.
Obama messed up more than his party!!!
America, a center-right nation, rejects the far left agenda of 0bamao and YOU, Ellison. THAT is “what went wrong”.
I’ve wondered, if the expectation all along that Hillary was a given to be the nominee and could easily beat anyone the Republicans fielded, that Obama was not going to hand her a viable, well funded machine known as the DNC, as well.
He never liked her. He knew damn well the birth certificate scandal was first floated by Hillary, in 2012, and she was responsible for releasing that color photo of him in African garb. Worse, it was her campaign that leaked suspicion he was a Muslim. He didn’t like it. She never said that he was not a Muslim. Instead, she said she had seen no evidence.
Obama kept every dime he collected, and set up his own unparalleled internet mailing lists, donor lists and voter lists. He never used the DNC, but let it die on the vine, making his own system collection far more valuable, for the future, and technologically miles ahead of everyone.
Obama would maintain control of the American Left, not Hillary, who would have to rebuild from scratch the DNC.
Now the Democrats are adrift. Obama runs the voter-donor bank, Hillary is lost in the woods, and all the DNC has is Tom Perez?
Who can’t read this picture? Elliott has sobered up and is getting warm.
God willing and the Creek don't rise; everything, all the damage he did, will be wiped out and/or reversed within one year.
Obie's only legacy will be allowing homosexuals to marry and be as miserable as anyone else.
The thing is the perv group, or LBGTxyz as they call themselves, seems to think their perversions are a civil rights matter. As long as they aren't making an issue out of their perversions at work and in social settings; I don't see how civil rights has any place in the discussion and it certainly isn't in the US Constitution that I know of. No doubt they would point to some section about being treated equal to which I would ask why they are not and if they are making their homosexual or other perversion an issue in the work place then what about the civil rights of those who abhor such behavior? Are their rights less because some guy wants to bang another guy at work; practically in front of everyone?
I personally couldn't care less what they do to each other in private but I don't want it flaunted in my face distracting the work place environment in an unnecessary way. For that matter I don't want to see it in movies or family tv shows without an R rating attached to the show to let people know it isn't suitable for viewers under 17 and a warning to let the viewers know an alternative (perverted) lifestyle will be shown. Don't we as non LGBTxyz have rights too? Why is it only their (alternative) lifestyle is protected but the other 97% is not/
Hard to believe Ellison argues that Obama failed to rebuild ‘the party’s’ ground apparatus after his two presidential elections....
Seems to me the Clintons took that over and were busy building their’s throughout that period...Obama was preoccupied with just keeping his head above the water line let alone secure any legacy....of which there was little to grasp hold of.
Obama wasn't a good party leader.
Obama failed to rebuild the party’s ground apparatus
Obama didn't work close with party leaders.
Obama caused us to loose statehouse seats and governorships, secretary of states.
Signed..."Keith Ellison".... DNC Chairman
April 2017
I liked what this guy wrote in the comments...
...”As a Chicagoan who knew of the Lightbringer before the 2004 DNC convention, I can say that he has exactly one constituent: himself.”
Amazing how it took these people so long to figure out...as another commenter wrote:
...”The got conned by a con-man!”....
His goal was to fundamentally destroy, er, transform! the greatest country in the world.
He did a good job and he almost succeeded. If Hillary would have been elected it would have been all over..
The only way the Democrats are going to eecover will by by disgracing Obama. And the way to do that is to bring out his real Kenyan birth certificate. Destroy his legacy and they regain credibility. Otherwise they will all be considered traitors. After a while the country is going to get tired of the fake news and riots and the Democrats might still be around but nobody will take them seriously.
....”The only way the Democrats are going to recover will by by disgracing Obama”....
..it’s beyond that already as they continue to cut their own throats. ....if they wanted to recover they wouldn’t be pushing that same wagon over the cliff.....they’re in a self distructive mode and just don’t know it.... because none of them are willing to stop blaming others and lay the blame directly at their own feet.
Einstein said the definition of crazy is to the same thing over and over and expect different results. The Democratic party could learn from this adage. They aligned themselves with a plethora of groups often repugnant with main stream America yet they feel main stream voters must adopt their agendas and not doing so makes them homophobic, racist, misogynists and socially unacceptable. The last election (shellacking) should have been a clear indicator of their failed agenda, alas they seem to feel they haven’t venture far enough into the radical left.
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