“I’m no longer a lobbyist, but a lot of good Democrats are. … I won’t participate in this blanket assassination of various folks because some members of our party don’t agree with what their jobs are,”
He has spent record funds on an unsuccessful attempt to win an election, which historically has been a path for promotion for Democrats.
If you’re a pragmatist you’re okay with this. Money makes the political world go round in the United States and he is good at raising funds. It is much the same reason Pelosi has retained a stranglehold on the House leadership - she’s an energizer bunny who truly does sacrifice herself to raise money, money and more money for the party. Relatively few are as obsessively good at it as she is.
If you’re an idealist, as I have a very slight notion the OP may be since you set up a bit of a poisoned well (i.e. “apparatchik”, “unrepentant”, “loser”), I suspect you might be troubled . However this is the nature of most party politics in big tent, first-past-the-post, two-party systems. Idealists typically operate at the fringes, pragmatists usually rule the center. It has ever been thus. There are occasional exceptions, but they remain exceptions.
This well was about 80% poison, 20% water from the get-go.
Plus the OP strangely omits the fact that Harrison gave one of the most powerful Republicans in the Senate a serious electoral challenge in a deep red state, to the point where Graham was virtually crying and literally begging for money at every opportunity. It’s not surprising that the DNC might want to appoint someone into a position to do that to lots of Republicans.
Raising lots of money is precisely the job of a party national committee chair. It makes perfect sense to choose someone who raised record amounts of money.
That’s the notion we would have of the chairman of, say, the Labour Party National Executive over here, and I genuinely struggle to understand how parties in the US function outside individual electoral campaigns and their candidates.
You can’t pick someone who’s won, because they’ll already have a different job. You could, I suppose, pick someone who’s retiring, but DNC chair doesn’t seem like a position you’d want someone who wants to slow down. And as for money being central to US politics that is just reality. In a few districts it has proven possible for especially (now) high profile, charismatic politicians to run on “no corporate money”, but the circumstances have not been those of competitive “real” elections and if the whole of the Democratic party decided to reject all corporate donations it would be the same as conceding all but the darkest blue races for the foreseeable future.
I remember being quite disillusioned some time during Obama’s presidency/campaigns, when I saw a comparison of the donors to him vs his opponent, and they were VERY similar. The same oil companies, banks, etc. I had been disappointed that Obama was not more active in pursuing more liberal policies than he had. I found it somewhat revelatory to see that the same moneyed interests were backing both horses.
He came surprisingly close to winning as a moderate progressive in a state which consistently votes conservative Republican. I assume he’s being promoted because of his ability to turn out black voters and raise money, both of which are important boxes to check.
Ironically, out-of-state fundraising might be one reason that late deciders balked at voting for him.
Timing is everything; he still managed to get the recovery act, the ACA, and some liberal justices through, all of which are pluses in the win column.
Biden’s in a different spot. I think he has to be like an FDR type leader, and there’s a good interview with former California Gov Jerry Brown in which he says essentially the same thing.
. However this is the nature of most party politics in big tent, first-past-the-post, two-party systems. Idealists typically operate at the fringes, pragmatists usually rule the center. It has ever been thus. There are occasional exceptions, but they remain exceptions.