The strategist who managed Bernie Sanders’ presidential race says the party needs vision and conviction “to rebuild the deeply damaged brand of the Democratic Party.”
Faiz Shakir appears on Meet the press in 2023.
(William B. Plowman/NBC via Getty Images)
Until this week, a hotly contested race for chairman of the Democratic National Committee looked as if it had come down to a fairly well-defined matchup between a couple of seasoned favorites— Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wickler and Minnesota Democratic Farm Labor Party Chairman Ken Martin — and a half-dozen smaller contenders, including former Maryland governor and 2016 presidential candidate Martin O’Malley and 2020 and 2024 presidential candidates Marian Williamson.
But with the Feb. 1 vote just two weeks away, the contest took a major turn Wednesday with one of the most prominent names in progressive political organizations, Faiz Shakir, senior adviser to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who managed Sanders’ 2020 presidential bid after serving as political director of the American Civil Liberties Union, editor-in-chief of the influential blog ThinkProgress, and a key aide to Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Harry Reid, the former Democratic Senate Majority Leader.
Shakir said he entered the race to appoint a key party leader in the face of a losing White House and Congress in the 2024 election because he was frustrated by “the lack of vision and conviction about what to do to restore the deeply damaged Democratic brand.” In a letter to DNC members, he wrote, “As I listened to our candidates, I sensed a staid status quo thinking style. We cannot expect working audiences to perceive us differently if we do not offer anything new or substantial to win their support.”
In an interview with the Associated Press, Shakir continued: speaking of race “I think it’s very fluid, because of the lack of energy and the sense of aimless drift that people feel. Democrats in the desert, right? There is no real leader.”
The other candidates, most of whom have talked about restoring the party’s appeal to traditional Democratic voters who defected to Donald Trump and the Republican Party in the 2024 election, would likely disagree with Shakir’s assessment of their bids. Wickler, in particular, placed great emphasis on appealing to trade union members and the wider working class, arguing“On every platform, voters need to hear that the Democrats are on the side of the workers and the Republicans are on the side of the billionaires who are trying to rig our economy.”
But Shakir has a history of urging Democrats to make their party more aggressively progressive and populist. The founder of St More advanced media a project that received high praise messages to disillusioned working-class voters regardless of race or background, he has strong ties to many of the nation’s leading labor leaders and progressive activists. Now a candidate for party chairman, he strongly argues that the DNC must develop “its own powerful media, producing compelling original content in a variety of video, text and graphic formats” and create “an organizing army that supports strike and union and non-union organizing workers’ to renew themselves. Shakir is also sharply critical of the Democratic Party’s strategy, which has the party’s 2024 candidate Kamala Harris running alongside former Republican US Rep. Liz Cheney and billionaire Mark Cuban.
Current issue
Shakir confessed The New York Times Wednesday that his entrance comes”at the end of the game.” Many observers believe Martin, the current president of the Association of State Democratic Committees and current DNC vice chair, has opened up a lead of 448 DNC members. He also enlisted the support of influential union leaders from the United Food and Commercial Workers, which is part of the DNC. In a sign of his perceived strength, one of the most attractive candidates for chairman, New York State Senator James Skuffis, announced on Thursday that he was leaving the race to endorse Martin.
At the same time, Wikler is attracting significant support from liberal Democrat senators such as Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, as well as “stars” of the Democratic Party, such as Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMorrowformer Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Anderson Clayton, as well as powerful party figures such as Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. Wisconsinite has also been supported by activist groups such as MoveOn and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.
But even if he can trail behind, Shakir’s candidacy should ensure that the race for the chair will focus more sharply on ending the DNC’s deference to economic elites — a primary concern of Shakir, who served as a senior antitrust adviser to campaigners under American Economic Freedom Project. The prospect of this bolder debate about where Democrats will move is worrying some of the party’s most dynamic figures. Sanders has not made an endorsement in the race. But Sarah Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants and a popular figure among progressive Democrats and labor activists, announced“I am proud to endorse Faiz Shakir as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Not only does Faiz have the working-class credibility, vision and insight of this moment, but he also has the vast experience necessary to operate and rebuild the DNC.”
“The party is at a critical moment and we must accept changes to the status quo. Faiz’s vision and conviction is clear: Use the authority and resources of the DNC to build power for working people — America’s promise,” added Nelson, who argued that Shakir “is the leader the party needs at this moment. »
