Question Facing Keith Ellison: Could He Lead D.N.C. as Part-Timer?
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Version 0 of 1. DENVER — Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, whose pursuit of the chairmanship of the beleaguered Democratic National Committee has drawn growing skepticism over his views on Israel, faced questions of a less incendiary sort at a party forum on Friday: Could he do the job as a part-timer? As the gathering began, Howard Dean, a former committee chairman who had been Mr. Ellison’s most prominent rival, announced that he was withdrawing his bid. But before making that announcement via video recording, Mr. Dean argued that the committee must be “rebuilt from the ground up” and that only a full-time chairman could accomplish that task. More than two hours later, as the forum came to a close, Mr. Ellison offered an unexpected response. He revealed that he was considering resigning his seat in Congress, in answer to those on the committee who want the next chairman to focus exclusively on remaking a party shut out of power in Washington and many state capitals. “I’m in the process of deciding this issue of whether I can perform both roles,” Mr. Ellison said at the gathering, a meeting of Democratic state chairmen that served as the first tryout session for the committee post. But Mr. Ellison, a figure from the party’s liberal wing who had emerged as an early favorite after garnering support from high-profile elected Democrats and labor leaders, sounded torn over whether to step down from the House. He argued that life in the congressional minority was not all that time-consuming. “All there is to do is to vote ‘no,’” said Mr. Ellison, vowing that he would spend “every other moment” working for the party. One of his rivals, Jaime Harrison, the South Carolina Democratic chairman, seized on Mr. Ellison’s statement, contending that standing up to President-elect Donald J. Trump and congressional Republicans was “a full-time job.” After Mr. Ellison pointed out that other elected officials, most recently Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, had held the post while serving in office, Mr. Harrison responded with barely veiled mockery. “‘Debbie did it,’” Mr. Harrison said to scattered laughs and groans. “I’ll leave that up to you guys to make that determination.” “No, she didn’t!” Bob Mulholland, a California committee member, shouted from the back of the room. The tenure of Ms. Wasserman Schultz, as much as Hillary Clinton’s stunning loss to Mr. Trump, loomed over the session, the first major gathering of Democrats since the election. The candidates and committee members largely avoided directly criticizing the president who had installed Ms. Wasserman Schultz, but they left little doubt that they believed the committee needed a major overhaul — and that President Obama had been derelict in his position as party leader. Mr. Harrison, recounting the large number of governorships and state legislative seats Democrats had lost in recent years, said the party had built “a beautiful house” but had “paid no attention to the foundation.” Ray Buckley, another candidate for the top committee post, who is the party’s New Hampshire chairman, called for “radical change” that could “restore public trust.” And Mr. Ellison was succinct: “We’ve got a lot of rebuilding to do.” In a brief interview after the forum, Mr. Ellison said he had no “specific timeline” to decide whether to quit his House seat. The committee contest will not be decided until late February. Democrats have not had an open-seat race for national chairman since 2005, after another excruciating presidential loss that led to a round of soul searching about how they could broaden their appeal. Then as now, the contest for chairman featured a figure from the party’s liberal wing who had taken on the Democratic establishment. The liberal torchbearer then was Mr. Dean, and just as some more moderate Democrats were uneasy about making him the face of the party in 2005, many are now concerned about elevating Mr. Ellison, who was one of Senator Bernie Sanders’s most visible supporters this year. Yet Mr. Dean focused chiefly on organizing, and his fiery brand of politics hardly impeded the Democrats from retaking both chambers of Congress and the presidency by 2008. Mr. Ellison’s defenders similarly argue that he would be no burden on the party’s candidates. But he is facing significant challenges, including his ties to Mr. Sanders. Mr. Dean used his remarks to warn that the committee race should not devolve into “a proxy fight” between supporters of Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton. Perhaps more threatening, Mr. Ellison is facing growing criticism over his past comments about Israel and the power of Jewish leaders in America. Opening his annual foreign policy forum in Washington, Haim Saban, one of the biggest donors in the Democratic Party, called Mr. Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, “clearly an anti-Semitic and anti-Israel person.” Mr. Mulholland, citing Mr. Ellison’s critique of Israel, said he had “too much political baggage.” Many committee members predicted that additional contenders would enter the race. “I don’t see any reason why we should rush this thing,” Gilberto Hinojosa, the Texas Democratic chairman, said as he explained why be believed that the state chairmen should hold off on making a collective endorsement. “Most of us had tickets on January 20th to Washington, D.C., that we have to cancel. So maybe we can go somewhere else then and meet and have a discussion with all our candidates.” |