After election thumping, Democrats rethink their future course

In the wreckage of Hillary Clinton's unexpected loss, liberal lawmakers and advocacy groups have started plotting a major overhaul of the Democratic National Committee, with the aim of using the staid organization to reconnect the party with working-class voters it lost to President-elect Donald Trump. But there also are broader questions about the party's direction as well.

Much of the talk since Tuesday's election has focused on selecting a new chairman, with the most frequently mentioned successor being Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, a leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who backed the primary bid of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

On Thursday afternoon, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean offered his service for a second tenure as DNC chairman, saying on Twitter: "The dems need organization and focus on the the young. Need a fifty State strategy and tech rehab. I am in for chairman again."

In an interview, Sanders said he was lobbying for Ellison and argued that the DNC needed to be reoriented so that it became less of an insider's club "preoccupied" with raising money and more of an advocate for the concerns of the working class.

"You can't tell working people you're on their side while at the same time you're raising money from Wall Street and the billionaire class," Sanders said. "The Democratic Party has to be focused on grass-roots America and not wealthy people attending cocktail parties."

Sanders acknowledged the need for the party to continue its function as a fund-raising vehicle, but he suggested a model akin to his presidential campaign, which raised much of its money from small-dollar donors.

"Millions of people are willing to put in 20 bucks, 30 bucks, 50 bucks if there's a party to believe in," Sanders said.

With Clinton's loss, the DNC chair is certain to become a more visible face of the party, and the contest to replace interim chairwoman Donna Brazile could become a wide-open affair. Had Clinton won, she would have nominated a successor.

Leaders of several progressive groups, who had been courting Clinton as a potential ally on many of their causes, have expressed anger in the aftermath of the election, arguing that the result was a repudiation of a campaign driven by the Democratic establishment.

"The Democratic establishment had their chance with this election," said Stephanie Taylor, cofounder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "It's time for new leadership of the Democratic Party - younger, more diverse and more ideological - that is hungry to do things differently, like leading a movement instead of dragging people to the polls."

Taylor said her organization would be supportive of a DNC chairmanship of Ellison, whose choice, others suggested, would convey an important symbolic message during the presidency of Trump, who has proposed temporarily banning Muslims from entering the country. Ellison is a Muslim.

Neil Sroka, a spokesman for the liberal group Democracy for America, said Ellison would be "a potentially phenomenal choice" as DNC chairman, but said the organization was open to other choices.

"I think Tuesday night was a tremendous loss that must sit at the feet of the political establishment of a Democratic Party that preordained the primary process from the very beginning," said Sroka, whose group backed Sanders in the primaries. "The folks that enabled the loss need to step back and let the grass roots lead it."

In a sign of tension at the DNC, a staff meeting there was interrupted Thursday by a staff member who stood up and blamed Trump's win on Brazile, the Huffington Post reported.

"Why should we trust you as chair to lead us through this?" the staffer, identified only as Zach, said, according to the report.

Sanders said the reasons for Clinton's loss were "fairly obvious" and cited two factors: lower turnout by the base and Trump's far greater appeal to white, working-class voters, which Sanders dubbed "a humiliation for the Democratic Party." While Clinton was winning the popular vote, defeats in three usually friendly Democratic battlegrounds - Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin - could not be overcome.

"White working-class people are deserting the party in droves," Sanders said.

Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz urged careful deliberation as the Democratic reckoning begins. He said the "rush to recalibrate" strategy and messaging concerned him.

"Democrats need to take, not forever, but weeks and months to diagnose what just happened to us and why," he said.

But the outlook for Democrats may get worse before it improves. In two years, they will be defending about two dozen Senate seats, including at least five in deep-red states.

"We have to ask ourselves what is wrong with our party," said Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, arguing it's at least in part a failure to connect with working-class people who are hurting.

One small bright spot this year was the election of three women of color to the Senate: Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada, Kamala Harris in California, and Tammy Duckworth in Illinois. At the same time, the party's marquee names are far older than the core Democratic coalition.

Sanders is 75, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren 67, and soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer turns 66 this month. Across the Capitol, Democrats are led by 76-year-old Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California.

Democrats emphasized their party's diversity, and some argued that Trump's singular appeal as a plainspoken celebrity businessman does not translate into a wholesale voter rejection of Democratic policies.

Jaime Harrison, the South Carolina party chairman, downplayed the idea that Trump's nationalistic populism should necessarily push the party leftward. "That might be overthinking what happened," he said.

Harrison argued it's more about finding the right messengers to take the Democratic platform to the pockets of the electorate that have drifted away from the party, naming New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker among others as potential role models for other Democrats.

Yet Walsh warned Democrats not to fall into the same trap as they did eight years ago, after an inspiring 47-year-old first-term senator with a powerful stage presence was elected president.

"Every now and then you get a shining star, and that person takes over the party," Walsh said. "And during that time you sort of lose the bench."

This article contains information from the Associated Press.