The Daily Beast Podcast - UNLOCKED: DNC Chair Jamie Harrison: The Democratic Brand Is Broken

Episode Date: April 5, 2021

Democrats are in control of the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives for the first time in a decade. But to the new chair of the Democratic National Committee, it’s clear that the party’s brand is broken in a large swath of America. “I think what we have to do as a party is battle the damage to the Democratic brand,” Harrison, the former senate candidate, tells Molly Jong-Fast in the latest episode of The New Abnormal. “I experienced it on my own race, Lindsey [Graham] and his crew of dark money effectively labeled me as somebody who believed in defunding the police. My grandfather on my stepfather's side was in the Detroit police department for 40 years. So I don't believe in that. But they were able to do it because the Democratic brand had been so tarnished in South Carolina that people would believe anything. If they said, ‘Jamie kicked a puppy the other day,’ they would have believed it.”  “It's not even just with Republicans, the Democrat brand with some of the folks who are core at the base of our party is not the greatest,” Harrison continues. “And so I want to spend a lot of time, energy, and effort understanding why the brand is where it is, what it is and how, and what we can do in order to improve it.”  Especially in rural and red-state America, Harrison says: “We have to take credit and claim the things that we will have gotten done over the course of this next two years. We're going to do a lot for rural America. The American Rescue Plan has so much in there for rural communities across this country. And it will have a huge benefit, this infrastructure plan, when we get this done. The broadband component in it alone, will totally transform rural America.”  “Those communities are also just as diverse as urban communities. We also need to make sure that we're listening to them,” he adds. “And then, in the end, we’ve got to deliver and I believe we can do those things. Not only will we grow our base, but I think we also persuade a few other folks to take a look at us.” If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just Rick & Molly discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What you're about to hear is an unlocked bonus episode of the special bonus episodes we do for subscribers to Beast Inside, the Daily Beast Membership Program. And we thank you so much for being here. Today we have an extra special guest with former South Carolina Senate candidate Jamie Harrison, who is now the head of the DNC. And today he's going to talk to us all about what he's doing at the DNC and how Democrats win in 2022. To hear this, along with all of our past bonus episodes with guests like Corey Booker, Billy Eichner, and Q. and A's, as well as gaining full access to the Daily Beast fearless journalism, head to New Abnormal.com. That's New Abnormal.

Dot the DailyBeast.com. Welcome, Jamie Harrison, to the New Abnormal. Thank you. Thank you so much. I am so excited to have you here for any number of reasons. One is that one of my obsessions is how Democrats win, and I have a feeling you've been spending a lot of time on that. How do they win?

Well, I think we win by organizing, organizing, organizing. And we do it everywhere. We don't just pick and choose races. Part of my frustration with Democratic politics over the years, Molly, is that we've ceded so much to Republicans, so many areas, so many territories that we got down to the point where there are just a bare minimum of United States Senate seats that we could actually win because the operations in some of the states are, they're bare. fairly function. And so we have to invest in our state parties. We have to make them stronger.

We have to make sure that they have the resources to be able to compete. And we have to organize. And that organization can't just be a few months before the election. It has to be a sustained effort where we are on the ground in communities, building relationships, and then educating those voters, mobilizing them, and then getting them to the polls, and then protecting them once they get to the polls. So, Jamie, one of the big things that we've been discussing on this podcast is, there seems to be this poll of like, you got the people who obviously, we all want social justice to the Democrat side, but a lot of people are saying the social justice is what's hurting us with

the swing voters and the people who would come to our side. The AOC wing of the party says, you know, we have to mobilize and do some populist things that mobilize workers. and then people will forget about that. What are you seeing there? See, this is the thing that I think where people are getting this wrong. You know, Tip O'Neill said all politics are local. And so you got to represent and talk about the issues that are important to the people that you are trying to represent.

Part of our problem is people are trying to put whatever is the national thing and use it as a platform to run for in their local offices. And you're always going to get tripped up because you need to speak to the issues that people in the community that you want to represent that they care about. You know, and sometimes some of the social justice issues aren't the big issues in your community. That doesn't mean that you don't have an opinion on them. It doesn't mean that you don't believe in fighting for social justice. It means that you're trying to get elected

and you need to represent the people that you're running in the districts you're running in. And so what I always tell candidates is, put your finger on the pulse of what's going on in the communities that you want to represent. Understand the, understand the, understand the hardships that they're facing, the difficulties and the challenges that they're trying to get over, and make sure that that is the heart of your message. And that's really,

really important. It seems to me like Republicans have learned the lesson they've learned from 2020 is it's too easy to vote. And now we have Georgia, and they've passed all these insane laws. What can we do? Well, I think the lesson that the Republicans, or what they're doing right now, is they know that in order for them to win, they have to cheat. And that's what we see going on right now. They're enacting what I'm calling Jim Crow 2.0, particularly trying to suppress and make it much more difficult for communities of color to exercise their rights. And that's problematic. It's anti-American. It is not about who we are or who we need to be. And so we have to push back against that. Now, what we're going to do at the DNC is fight this in every medium that we can.

You know, we're going to try to get the votes to stop this in legislatures. If we fail there, we'll take it to the courts, to courtrooms. If we fail there, then we'll take it to Congress in the House of Representatives. And we're hoping that DOJ and the White House will also take some form and some actions to really prohibit these things. You know, what bothers me the most, Molly, is that we send our sons and daughters overseas to fight for democracy. I remember, I know that you and Jesse remember back in 2005 when we were over in Iraq and they were voting for the first time, dipping their fingers in that purple pink paint and the Republicans would go to the floor of the House of Representatives to see, see what we did, what we, that we allowed them to go vote. And they've done every damn thing in their power to prohibit people in this country, Americans from exercising their right to vote.

That is not right. We won't stand for it because we are not going back. So if it's fighting in the courtrooms, we'll do that. If it's fighting in Congress, we'll do that. But we are not going to sit back and allow them to take away the most sacred right that we have as American citizens from so many Americans. We've been there before as a nation. We ain't going back. I mean, and then Texas, we see Texas is now trying to follow suit. Do you feel like you can push back on this effectively? Well, we're going to do everything that we can within our power to. And for me, this is personal. This is such a personal thing. You know, one of the last things that I was able to do with my grandfather before you passed away in 2004 was to go vote. And I remember after taking him, he was disabled, he was an amputee because of diabetes. I remember taking him to vote in his wheelchair.

We went, voted, came back home, sat on the porch, and we were just talking. And he turned serious all. a sudden. And he said, you know, he called me Baldy. That's my, his name. He said, Baldi, I said, yes, sir. He said, you know, in this state, I couldn't always vote. I said, yes, sir, I know. He said, you know, in this state, they didn't always consider me a whole man. I said, yes, sir, I know. He said, let me tell you something. He said, never let anybody tell you that you don't matter. Never let anybody tell you that you don't count. And that is burnt into my heart on my soul. I am not. I refuse to let the sons and daughters of South Carolina or anywhere else in this country have to go through with my grandfather and his

grandfather and my grandmother and her grandmother what they had to go through. We can't go back. And so we got to do everything within our power to stop these laws. Yeah. I was telling you before we started taping, but when I watched you debate, Lindsay Graham, I found myself acting like somebody watching a football game and cheering away. But there is this really weird thing that a lot of us who follow politics have kind of felt like,

man, like you and John Ossoff just both showed this amazing blueprint of how to debate a Republican, but it really doesn't seem like debates are moving the meter anymore. Could you talk to us about what you're seeing there and how you're going to compensate? say because, you know, we all want to see the truth come out. We want to see these people held to account on the other side because they're lying so much, but it really does not seem like it does anything. Well, and that's the sad part.

You know, we felt like we, you know, we bested Lindsay in those debates. Hell, we know we bested Lindsay in those debates. He knew that we did. But regardless of the fact, we got to figure some other things out. There's a really powerful New Yorker article that talked about, entitled, I think it's the power of political disinformation in Iowa. And it goes over the 2020 cycle in Iowa and how despite having candidates, you know, Teresa Greenfield, who also bested Joni Hearst in that debate.

You know, Jonah Earth couldn't even come up with what the price of, I think was it, soybean they asked her or something like that and she she fumbled all over it but she's still one yeah and teresa just knocked it out of the park and you know in the past that would have been it you know that would have sealed the deal but the disinformation is so so bad on the republican side and it it has been embedded in the heads of so many folks and so part i think what we have to do as a as a party is battle the damage in a Democratic brand because it's not so much our message. It's the brand of the party.

And that you can have, and they talked about this in the article, I experienced it on my own race. Lindsay and his crew of dark money effectively labeled me as somebody who believed in defunding the police. Hell, my grandfather was a part of my grandfather, my stepfather's side, was in the Detroit Police Department for 40 years.

years. So I don't believe in that, but they were able to do it because the Democratic brand had been so tarnished in South Carolina that people would believe anything. If they said, well, Jamie kicked a puppy the other day, they would have believed it, right? And so what we have to do as a party is to figure out how do we rebuild our brand in the minds of various constituencies. Because it's not even just with Republicans. The Democratic brand with some of the folks who are core at the base of our party is not the greatest. And so I want to spend a lot of time, energy and effort understanding why the brain is where it is, what it is, and how and what we can do in order to improve it. And that's something that we will spend a lot of time and energy and resources on over the course

of the next few months. Do we think, though, that part of the issue is that there's no persuasion anymore, it's merely about growing the voting base? Because isn't that what really worked in Georgia for Stacey Abrams and Letitia Brown was that they were able to register more voters and not that they were able to get to sort of convince people. I think we should try to do both. I think at core, if I had to choose between the two, it is definitely grow the base. I believe that most elections are base elections. They are, you know, turn out elections. It's about who can get their folks to turn out and turn out in an energetic fashion. And I think that's really important. I think expanding that base is also important.

One of the things I hope to do is to engage in a national voter registration effort. You know, I think that's something the DNC hadn't been involved in a long time for us to get back involved in. And that's making sure that we're registering more voters to get out there and to help us move forward. But at the same time, I don't think we should just say, oh, the hell with everybody else and we're not going to try to win the hearts and minds of other folks. I think we should, and we have to go out there and do that. We have to talk about the issues that we have done, and we have to take credit and claim the things that we've gotten done. Over the course of this next two years, we're going to do a lot for rural America.

The American Rescue Plan has so much in there for rural communities across this country, and it will have a huge benefit. This infrastructure plan, when we get this done, the broadband component in it alone will totally transform rural America. You know, I live in a state where 30% of rural communities have no access to broadband. Right. And so, you know, in a situation where you got COVID and you got to work from home or teach your kids from home, what do you do if you live in one of those communities? What Democrats have to do is we have to show up into those communities because those communities are also just as diverse as urban communities. We also need to make sure that we're listening to

them in terms of the issues that are important to them. And then in the end, we got to deliver. And I believe we can do those things. Not only will we grow our base, but I think we'll also persuade a few other folks to take a look at us. So fundamentally, though, I always argue with Senate Democrats about this one topic. And I know I'm annoying, but here are Democrats and they are giving you money, right? And yet, and what are Republicans doing? They're arguing with you about the shoes, right? They're mad about Dr. Seuss, right?

This is not a real party. troll party. So explain to me how Democrats don't have a messaging problem. Because again, the steps in terms of building brand and message is the first thing is the brand, right? Right. If you see the Nike swish, like you can just see it. It doesn't even have to say Nike on it, right? You automatically, something automatically comes to mind. You see the golden arches of McDonald's. Something automatically comes to mind. It may be bad and maybe good or whatever. That thing, that emotional response, that that first response that comes to your head, that is the brand. So the question is, if your brand is damaged in some of these communities, like if it's so bad

that they just see the D or they hear you say Democrat, then it doesn't matter. You could say, I got a million dollars in my trunk that I will give you right now, and they won't care because they will say, well, you're just going to try to steal it from me again once you give it to me. You know, the brand is just so bad and damaged and tarnished. And we got to build that. That's the foundation. We got to build that back. And then once we get an idea of how we build that back,

then the message that we have then has to feed to how the message has to carry the bricks to build back the brand, right? It definitely is a one, two step approach. We have to do all of the above. But the foundation has to be, what is your perception of the Democratic Party? can we even rebuild it for you? Because if we can't even rebuild it, then there's no need to even try, right? You just move on. But if we can rebuild it, what do we need to do in order to rebuild it? What is it that we have to say or do in order to get you to give us a second look?

Those are some of the fundamental things and fundamental questions that have to be answered, because we could get the best marketing firm to come up with the best messages in the world, but if the brand is still damaged and tarnished, it really doesn't matter. Right, that makes sense. We have this very exciting 2022 Senate map for Democrats. I felt like there were times when Democrats picked candidates that I was like, really? What are you thinking here for Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina? Well, I mean, listen, in the end of the day, the people in those states are going to pick those candidates.

I know that sometimes some of our sister committees will get involved. and that's their right to do so. But ultimately, regardless of you get involved in not, people are going to pick who they believe is the best standard bear for them. What I want to see are folks, you know, midterm elections are base turnout elections. Right. It is which side can bring the energy, which side can bring the energy and get people to the polls. And I believe that what you want to do is you want to pick candidates that are energetic

that will mobilize the base of your party. And so I hope in all of these states, they are thinking about that. We don't have at the DNC a direct recruitment function for, you know, races. Our direct recruitment function is for the presidency. You know, we got to make sure that we got somebody running for the presidency. Whereas a D-Trip and the D-S will, you know, that's more of their lane for the Senate and the House and DGA for the governorship. But what I've told them all is that we will.

happy to play the backstop, to make phone calls to help seal the deal. But ultimately, we need good candidates that can energize the base of the party and get them to come to the polls and to talk about the issues that are important to the people in those states. Why do you think people are so, have such hostility still towards the DNC? Well, yeah, I think some of it is a fundamental lack of understanding. Yeah. Some people look at the DNC as the be-all, right? They think, you know, I can tell you some of the misconceptions that I've heard.

They'll say, well, can't you just tell the House people and the Senate people what to do? No. I cannot tell Nancy Pelosi. I cannot tell Chuck Schumer what they are going to do with their committees and their chambers. Right. I work alongside of them. They don't work for me. You know, I sort of work with them, right?

So many times people will see that certain things will happen and they say, well, my state DNC or this and that, your state party and your state parties are part of DNC, but we don't have control over our state parties either. There's only limited things that we can do as a national organization. And I think people just believe that we really control a lot more than we actually control. And so I think that's part of the perception that's out there. But we just got to keep on doing the things that we can control. As my grandma always said, Jamie, control the things you can control and just do the very best with those things. And that means supporting our state parties,

making sure that they have the resources to be able to compete, helping to build a pipeline of new talent in the party, making sure that we're fighting back against these voter suppression issues. Those are things that we're going to do, and I'm going to try to make sure that we're doing that the best of our ability. Obviously, you broke records with good reason for fundraising in this last election. But a lot of people were like, man, you know, you, Sarah Gideon and Amy Grass raised so much money. What if that had been better dispersed?

Is there anything the DNC is thinking about with that fundraising disbursement and how that went down? Jesse, if you look at where money went, and listen, everybody raised grassroots money. So in essence, what you're telling mom, pops, aunts, uncles, they need to send their money to different places. And people can do what they're going to do. And I don't think the DNC or the DTrip or the DS or anybody is going to tell them to do what is in their heart to do. And listen, the problem of 2020 was not the lack of money in key states or key districts. I think from House races, Senate races, hell, even the statehouse races, DLCC had more money than they had normally had. So money was not the big issue in 2020. I think the issue was that we didn't get an opportunity to really get on the ground like we normally do.

You know, it was recommended for all of us running Senate races not to have in-person canvassing on the grounds because of COVID. And I think that had a really chilling impact because the base of our party get motivated by that in-person feel and the energy and the momentum that you normally build because you can have the rallies and you have everything else. we weren't able to be able to do that. And that's how our base of our party gets energized. That's how they get that energy to go to the polls. And then what we saw was, and if you don't believe me on that, just take a look at the tale of two cities, look at what happened in Georgia before the election on November,

and what happened in Georgia after for the runoff. Because before the election, they weren't able to do the on-the-ground canvassing. They didn't do it. after the election in the runoff they did do it and they did more rallies and they did all those things that energy that was able to be brought on that and that focus the attention and help mobilize volunteers and really got the people to the polls that was a difference maker and and i believe that's that's the thing that folks should focus on i mean in the end of the day

donors are going to be donors they're going to send them money to who they want to send it to and you you aren't going to tell them any differently. The only thing that we can control, though, is we can control whether or not we are canvassing. We can control whether or not we have organizers on the ground. That's what we can control. Right. That makes a lot of sense. I definitely feel like that there's a sense in which we can really, like, Democrats can really make inroads into the South.

And that there has been, that there just isn't enough, like what Stacey, Abrams did in Georgia needs to happen in Mississippi. And in, you know, we had, we had Mike Espy on the pod twice. And I'm like a big Mike Sby fan. And, you know, there are certain places where it just feels to me like there needs to be more of that. Do you see that? And is there a mechanism for that in the DNC? Well, the DNC, as I said, we are adopting what Howard Dean called the 50 state strategy. I say it's 57. states and territories, you know, we're adopting that strategy because we want to make sure that we are seating the next Georgia and the next Arizona, that we are supporting our state parties and making sure that they have resources to be able to function and operate and to support their candidates. And that's really, really important. I believe, you know, as I think about my legacy as DNC chair, I want to get Democrats back into the South. I believe in the emergence of a New South. That's a really, really important thing for me on a personal level. But that means that we're going to have to

dedicate some time and attention and resources. Yeah. My frustration with the Democratic Party over the years is that we've been so quick to cede states over to Republicans. I don't want to cede any damn thing to us. You know, they don't seat anything to us. Yeah. You know, you look at states like Maryland and Vermont and Massachusetts. They all have Republican governors. Right. So if Republicans looked at the world like some Democrats do, oh, that's a, that's a blue state. We can't go in that blue state. Then why the hell do they have Republican governors in those states? Because they don't go, they don't approach it that way. They pick the best people that are reflective of the state and where the state's going, and they support those folks. But we as Democrats have to do the same thing.

We got to stop saying that's a red state. You're burning money and this and that. No, wherever there are Democrats, we all need to be. By seeding stuff, then we get some of the most radical people coming out of these states. And guess what? They go to D.C. They go to the House, they go to the Senate, and they start enacting their crazy agenda. And guess who it impacts? People who live in blue states and purple states. Right. Lauren Foper. Exactly right. So at the very least, by investing in these communities, you help to at least moderate the tenor and the types of people who come out of these states. But when you totally see the state, then you get, the crazy Ted Cruz's of the world.

You get the Tim Scots and the Lindsey Graham's of the world. Instead of getting folks who can find some common ground and move forward. Thank you so much, Jamie Harrison. I hope you'll come back for the midterms. Of course. Of course. Thank you, Bo for having me. And I'm glad to be on.

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