DNC Forum Baltimore Liveblog

JAIME HARRISON:
“I am who I am because of this party.”
“This is about making sure this is the land of freedom. Am I committed to the Democratic Party? You’re damn right I am.”

TOM PEREZ:
“It seems like a few decades removed from Barack Obama. I miss Barack Obama.”

JEHMU GREENE:
“This moment is bigger than what happened in the 2016 election. There is a lot of conversation about transformation. Transformation does not come easy.”
“Ask ourselves tough questions: How do we strengthen our home to become a welcoming place for the Resistance?”

SAM RONAN:
“Yes.”

RAY BUCKLEY:
“I believe in the Democratic Party. We are the only hope for the working people of this country.”
“For the last 8 years, I’ve been a vice chair and I don’t know what the hell is going on in this party any more than you do.”
“You want to win elections? Elect the guy who’s won elections.”

ROBERT VINSON BRANNUM:
“I’m from DC but I’m the outsider on this panel.”
“hopefuly we’ll walk out of here together as Democrats to grow the party.”

PETE BUTTIGIEG:
“We have got to emerge from this process as a unified Democratic Party, because w eknow what we are up against, and it is not each other.”
“Even if we had won the White House, our party would still be in trouble.”
“Put in a local organizer, a local mayor who’s been winning elections in one of the reddest states in America.”

PETER PECKARSKY:

KEITH ELLISON:
“I am here to serve, whether I’m the chair or not.”

Q: Climate of unease among Democrats. ACA, Supreme Court, immigration reform, travel ban. What will you do to engage all citizens turned activists that are moving with this movement?

BUTTIGIEG:
“Have to make sure the party is there, shoulder to shoulder, with activists and organizers who are telling their stories. It’s what we did in South Bend.”
“We have got to tap into the moral outrage across the country… Yet we have to do it with a certain character and a certain tone.”
“I’ll be damned if we’re going to have a draft-dodging chickenhawk President of the United States who thinks he’s too smart to read his own intelligence briefings.”

ELLISON:
“Turn this movement into electoral success. We got in this mess because we lost about 1,000 elections.”

BOYNTON BROWN:
“150 new organizations have sprung up, at least, in the last two months.”
“We need to become a service organization for the 21st Century electorate.”
“Those millions of people marching have needs. We have opportunity to asking what their needs are.”

Q: Should we keep superdelegates?

GREENE:
“We have to reimagine our structures and our processes. It is time to retire the outdated concept of superdelegates.”

BUCKLEY:
“The issue with superdelegates is how the delegation votes in the convention.”
“Make sure vote of the delegation reflects the vote of the people.”
“Issue is neutrality… Nobody on earth can say I had my thumb on the scales.”
“We can never sign a joint fundraising agreement with a candidate during the primary. That can never happen again.”

Q: What do you expect from executive committee members, who travel at own expense to meetings?

RONAN:
“You do need to be involved. But time to look for the future.”
“You guys have the experience, done this thing for decades an years. Adopt a mentorship role.”

HARRISON:
“We need to fundamentally change how we do meetings. We need to fundamentally change how we engage DNC members.”
“If you don’t know what your job is, how can you do it?”
“Transparency and accountability have to be the way that we move forward.”
“We lost the trust of voters. We’ve also lost the trust of members of the DNC, and we have to regain that.”

Q: What have you done in your record to empower state parties?

BUTTIGIEG:
“Have to show up everywhere. I cut my teeth running for statewide office. I went to 89 counties.”
“Since becoming mayor, I’ve been able to raise money for our state parties, support great candidates.”
“Have to do better job engaging with our local officials.”
VINSON BRANNUM:
“I walk, campaign for Democratic candidates in the District of Columbia.”
“I’ve been working to get Democrats elected since Jimmy Carter.”
“We need Democrats who are not Republican-lite.”

RONAN:
“We lost Rural America over 30 years. That’s why they don’t like us. That’s why they don’t trust us.”
“I’ve been asking, ‘What would you do if you could be DNC chair for a day?'”

GREENE:
“We need someone who is a strategist. We need someone who is an organizer. In this unprecedented moment, we don’t need another politician.”

PEREZ:
“We need to be electing people from the school board to the Senate by building strong parties.”

Here at DNC forum, people in audience who applaud eliminating superdelegates stay silent when eliminating caucuses comes up

BUCKLEY:
“When we’re running hundreds of millions of dollars worth of commercials telling voters our opponent is offensive. When you’re worried about paycheck, where your kids going to school, you don’t give a damn if opponent is an insult dog.”
“What we did is say “How offensive!” Grow up, that’s not reality for most of America.”

HARRISON:
“We have been telling people our values and not showing it to them.”

Q:

BUTTIGIEG:
“I didn’t enjoy the 2016 primary the first time. I don’t know why we would want to relive it a second time.”