The next time you are thinking about praising Bernie Sanders....

[PatsFan87]

239. I see two reasons why DNC fundraising isn't where it should be.

1) A lot of people don't trust and/or have high expectations in the DNC, and I can't say that I blame them.

2) Other political operations like Organizing for Action take resources away from state parties and grassroots movements. For perspective:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/obama-democrats-party-building-234820

“[With] all due respect to President Obama, OFA was created as a shadow party because Obama operatives had no faith in state parties. So I hope the OFA role is none. I hope OFA closes their doors and allows the country and state parties to get to the hard work of rebuilding the party at the local and grass-roots level,” said Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb, echoing a sentiment that has dominated private chatter among state party chairs for months. “OFA had no faith or confidence in the state parties so they created a whole separate organization, they took money away and centralized it in D.C. They gave us a great president for eight years, but we lost everywhere else."

That tension has reached the point where state chairs pitching donors now feel the need to explain what their local committees can legally do that an external effort like OFA cannot. Those state leaders also went out of their way to ensure that the data and supporter lists from Clinton’s campaign would revert to the party after the election. OFA’s data treasure trove, after all, didn’t settle at the DNC until 2015 — three years after Obama’s reelection.

“It created a shadow organization that was recruiting the same volunteers [as the DNC], using resources from a very limited number of donors, and therefore, as a result it weakened the DNC and the impact that the DNC and state parties could have on politics during his tenure,” said South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison, a candidate for DNC chair. “You’ve got five organizations knocking on the same door with five different messages. That’s not conducive. In the age of Trump we need to be a lean, mean, strategic machine."

“Resources that are financial, and other resources like data and ideas that people are trying to bring to fruition in terms of organizing kits and materials: that’s what the DNC needs to spend its time doing, so the only outside apparatus we should have in terms of the party is the [state] parties,” said Parkhomenko, pointing to years of low investment and attention paid to local Democratic committees. “The lack of party and DNC [capacity] was a big contributing factor to what happened in the last election, [and] hopefully it will be a lesson to our party to never let this happen again."

“OFA should fold into the DNC. Having two organizations is redundant, and dilutes and confuses the mission. Given the urgency of the moment, we need laser-like focus, with clear lanes and cohesion, not duplication,” said former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm.