Raymond Buckley wants his party to concentrate on the issues that have worried Americans.
New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Raymond Buckley, a candidate for the DNC chair, told his fellow Democrats to “grow up” at a forum in Baltimore. Buckley noted that the Democrats did not concentrate on the issues that actually concern regular Americans.
Buckley said the Democrats ‘did not offer a positive message to anyone I … am related to.’
‘We did not offer a message to my neighbors, we did not offer a message to the people in Indiana or Ohio or Pennsylvania or Kentucky,’ he added, pointing to the state’s nominee Hillary Clinton lost throughout the Rust Belt.
What the Democrats did do, Buckley stated, is say ‘how offensive.’
‘Grow up,’ he shouted.
‘That is not reality for most of America,’ he said.
He appeared on Fox & Friends on Monday:
“We’ve had 11 or 12 debates already, and clearly we’ve been talking about a number of issues we tripped up on,” Buckley said. “But we really never got to the point that our nominee’s campaign really did not address the economic issues that so many Americans are still suffering under.”
It’s been said the Democrats have become a coastal party, with strongholds in California, New York, and Massachusetts. However, the message has failed to spread to middle America.
“I think it is important that whoever is our nominee in 2020 that they listen to our grassroots and less to their high-paid consultants,” Buckley said. “I really think that is a major problem within our party, both at the DNC and with our candidates up and down the ticket.”
Buckley is one of ten candidates to take over the DNC after Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schulz resigned last summer after someone leaked emails before the convention.
Instead of taking Buckley’s advice, the DNC has shown it wants to keep moving to the far left since Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and former Labor Secretary Thomas Perez remain the favorites. Former Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) expressed this sentiment when he appeared on Meet the Press this last weekend. From RealClearPolitics:
“You can’t have a Jefferson-Jackson dinner, which was a primary celebratory event of the Democratic Party for years, because Jefferson and Jackson were slaveholders,” Webb lamented. “They were also great Americans in their day. Something different has happened to the Democratic Party.”
He said that the party’s focus on “identity politics” has lost them a “key part of the their base.”
He continued: “The people who believe that regardless of any of these identity segments, you need to have a voice in a quarters of power for those that have no voice. And we’ve lost that for the Democratic Party.”
Webb also noted that the Democrats lost the middle of America, who they need to gain back because they “used to be the core of their party.” From The Hill:
“You’ve lost white working people. You’ve lost flyover land, and you saw in this election what happens when people get frustrated enough that they say, ‘I’m not going to take this,’” he said.
“There is an aristocracy now that pervades American politics. It’s got to be broken somehow in both parties, and I think that’s what the Trump message was that echoed so strongly in these flyover communities.”
