While all of this is happening, the Democrats are waiting to elect a new director before they can even think about casting. On Saturday, Democrats will be voting on their next party chair. There are nearly a dozen people running to fill the spot, but the election is mainly seen as a two-man race between Wisconsin party chair Ben Wikler and Ken Martin, a DNC vice chair.
Wikler, Martin, and many other candidates appeared on a virtual forum Tuesday night specifically focused on the DNC’s future in tech and media. For about an hour, they were asked how they would revamp the party’s data infrastructure and tackle new media. Many of them appeared anxious to take it on.
When I first started covering this beat, Wikler was constantly pitched to me as an example of a Democratic party official who was doing digital the right way. I spoke with him in December, where he reinforced that Democrats needed to respond to the changing media environment quickly if they planned to win elections in the near future. On Tuesday night, Wikler went on to suggest that the DNC create its own innovation lab focused on keeping up with their opposition.
“You need to build a culture of curiosity, innovation, experimentation, and iteration, knowing that many things won’t work,” Wikler said Tuesday night. “So you need to try even more things.”
Martin wants to do something similar by building an “Information War Room” more focused on fighting misinformation.
“That Information War Room will become the hub for better, ongoing, constant digital communications with real-time analytics and also with social listening, so we understand where the misinformation and disinformation is being pumped out, and as part of that, we need to recruit trusted messengers, influencers, creators, and their networks to communicate over the long haul,” Martin said.
That war room already exists on the right. The Trump campaign hosted influencers for special debate war rooms, and the same person who ran the Trump campaign’s war room has now been appointed “war room director” for the White House.
Faiz Shakir, a former Bernie Sanders adviser and the executive director of More Perfect Union, is also running for DNC chair, and he sees things differently. Instead of simply partnering with creators, he envisions a DNC that acts as its own media network. “You don’t just sprinkle fairy dust on a Mobilize link or YouTube link,” he said. “We should be raising money right now for the national Meals on Wheels Association, Head Start for America, just raise money for them and build engagement. Do actions on the ground with people, send videographers. This is what I’m doing right now at More Perfect Union.”
On Saturday, Democrats will choose who they want leading the party and taking on what will likely be a massive digital rebrand. During Tuesday’s forum, many of the candidates promised to move past the “boom-and-bust” periods of investing in digital and then stripping programs down to the bones between election cycles.
