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HOW DEMOCRATS CAN WIN BY ORGANIZING FROM THE COUNTY UP  
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Joel Bleifuss & Justin Perkins
March 31, 2025
Barn Raiser
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_ In her new role as a party leader, Jane Kleeb is organizing
Democrats to go on the offensive. "People are excited to hear the
Democratic Party giving them something concrete that we are working
toward." _

At a Tim Walz rally on October 19, 2024, in Papillion, Nebraska, Jane
Kleeb stands with Manape and Cynthia LaMere, the son and wife of the
late Frank LaMere, a member of the Winnebago tribe who founded the
Democratic National Committee’s Native Caucus., Photo: Jazari Kual
// Barn Raiser

 

On February 1, at the quarterly meeting of the Democratic National
Committee (DNC), the leadership of the Democratic Party changed hands.

Ken Martin was elected chair of the DNC on the first ballot. Later
that day, Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, was
elected president of the Association of State Democratic Committees
(ASDC), a position that had been held by Martin who served as the
chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

At a Tim Walz rally on October 19, 2024, in Papillion, Nebraska, Jane
Kleeb stands with Manape and Cynthia LaMere, the son and wife of the
late Frank LaMere, a member of the Winnebago tribe who founded the
Democratic National Committee’s Native Caucus. (Jazari Kual)

In her new role, Kleeb automatically becomes a DNC vice-chair at
Martin’s side, part of a leadership team that says it will move the
party in a bolder direction. In a December 19 _Barn Raiser_ op-ed,
Kleeb explained why she was supporting Martin for chair of the DNC and
running for President of the ASDC. She wrote in part:

Not many of our national party leaders live in rural or small town
America, which means the voices of a third of Americans are not being
heard as budgets get made, strategies get developed and messages are
created.

Politics is in Kleeb’s blood. Kleeb grew up in south Florida, where
her mother was head of Broward County Right to Life. Kleeb, who is 51,
left the Republican Party after college, and from 2003-2007 served as
the executive director of the Young Democrats of America, which is
affiliated with but not part of the Democratic National Committee.

In 2006, through her work with the Young Dems, she met her husband
Scott, then a 31-year-old ranch hand running as a Democratic in
Nebraska’s 3rd Congressional District seat. Today, Kleeb, Scott and
the couple’s three daughters live in the small rural town of
Hastings, in central Nebraska near the Kansas border.

In 2010, Kleeb founded Bold Alliance (formerly Bold Nebraska) in an
effort to remake Nebraska’s political landscape. With a grassroots
coalition of farmers, ranchers and Native communities, she helped lead
the state’s opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline.

Kleeb is founding board member of Our Revolution, the nonprofit
organization formed from Sen. Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign for the
Democratic presidential nomination. She also sits on the board of the
Rural Democracy Initiative, which works with and helps fund 150
rural-focused nonprofits in more than 20 states (including _Barn
Raiser_). She is the author of _Harvest the Vote: How Democrats Can
Win Again in Rural America
[[link removed]]_.

After the 2024 election, the Nebraska Democratic Party web page posted
a call to action to “Fight Back Against Trump,” including a link
to Kleeb’s Bluesky social media account, where she offers 10
suggestions for what progressives should do—and not do.

_Barn Raiser_ spoke to Kleeb on March 21 about her plans to help lead
the Democratic Party between now and 2029.

WHAT HAS BEEN THE PRIORITY FOR KEN MARTIN AND YOU SINCE YOU WERE BOTH
ELECTED TO DNC LEADERSHIP AT THE END OF JANUARY?

We’re listening to our members. As the person who’s in charge of
the state party association, I’m doing constant check-ins with our
state parties across all states and territories. And we’re listening
to our staff that we have on board.

Right now, the DNC has a staff of about 120. At the height of its
activity, the DNC can have anywhere from 600-700 employees.

Normally when a chair of the DNC and president of the Association of
State Democratic Committees get elected, there’s a three month
transition period. But this time there was no transition period.

We got elected and the next day baton was handed to us. So we’re
literally transitioning all the internal stuff that we have to do,
while at the same time having to present an external message, which is
a very tricky balance, as you can imagine, especially in the world of
Trump.

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN HEARING FROM FOLKS ON THE GROUND?

It is so clear. Whether you’re a grassroots volunteer, a voter or a
local party leader, folks want there to be a much brighter and
stronger line of opposition between us and the Republicans. In
previous Republican administrations, we could see common ground and we
could work together for all Americans. Even this second time that
Trump got elected, some Democrats thought that was true. You saw that
in the early days of with Democratic senators voting for some of his
nominees.

Now it’s very clear that Democrats and Republicans have two very
different worldviews of not only how the government should be run, but
of America itself. That’s the clearest message from any and every
demographic that we speak to.

The second message is that people want to see action, which is why Ken
and I have prioritized doing the People’s Town Halls.
 
On March 15, 2025, Jane Kleeb listens to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz
speak at the first of the “People’s Town Halls.” This one
occurred in Omaha at Metro Community College in the Nebraska’s 2nd
Congressional District, the home of Rep. Don Bacon (R), who following
instructions from the Republican National Committee is refusing to
hold town hall events. The town halls are being sponsored by the
Democratic National Committee, the Association of State Democratic
Committees and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
(Courtesy of Jane Kleeb  //  Barn Raiser)
We’ve challenged every state party to host a town hall in a
Republican-led district because the vast majority of Republicans are
not holding town halls. And if they are, they’re announcing them at
the last minute and usually in a place where there’s not a lot of
people living or that’s inaccessible to the majority of people. So
what the state parties and the DNC are getting behind is hosting these
town halls with some of our rock stars like Minnesota Governor Tim
Walz as well as other elected officials and going into those
Republican-led districts.

AS CHAIR OF THE NEBRASKA DEMOCRATIC PARTY FOR THE LAST EIGHT YEARS,
WHAT HAS THE NEBRASKA STATE PARTY ACCOMPLISHED THAT COULD SERVE AS A
MODEL FOR OTHER STATE PARTIES?

One of the first things that I did as chair was to assess how many
Democrats we have elected in Nebraska. You would have thought that
would be one of the things that the state party would be tracking.

In my role working with state parties over the last six to seven
years, I’ve realized that Democrats don’t have that list in many
states. So that is a priority for me as the president of the state
party association.

Early on as Nebraska chair, I figured out that we had 504 Democrats
elected statewide. We now have 1,025 Democrats elected statewide. And
that’s not by sheer luck.

In Nebraska, we’ve implemented strong programs that I hope to bring
to other state parties. One of those is our Block Captain program.
Voters were clearly telling us that being a Precinct Captain was too
big of a job. They were responsible for 2,000 voters for things like
voter registration and building long-term relationships.

Our Block Captain program broke that down to 50 voters. Our Block
Captains are responsible for talking to those 50 voters three times
during the year—not just during the election cycle. And we give them
materials and training for each voter contact.

For example, one of the voter contacts over last summer was to deliver
our new newspaper, _Democrats Deliver_
[[link removed]].
It gave a recap of what the Democrats and our legislators had been
working on that year.

Our second thing that we implemented was a voter guide. A lot of races
in many states, not just Nebraska, are nonpartisan. And so a lot of
our Democrats were getting left behind because Democratic voters
didn’t know who the Democrats were because those candidates didn’t
have a D next to their name on the ballot.

So we created a voter guide for every single county that lists all of
the Democrats running from the federal statewide races on top all the
way down to races like the state Natural Resources District. The guide
also identified where we have recruitment gaps.

The third program that has helped us get more Democrats elected and
build out county-level party infrastructure is our vote by mail
program.

We have a very strong vote by mail program where we send vote by mail
applications that are postage paid. We call and text those people
saying get your application back. And then we chase those ballots once
the ballots get mailed to those voters voting by home.

About 15-20% of Democrats were leaving their ballots on their kitchen
table. We’ve gotten that down to 3%with our program.

These are the kind of nuts-and-bolts programs that every state party
should be doing.

NO. 1 ON YOUR LIST OF ACTIONS TO “FIGHT BACK AGAINST TRUMP” IS:
“ATTEND YOUR LOCAL PARTY MEETING. IT MIGHT BE BORING, FOLKS MIGHT BE
OLD. BRING YOUR ENERGY, IDEAS AND MUTUAL RESPECT. FOLKS HAVE BEEN
HOLDING THE LINE AND WE NEED EVERYONE.” WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR
PEOPLE TO GET INVOLVED WITH THEIR PARTY AT THE LOCAL LEVEL?

As progressives and populists, as Democrats we have these mantras of
“eat local,” “drink local,” “shop local.” And I’m trying
to bring this culture of vote local and be engaged locally with
government.

Your local county party is the infrastructure where we can recruit
candidates, train candidates, get those folks elected and create a
brand for our party at all the cultural events that happen in your
community.

For example, in my community in Hastings, Nebraska, the Adams County
Democratic Party has an annual Kool-Aid Days because Hastings is the
birthplace of Kool-Aid.

Our county party has a float every year and has people walking in that
parade. It’s important to show our visual pride and connection to
the community. County parties are where we show up locally in
important cultural events like rodeos, fairs and parades, as well as
recruit, train and elect Democrats.

The other thing that county parties do are the nuts-and-bolts work of
supporting state party infrastructure. For instance, that means
electing people to the state convention every two or four years. It
means electing people to go to the Democratic National Convention.
That all happens at the county level.
 
Jane Kleeb campaigns for Sue Crawford, who is the candidate backed by
Democrats in the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election. (Courtesy
of Jane Kleeb  //  Barn Raiser)
Sometimes our county meetings aren’t as welcoming as they could be.
Older folks, our elders of the party, have been holding down many
county parties for years. Sometimes they can get territorial because
they’re very protective of the party.

My advice to younger or new Democrats who run into this is: Keep on
going. It’s your party too. Suggest ways to make those meetings more
exciting. Change needs to come from within the local party, rather
than people just complaining about it on social media.

SOME PROGRESSIVES THINK THAT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY ESTABLISHMENT IS
HEEDING THE ADVICE OF POLITICAL CONSULTANT JAMES CARVILLE, WHO ON
FEBRUARY 12 ADVISED DEMOCRATS TO “PLAY POSSUM” AND LET REPUBLICANS
“SELF-DESTRUCT.” HOW DO YOU BUILD A NEW VISION FOR THE DEMOCRATIC
PARTY WHEN PARTY LEADERS DON’T LEAD?

You basically have two paths to take when you’re the opposition
party.

You can do nothing, oppose everything at every level, place all the
blame on the Republicans and not provide any vision for the country.

And then there’s the fight back mode, where you fight back not only
in defense of what Trump and Musk and the Republicans are doing, but
also provide a more hopeful vision of what Democrats can be building
with voters if they vote for us in 2026 across all different levels of
office. Chair Martin and I at the DNC are in the fight back mode.

We want to not only hold that strong line of opposition, but also
provide a place of action and a place of hope for voters. The last
thing that we want is to fall into the trap of feeling like our world
is falling apart and there’s nothing that we can do about it.

My belief as an organizer who’s taken on tough battles like opposing
the Keystone XL pipeline or helping get Obamacare passed is that, yes,
you have to have fierce opposition in the streets—but you also have
to provide hope and sources of action so that people can get involved
beyond protesting. That is why I keep harping on folks to get involved
in your local county infrastructure, get involved in more partisan
voter registration. We’ve lost that muscle in our party. We’ve
handed that over to a lot of nonpartisan groups.

As a result, that first contact with a voter is not about why you
should be a Democrat or register as a Democrat. Instead, it’s
basically issue-based groups doing their voter registration drives.
And so voters, especially young people, think, “Well, I guess I’ll
be an independent” because they don’t know the difference between
Republicans and Democrats. We need to do a lot more in our states and
at the local level to get that democracy muscle much stronger.

I completely disagree with James Carville that we have to play dead.
And I love him. I think he’s hilarious. He’s very smart and
strategic in many ways. But, we have to go beyond the 1990s kind of
thinking about how our party operates.

IN WHAT YOU JUST SAID, YOU SEEM TO IMPLICITLY CRITICIZE THE ROLE OF
NONPROFIT, ISSUE-BASED ORGANIZATIONS AND THEIR INFLUENCE OVER THE
POLITICAL DIRECTION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. COULD YOU ELABORATE ON
THAT?

First, there’s a critical role for the nonpartisan 501(c)(3),
501(c)(4) organizations in politics. Obviously, (c)3s don’t get
involved in partisan politics, but they’re involved in civics.

But about 20 years ago, Democratic donors and the party as an
institution made a mistake when we created something called the
Democracy Alliance, an association of individual and institutional big
donors.

After the Democrats lost the presidential race in 2004, these big
Democratic and progressive donors said, “We have nothing like the
Republicans and conservatives have in terms of progressive
infrastructure.”

So the Democracy Alliance propped up all these new (c)4s like America
Votes and Center for American Progress. The problem is that none of
those groups have the word “democratic” in it.

And so we got into this place where generations of voters now identify
more as progressives than as Democrats. That created opportunity for
conflict. Yes, we should make sure issue-based groups have the
resources they need to win the hearts and minds of voters. But in
doing so it starved the Democratic Party of resources.

During that time, state parties were basically getting $2,500 a month
from the Democratic National Committee to run their operations. You
can’t run a statewide political operation if 3-5% of the budget at
the DNC is going back to the states. We need that up to 25%.

Under Ken and my leadership over the past few years, we’ve been able
to inch that up to $12,500 a month for each state party. And now our
goal is to get at least $25,000 to each state party each month.

But that’s going to take work. It’s going to take a lot of
fundraising. And it’s a whole culture shift.

Our politics and our donors have been focused on eight battleground
states. That’s where all the resources go. Or, we have been focused
on propping up (c)3 and (c)4 organizations. And this leaves the core
infrastructure, which is state parties, starved of resources.

That’s what has been happening over the past 20 years and why we are
in the situation we’re in right now.

I’m not criticizing investing resources in battleground states. But
we will never expand the map if we continue to run a battleground
state model where we end up funding a whole consultant class inside
the DNC. We have to be funding everywhere.

You never know when a state is going to pop, when a potential
candidate or strong state party leader is going to start reforming and
building from the grassroots. That’s why you need to be investing in
all 57 states and territories all the time to expand that map.

Some of our current battleground states, especially in the Midwest,
are going to lose congressional seats in the next redistricting cycle.
Those seats are going to go to places like South Carolina, North
Carolina, Texas and Florida. We have to be investing in those states
where it may look hopeless for some Democrats right now. We are going
to continue to lose at the Electoral College in the House
Congressional races if we don’t start investing in lots of states.

DURING THE ELECTION FOR THE NEW CHAIR OF THE DNC, A LOT OF THE
DEMOCRACY ALLIANCE FUNDERS WERE SUPPORTING WISCONSIN DEMOCRATIC PARTY
CHAIR BEN WIKLER OVER KEN MARTIN. WHY WAS THAT?

For a couple reasons.

One, Ben comes from the Democracy Alliance world. Not unsimilar to me.
I ran the Young Democrats of America when Democracy Alliance was
founded. We were one of the groups that got funded by the Democracy
Alliance because the Young Dems are outside of the DNC infrastructure.
Ben was one of the leaders of MoveOn during those years, and a lot of
those donors knew Ben through that work.

And a lot of those same donors funded the innovative things Ben and
the chair before him, Martha Laning, were doing to flip Wisconsin into
more of a purple state than a red state.

IN PREVIOUS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CYCLES, INCLUDING 2024, THE
DEMOCRATS HAVE BROUGHT ON A RURAL VOTE DIRECTOR ONLY TO HAVE THEIR
POSITION ELIMINATED SHORTLY AFTER THE ELECTION. WHAT CAN THE PARTY DO
TO BETTER SUPPORT RURAL-FOCUSED POSITIONS, WHETHER THAT’S A
FULL-TIME RURAL VOTE DIRECTOR OR RURAL DESKS
[[link removed]] SUPPORTING
MORE OF THE RURAL COUNCIL’S WORK?

With the boom and bust cycle of electoral politics that we’ve been
running, we not only end up losing people with strong talent and all
the institutional knowledge of what they did in that election cycle,
but we also leave behind all the volunteers and all the caucuses and
councils at the state level, because now we don’t have a desk and
there’s no money going to organizing in between elections and
recruiting candidates and training them.

We basically build up for presidential elections, and then tear down,
rather than keep it steady, keep it built.

It is my hope and expectation that with Chair Martin we are going to
be funding these desks in a more significant way. They can be glue to
all the caucuses and councils.

It’s not that there’s a lack of infrastructure in our state and
our national parties. It’s that the work is not being funded. We
lots of great caucuses and councils like the Women’s Caucus, the
Rural Council, the Black Caucus, the Native Caucus and the Climate
Council. But they can only do so much, just like our state parties can
only do so much.

We’re running on volunteer power. You have to have real resources to
actually build out and run programs, from partisan voter registration
programs to messaging programs to branding. These are all things that
grassroots Democrats are rightfully criticizing the national and state
parties for—resources weren’t dedicated to the infrastructure that
we have.

Instead, the resources have been mostly centered on battleground
states and consultants with advertising budgets. We have the
infrastructure. It just needs to be funded.

DEMOCRATS SPENT $4 BILLION ON ADVERTISING IN THE LAST CAMPAIGN CYCLE.
THE RURAL URBAN BRIDGE INITIATIVE HAS CIRCULATED A PETITION VIA
MOVEON, ASKING DNC CHAIR MARTIN TO CALL UPON DEMOCRATIC FUNDERS TO
DIRECT 10% OF THEIR RESOURCES TO RURAL AND WORKING-CLASS DISTRICTS.
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS IDEA? SHOULD THE PARTY CHANGE HOW IT
ALLOCATES RESOURCES? AND IF SO, HOW?

I definitely support that effort, but I have a different lens, because
I know the funding structure that we have internally. Right now, about
8% of the DNC budget is going back out to the states. That is
unconscionable. It should be a minimum of 25% of the DNC budget is
going back out to the states, where the work is being done.

Of course, we need to be doing national political work. I love all of
our national staff and the data work they’re doing in the national
mobilizations for all of our voter files in conjunction with the state
parties. That has to continue to be funded at the national level. But
more resources need to go into the states. And then both the state
parties and the national party needs to be held accountable.

Chair Martin and I are going to kick off what’s called a SWOT
analysis.

If you’ve been part of any big organization, you’ve probably done
this—it’s a look at your organization’s strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats. We will be doing that with each of our
state parties. By investing more resources, those state parties, state
party leadership and elected state officials can come to the table and
say, “Here are the things that we’re doing really well. Here are
the things that we know need to improve.”

Even in blue states, there are rural areas. So I agree we need more
money going back to the states and we need to be investing in rural
areas.

HOW SHOULD THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY DEAL WITH THE ISSUES OF DARK MONEY IN
THE PARTY?

It’s something we need to address in a multi-leveled and detailed
way. Sometimes when people talk about dark money, they mean fossil
fuel money or money from corporations that are union busting.

Chair Martin has made it very clear that he’s not going to take
fossil fuel money. He’s not going to take money from corporations
that are union busting. But even saying that is difficult because we
have a lot of great Democrat donors that are working in some of these
big corporations in Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico.

If they’re already giving, are we talking about turning away that
money, or are we actually talking about not being beholden to the big
corporations themselves, which is what I think grassroots Democrats
mean when they talk about getting rid of the influence of dark money.

And then there’s the fact that some tax-exempt organizations like
(c)4s and 527s don’t have to disclose their donors. And they could
be donors who have ill intent for the Democratic Party, who are
putting forward candidates that don’t share our core values.

Even in some blue states, candidates are running as Democrats, getting
elected, and then changing their party to become Republican. Then you
add in Bitcoin money, which is another layer of complexity and
difficulty around dark money in our primaries.

Chair Martin and I are committed to working with leaders like Larry
Cohen, the former president of Communication Workers of America, who
have been leading this effort inside the DNC for years, along with
Representatives like Ro Khanna and others who want the DNC to have a
clear stance on the corporations that we would refuse to take money
from, which Chair Martin has already spoken about.

But how can we take this to the next step? I think we can make this
process clearer and stronger.

One idea is at the state party level. State parties have control over
who does or does not get on voter guides, our mail permit or our voter
files. For example, in Nebraska if you violate certain rules, you
cannot use our voter file, which is a big resource that candidates
need to win their election. State parties could also have a rule that
any candidate in a Democratic primary who accepts dark money will not
get access to party lists or be endorsed in our voter guides.

THEORETICALLY, WHAT YOU’RE SAYING IS THAT THERE ARE WAYS FOR STATE
PARTIES TO WITHDRAW SUPPORT WITHIN THE NOMINATING PROCESS, NOT THE
GENERAL ELECTION, FOR CANDIDATES WHO TAKE MONEY FROM HIDDEN FUNDS?

Clearly grassroots voters of our party want us to do something.

What we’re trying to untangle is how to create a process that
doesn’t hurt strong Democrats who are running, while also being very
clear about our values and that it matches the money that we’re
taking.

PRESIDENT TRUMP CLAIMS THAT HE IS FIGHTING GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACY AND
WASTE. HOW CAN DEMOCRATS MAKE EFFECTIVE COUNTER ARGUMENTS FOR
DEFENDING GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS BUT AT THE SAME TIME NOT COMING ACROSS
AS SUPPORTERS OF THE STATUS QUO THAT VOTERS REJECTED IN THIS LAST
ELECTION?

Democrats have always been the party that believes in good government,
that believes the government has a role in making sure that kids, for
example, have quality public education.

My middle child didn’t speak when she was two years old, and the
public schools stepped in and created an IEP [Individualized Education
Program] for her, even at two years old. She was able to get services
at her daycare, and they would come to our home, and at the age of
three she got into a preschool program. That’s all through the IEP
system at our public schools, which was, of course, funded hand in
glove with the Department of Education that Trump just decided to undo
with a stroke of a pen.

Democrats have an opportunity to connect the dots of how the
government works in our lives to protect the safety and well-being of
all Americans and create that level playing field in society, which is
what Democrats clearly believe in. We’ve begun to do that in these
town halls.

 
The first photo of Jane Kleeb, the President of the Association of
State Democratic Committees, and Ken Martin, Chair of the Democratic
National Committee, taken together shortly after they were elected on
February 1. (Courtesy of Jane Kleeb  //  Barn Raiser)
We’ve also begun to do that on social media. We need to be doing
that more constantly. The wrecking ball, chainsaw approach that Elon
Musk is doing with Donald Trump is not just the vision of Project
2025, it’s a destructive, long-term Republican policy that’s been
in the works for decades.

Musk and some people from Silicon Valley have a bizarre political
philosophy that is part of their Dark Enlightenment
[[link removed]] movement.
That is a threat to not only our government, but democracy itself.
They truly believe we should not have the government running services,
that it should all be run by corporations. First, they are trying to
take out are our public schools, and then I think you’ll see them
going after the United States Postal Service, Amtrak and the Federal
Aviation Administration. Then, our national parks. These are the
low-hanging fruit they want to privatize to show the public that
corporations can do it better. But we all know what happens,
especially if you live in a rural community.

My husband’s family got electricity not from a corporation. A
private electrical company did not string electricity into Custer
County, Nebraska, where there was probably about 10 to 20 families
living at the time in the 1940s. It was the government through
the Custer Public Power District
[[link removed]].

It was the government under Democrats who did that, who brought rural
electricity out to them so they could live a stronger and better life.
Our job as Democrats is to tell the story and show how strong
government has been the backbone of our country for more than 200
years.

HOW DO DEMOCRATS ADDRESS THEIR CULTURAL DISCONNECT WITH THOSE
WORKING-CLASS, RURAL VOTERS WHO HAVE A MORE CONSERVATIVE CULTURAL
BACKGROUND AND SEE DEMOCRATS AS BEING MORE CONCERNED ABOUT PRONOUNS
THAN PAYCHECKS?

These past two election cycles, the Republicans were very effective
using pretty hateful language against trans people, against LGBT
people as a cultural wedge.

It’s our job as Democrats to talk about economic justice, to talk
about human rights and to talk about freedom, especially in our rural
communities. I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of farmers and ranchers
say, “If it doesn’t bother the cattle, it doesn’t bother me.”
This is the kind of mantra in rural areas that says, essentially,
“If I’m not hurting you, please leave me alone.”

I think as Democrats, we can take a page out of that mindset and
philosophy, because that’s what we believe too. We don’t think
that the government should be in people’s bedrooms or involved in
health care decisions.

That’s something that Minnesota Gov. Walz does a good job at, along
with people like Sen. Chris Murphy and AOC [Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez]. There are lots of Democrats use the framework of
freedom and human rights in very effective ways that I, us, as
national party leaders, need to be doing as well.

IN YOUR OP-ED FOR _BARN RAISER_
[[link removed]] LAST
YEAR, YOU MENTIONED THAT DEMOCRATS “NEED OUR OWN PROJECT 2025.” IF
YOU WERE TO HELP CRAFT A PROJECT 2029, WHAT SHOULD BE THE MAJOR PLANKS
OF THAT PLATFORM?

We need not only a Project 2029 for issues, we also need a Project
2029 for voting and democratic infrastructure. The Association of
State Democratic Committees has created a new committee, Project 2029,
that is working purely on democracy issues. Assuming we take back the
White House in 2028, we want to be able to hand the new president a
list of things that they can do by executive order to enhance
democracy.

We also want to make sure there are items that can pass at the state
and county levels. For example, counties can make it much more
accessible to vote early or vote by mail. That’s on the electoral
infrastructure and democracy side of things, which also includes
census redistricting and same-day voter registration.

I’ve spent the last 15-plus years in rural communities, working with
farmers, ranchers and tribes to protect their land and water from very
risky fossil fuel projects. One of the planks that Democrats should be
working on is ending eminent-domain-for-private-gain projects.

As Democrats, there’s absolutely no place in our country where we
should be supporting a private corporation taking a private
individual’s land so that private corporation can make more money.

That is something that will clearly resonate not only in our rural
communities, but it will also resonate in urban communities too. Black
and brown folks’ land and homes are constantly taken for big sports
arenas, for example. That’s just as wrong as a pipeline going
through somebody’s farm or ranch.

The other issue that I talk a lot about is expanding public education.
Republicans seem to want to shrink public education and hand that over
to private corporations and charter schools. I think we should be
expanding public education to include pre-K for all kids all the way
through two years of community college. It should be fully funded at
the federal and state level.

We know that a significant number of students, 43% in fact, will end
their secondary educational pursuits at a community college and go
into a trade. They will go into nursing. They will go into a union
apprenticeship program, electrical, for example, fixing windmills,
installing solar panels.

That is a huge track for working-class and middle-class families. And
then for those that want to pursue a four-year degree, they have a
good head start with two years under their belt, especially since
college has become so expensive.

We have to start communicating new ideas to the American public that
that will help everybody, that will level the playing field and will
put more money in people’s pockets.

BOTH DNC CHAIR KEN MARTIN AND TIM WALZ COME OUT OF THE ORGANIZING
TRADITION OF THE LATE SEN. PAUL WELLSTONE OF MINNESOTA. DO YOU SEE A
COMMON THREAD WITH WELLSTONE’S THEORY OF ORGANIZING, PARTICULARLY IN
RURAL AREAS, THAT IS STRIKING A NERVE WITH THE CURRENT LEADERSHIP?

In the early 2000s, I switched my party voter registration from
Republican to Democrat. That was because of work that I was doing with
Sen. Paul Wellstone at the time. I had been working on eating disorder
legislation and was just getting nowhere.

Paul Wellstone heard the voices of a family in Minnesota who lost
their daughter to anorexia. He worked with then-Sen. Hillary Clinton
on the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act.

 
Former Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) talks with participants at a
Capitol Hill rally in June 2001 in support of mental health parity.
(Psychiatric News  //  Barn Raiser)
 

Republicans at the time were actually coming to the table to get that
passed. But they said eating disorders had to be cut from the bill,
because it was the most expensive out of all mental health issues to
treat. But Wellstone stood his ground. And for me, that like
encapsulated why I became a Democrat—it was fighting back against
big corporations that were hurting people.

When we were fighting the Keystone XL pipeline, what I heard from
farmers and ranchers who are mostly conservative Republicans in
Nebraska, over and over again, is that they hate big. They hate big
everything. They hate big government, they hate big corporations.
It’s why many of them actually weren’t NRA members, because they
thought that was too big.

So that that is definitely the nerve that is being struck right now.
It’s why Bernie and AOC connect so well with people. We have seen
the impacts, personally, of how big corporations and billionaires have
hurt our families, have hurt the very institutions that we care about,
whether that’s public education, or the parks in our community.

We’ve seen politicians, like in our state, especially in
Republican-led states, completely dismantle services. And so people
with mental health or physical health challenges, have even more of a
stronger mountain to climb. The doctor that delivered my two babies in
Hastings, Nebraska, is now delivering babies for women in 59
surrounding rural counties.

Republicans say that they care about our families and are pro-life,
but in reality, we see what their policies do, because they are in the
pocket of billionaires and big corporations. Our challenge as
Democrats is that that has somehow got lost. Republicans have somehow
claimed the mantle of pushing back against corporations and that they
are the party of working people, which is mind boggling.

BERNIE SANDERS HAS BEEN ATTRACTING HUGE CROWDS WITH HIS FIGHT
OLIGARCHY TOUR. BERNIE OPERATES BOTH INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE
DEMOCRATIC PARTY. IS THAT A MODEL FOR RURAL AMERICA? SHOULD DEMOCRATS
BE WORKING WITH UNAFFILIATED VOTERS AND SUPPORTING INDEPENDENT
CANDIDATES?

Obviously, my job as a proud partisan Democrat, especially the head of
the ASDC and the vice chair of the DNC, is to build out our party
infrastructure to get more Democrats registered and recruit and
training Democratic candidates. But, there is also a place for
Democrats to be working with independents in a coalition where we
agree to work together in particular races because we want to break up
the stranglehold that Republicans have in some states like in
Nebraska’s 3rd District, for example, which is a really Republican
part of our state.

It’s silly for us to pretend that we can just write off
independents. Sen. Sanders is a perfect example.

He has always worked in coalition with the Democratic Party in
Vermont. We should be doing that across the country. In every single
state, even in blue states, there are red areas and there may be races
where we don’t have a Democrat running, where somebody is not going
to raise their hand to run, but we have a strong independent that’s
going to run.

How do we make sure that we’re working together? There’s no reason
why we couldn’t, for example, allow an independent to use our voter
file, assuming there’s not a Democrat running in that particular
race. And I think that sends a stronger message to Americans that
Democrats are serious when we’re talking about ending the cruelty of
Republicans.

WHAT GIVES YOU HOPE NOWADAYS?

It’s very hard to watch the news right now, especially where I’m
at in a party leadership position, and still feel somewhat helpless
about how to stop an Elon Musk from ripping apart our government.

What I’ve told myself, and what I’ve been talking about with my
other fellow state party chairs, vice chairs and executive directors,
is that we have to prepare and train for the areas that we do have
control over. And for us, that’s building out our party
infrastructure. It’s registering more Democrats and it’s
recruiting more down-ballot candidates so we see fewer and fewer empty
ballot lines.

And, what gives me hope is that people are energized about that.

People are excited to hear the Democratic Party giving them something
concrete that we are working toward. I’m also very happy that
Democrats and allied groups are filing lots of lawsuits in order to
try to stop the bleeding that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are doing.
And I’m excited that candidates are already knocking on our door
saying that they’re ready to announce for big races in 2026.
Normally that would only happen much later, in the fall of 2025, but
it’s happening now.

So that gives me a lot of hope. And lastly, you know, I am like really
excited that we have Bernie Sanders, AOC, Governor Walz, Ro Khanna,
Jasmine Crockett and all these folks doing town halls across the
country, stepping into the void that Republicans have left and letting
voters know that we care about them.

Don Bacon is the GOP representative in the Nebraska’s 2nd
Congressional District—that’s the big swing district in our state.
When Bacon voted for that awful budget that was basically going to cut
Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP benefits, even though he pretends that it
won’t, we sent out a press release blasting him.

But I also turned to my team and said, we need to kick into gear. We
need to do a fundraiser, not for the party, but for the food pantry
run by Black Men United. So we did a big fundraiser, we were able to
drop off diapers and fresh fruits and vegetables.

That’s also what we have to do as Democrats. It’s not only about
building out party infrastructure and recruiting candidates and
getting more Democrats registered to vote. It’s also being there for
the community and showing up and showing that we truly care about them
as people.

_[JOEL BLEIFUSS is Barn Raiser Editor & Publisher and Board
President of Barn Raising Media Inc. He is a descendent of German and
Scottish farmers who immigrated to Wisconsin and South Dakota in the
19th Century. Bleifuss was born and raised in Fulton, Mo., a town on
the edge of the Ozarks. He graduated from the University of Missouri
in 1978 and got his start in journalism in 1983 at his hometown daily,
the Fulton Sun. Bleifuss joined the staff of In These
Times magazine in October 1986, stepping down as Editor & Publisher
in April 2022, to join his fellow barn raisers in getting Barn
Raiser off the ground._

_JUSTIN PERKINS is Barn Raiser Deputy Editor & Publisher and Board
Clerk of Barn Raising Media Inc. He received his Master of Divinity
degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School. The son of a
hog farmer, he grew up in Papillion, Neb., and got his start as a
writer with his hometown newspaper the Papillion Times, The Daily
Nebraskan, Rural America In These Times and In These Times. He has
previous editorial experience at Prairie Schooner and Image.]_

_This story was originally published by Barn Raiser,
[[link removed]] your independent source for rural and
small town news. _

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