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As Democrats begin to rebuild in the wake of their 2016 presidential election defeat, the partys official political organ is tapping Raffi Krikorian, a former top engineer at Ubers self-driving-car program, to be its next chief technology officer.

The hire, confirmed by multiple sources on Wednesday, comes as the Democratic National Committee looks to improve its tech tools in a bid to reach more voters while preventing another major cyber breach, the likes of which by Russian-backed hackers in 2016 helped sink Hillary Clintons campaign.

Krikorian departed Uber in February; he had served as the senior director of engineering at Ubers Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh. He then briefly joined New America, a nonpartisan policy think tank, as the director of engineering focused on public-interest technology. He did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment, nor did the DNC. And he previously spent five years as vice president of platform engineering at Twitter.

When he assumes his new role, though, Krikorian will face no shortage of endemic tech troubles to tackle beginning with shoring up the DNCs cyber defenses after Russian hackers targeted Democrats in 2016, stole their private emails and shared them with WikiLeaks.

The DNCs new leader, former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, has specifically said that the party needs its own in-house cyber security officer not just to help the DNC, he told Politico in January, but to support local political officials as they also try to fight off future breaches.

Beyond that campaign-changing, narrative-shaping cyber incident, many believe the DNC has fallen behind in supporting and deploying tech tools to target voters, raise money and send those supporters to the polls on Election Day.

Even Hillary Clinton has criticized the DNC for disorganization, stressing at the Code Conference in June that it was bankrupt and on the verge of insolvency when she won the partys presidential nomination.

Its data was mediocre to poor, Clinton said.

Clintons comments quickly drew sharp rebukes from DNC veterans. Many also charged that the partys next challenge is corralling and harnessing the myriad tech-focused groups that have sprung out of Silicon Valley to oppose Trump.

Update, 1:14 p.m. ET: Hours later, Kirkorian confirmed the hire.

i'm so excited for this new role as the CTO for @TheDemocrats. let's do this.

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Democrats have hired Raffi Krikorian, a former Uber exec, as their ... - Recode

The Democratic Party has some problems.

It keeps losing elections, some of which have been extremely winnable, and its message has fallen flat with voters not just in the South, but in the Midwest as well. The party has suffered four straight special election losses since Donald Trump was elected president.

Democratic leadership is scrambling now for solutions.

To that end, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced this week the creation of an office whose head has been tasked with the singular objective of training Democratic candidates on how to connect with voters in the Midwest. It has come to this.

The DCCC's office of Heartland Engagement, as it's being called, will be chaired by Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., who represents the Quad Cities area and is currently the only Midwesterner with a role in House Democratic leadership.

"Cheri is a key member of our leadership team, and her efforts to help recruit and mentor candidates and carry our economic message is critical to our strategy this cycle," DCCC chairman Rep. Ben Ray Lujn, D-N.M., said this week.

The Democratic Party took severe beatings in both the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections. In both years, their losses were particularly staggering in the Midwest. In 2016, presidential nominee Hillary Clinton barely carried Minnesota and won her home state of Illinois and that was it in the entire Midwest against her historically unpopular competitor.

With the creation of its new office of Heartland Engagement, Democrats hope to turn all this around.

The position is new and Bustos is the first person to chair it, her office confirmed to the Washington Examiner. The Illinois congresswoman comes to the leadership position fresh, and she is free from the expectations normally associated with political ascendancies.

However, that's not to say her mission is an easy one. Indeed, to sum it up, Bustos has been given the enormous task of teaching Democrats on how to connect with small-town and rural areas, and all of this in the hopes that they can recapture the House in 2018.

That's no small order, hoping a single Illinois congresswoman can train her colleagues to speak clearly and effectively to areas where their message has been rejected for the better part of a decade.

As daunting as this sounds, she said this week that she is excited by the opportunity.

"The heartland is critical to winning back the majority, and we must do a better job listening to the hardworking families from small towns and rural communities if we hope to earn their support," Bustos said in a statement.

"As Democrats, we believe in making sure everyone has a chance to find a good-paying job, raise a family and live the American dreamregardless of where they call home. As the Chair of Heartland Engagement, I'm looking forward to helping lead our efforts to build a lasting partnership with the hardworking men and women of America's heartland," she added.

The creation of the office of Heartland Engagement, and the announcement that Bustos would head it, marks another telling moment of introspection from a party that has not enjoyed many electoral successes outside of Barack Obama's successful White House bids.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., himself said this weekend that one of his party's biggest problems is that they have no coherent or winning message.

"I think if we come up with this strong, bold economic package, it will it will change things around. That's what we were missing. People don't like [President Donald Trump]; he's at 40 percent. But they say what the heck do the Democrats stand for?" the New York senator asked in an interview this weekend.

"[W]e better stand for something and it can't be baby steps," he added.

They may be somewhat late to realizing their weaknesses as a party, but hey: Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery.

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Democrats realize they have a problem: Part 2 - Washington Examiner

For San Francisco Rep. Nancy Pelosi, theres nothing new about being targeted by Republicans. After 30 years in Congress and 15 years as leader of the House Democrats, it comes with the territory.

But since a devastating June 20 loss for an open House seat in the Atlanta suburbs capped a 0-for-4 run in GOP-friendly special elections, the 77-year-old Pelosi has found herself taking fire from fellow Democrats who argue that the famously liberal minority leader is just too controversial and add, in whispers, too old to effectively remain the face of the party.

We cant keep losing races and keep the same leadership in place, said Rep. Kathleen Rice of New York, who hosted a meeting of about a dozen dissident Democrats in her office last week. You have a baseball team that keeps losing year after year. At some point the coach has to go, right?

Texas Rep. Filemon Vela was even more direct.

I think youd have to be an idiot to think we could win the House with Nancy Pelosi on top, Vela said in a Politico interview.

Pelosis answer has been simple. Shes not going anywhere, she said, so bring it on.

When it comes to personal ambition, having fun on TV have your fun, she said in an undisguised shot at her Democratic opponents at a news conference last week. I love the arena. I thrive on competition.

Theres little argument that with former President Barack Obama and defeated 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gone from the political landscape, Pelosi and the liberal city she represents has become the go-to bogeyman for Republican campaigns across the country.

In the race for the Georgia congressional seat, for example, voters could barely turn on their televisions or open their mailboxes without learning how 30-year-old Democrat Jon Ossoff, who was born in that district, was nothing more than a stalking horse for Pelosi and her San Francisco values.

One 30-second TV spot, for example, featured a huge Pelosi-Ossoff banner hanging from the Golden Gate Bridge and a hipster-looking guy enthusiastically saying, Ossoff and Pelosi. Thats a dream team!

Democratic losses in four House special elections have spurred some party chatter about replacing Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Democratic losses in four House special elections have spurred some...

And then there was the mailer that showed a sinister-looking Pelosi pulling off a rubber Ossoff mask. Behind Jon Ossoff is Nancy Pelosi ... Only YOUR vote can STOP them, the ad read.

If voters in that Georgia district, once represented by former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich, were more intent on voting against Pelosi than for Republican Karen Handel, the eventual winner, thats no problem for Republican leaders.

Pelosi continues to be a huge liability for Democratic candidates, Corry Bliss, executive director of the Republicans Congressional Leadership Fund, said in a memo released Tuesday. His group, which spent more than $6 million on the Georgia attack ads, will spend millions of dollars highlighting Nancy Pelosis toxic agenda and reminding voters across the country that Democratic candidates are nothing more than rubber stamps for her out-of-touch, liberal policies.

Pelosis backers were quick to dismiss Bliss plan, arguing that four special election wins in deep-red districts in strong Republican states like Georgia, Montana, Kansas and South Carolina dont make a trend.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. speaks to reporters during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 22, 2017. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. speaks to reporters...

There is no evidence to suggest this strategy works, said Jorge Aguilar, a spokesman on Pelosis political team. Desperation is not a strategy.

But in at least those four special elections, tying Democrats to Pelosi worked.

Thats an old trick. (Former Assembly Speaker) Willie Brown was used in exactly the same way by California Republicans, said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a professor of public policy communication at the University of Southern California. Parties will alway find someone to be a target. For Democrats now, its Donald Trump. Like it or not, its politics.

But for House Democrats, those results are hard to ignore, especially when theyre accompanied by a taunting tweet from Trump saying: I certainly hope the Democrats do not force Nancy P out. That would be very bad for the Republican Party. And things like an electronic card from the California Republican Party thanking Pelosi for being such a wonderful contributor to Republican victories!

The issue I think strategically is that Trump energizes their (Republican) base, and Leader Pelosi energizes their base, Rep. Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat who unsuccessfully challenged Pelosi for the House leadership last November, told The Associated Press.

That focus on Pelosi effectively nationalizes the local congressional races and takes the focus off the hometown candidates battling on issues that directly affect voters in those districts.

Still, its a hard call for Democrats to talk about ousting a longtime party leader because Republicans are saying bad things about her, especially when whoever leads the Democrats instantly becomes a GOP target.

Republicans always want to choose our leaders. And usually they go after the most effective leaders, Pelosi said at last weeks news conference. But I dont think that members of a party should pick up the line of the Republicans.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 27, 2017. (Eric Thayer/The New York Times)

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Capitol Hill in...

With congressional primaries across the nation beginning in less than a year and fewer than 18 months before the November 2018 midterms, the last thing Democrats need is internecine battle that could shatter the party just when it most needs unity to win the 24 GOP seats needed to take control of Congress, said Bruce Cain, a professor of political science at Stanford University.

The real problem for the Democrats is who is going to moderate between the (Vermont Sen. Bernie) Sanders and the Clinton factions, he said. Replacing Pelosi with a more centrist leader would mean the cleavage between the two groups is only going to grow larger.

Besides Pelosis unparalleled ability to raise the type of campaign cash Democrats will desperately need in next years congressional contests, the San Francisco congresswoman also has an ability to serve as a unifying force for Democrats that no one else can match, Cain added.

Thats where Nancys unique contribution is, he said. As the daughter of a former Baltimore mayor who also served in Congress, Pelosi was raised to play the inside game. But at the same time shes one of the most liberal and progressive Democrats ... someone able to deal with both the centrists and pragmatists, and the idealists and the progressives.

That could be one of the reasons that, despite the grumbling, no strong candidate has talked seriously about challenging her. The most likely contender, 55-year-old Rep. Joseph Crowley of New York City, is No. 4 in the party hierarchy and turned down calls to take on Pelosi last November.

Since party rules make it nearly impossible to challenge a Democratic leader before the end of the two-year congressional term, even those most eager for change are resigned to standing behind Pelosi through the 2018 elections. Even Rice, the New York congresswoman, now says that all she wants to do is start a conversation about new leadership.

But after the election, all bets are off.

If we take the House back in 2018, then I think shed stay leader, Rep. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, told the Associated Press. If we dont, then I think its incumbent upon her and all of us to reassess who our leadership should be.

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfwildermth

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Nancy Pelosi rebuffs Democrats antsy to change - San Francisco Chronicle

RICHMOND Former congressman Tom Perriello, who drew national attention in his bid for the Democratic nomination for Virginia governor but came up short at the polls, will lead a new political action committee aimed at ending the GOPs longtime majority in the commonwealths House of Delegates.

The Win Virginia group has already raised $260,000 from four wealthy donors, three of them longtime Democratic supporters from Fairfax County. The fourth is from California.

Del. David Toscano (D-Charlottesville), the House minority leader, said the donors, including financier Edward Hart Rice and tech executive Shashikant Gupta, were motivated after the election of President Trump to find a way to shore up Democrats at the state and local level.

It was the Trump election that led them to say, We have to up our game a bit, Toscano said. And the first chance to really do that is in the Virginia House races.

The group reached out to Perriello to lead the effort after his surprise run for the nomination this spring. He had attracted big money from outside Virginia but lost to Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, who spent years lining up support within the state.

Northam will take on former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie in the November election.

[Northam, Gillespie win nominations for Virginia governors race]

Running with the endorsement of two national progressive icons, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Perriello made the Virginia race a referendum on the policies and style of Trump and Republicans in Washington. His strategy was to attract young people and voters in rural areas who dont usually participate in primary elections during a year outside of a presidential election.

Theres some irony in his new role: Perriello cast his campaign as a call for a new direction for the states Democratic Party, but now hes working with the party machinery to try to take back the statehouse.

Its a unique opportunity because we have such dynamic candidates up and down the ticket and such an enthusiasm gap in our favor, Perriello said in an interview. We think this is the year to break some of the normal rules of the political landscape in Virginia.

The organization will not only raise money, he said, but also will help candidates find ways to use technology to campaign more effectively. Perriello cited his own campaigns use of Facebook Live events to reach thousands of voters at little cost.

Republicans enjoy a commanding majority in the 100-seat House of Delegates, with 66 seats to Democrats 34. All 100 seats are on the ballot this fall. Just a few months ago, Democrats were talking of picking up a handful of seats, at best.

But with Trumps approval ratings at historic lows only 36percent of Virginians approved of his performance in a poll last month by The Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University the party is feeling energized. It has fielded an unusually large slate of candidates, challenging 47 Republican incumbents.

Democrats also boast what may be a historic number of female candidates 42 for the House of Delegates, in which women held only 17 seats in the most recent legislative session.

[Women running: Number of female candidates for Va. House has jumped]

Democrats have done well in Virginias statewide races in recent years the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and both U.S. senators are Democrats.

Virginia also was the only Southern state to go for Hillary Clinton last fall, as changing demographics especially in vote-rich Northern Virginia paint the battleground state increasingly blue.

But Democrats lost control of the House of Delegates years ago, and redistricting since then has helped Republicans increase their edge. Republicans also control the state Senate, 21 seats to 19. Those seats are not up for election this year.

Calling the election an uphill battle against a legislative map rigged by Republicans, Perriello said the party has a chance to pull off an upset.

Toscano credited that momentum to the election of Trump: Ironically, it has created an energy within the Democratic electorate that we think is going to be good for us this fall.

Clinton won 17 House of Delegates districts that are represented by Republicans. Those districts now form the heart of Democrats plan to retake the House.

Such a big swing in the balance of power is a long shot. But so was Trumps victory in November.

Once the Virginia primary ended, the big question was whether Perriello and the progressives who came out for him with such fervor would stick around for Northam and the rest of the party.

Perriellos quick moves to endorse Northam and to lead Win Virginia, and the fact that one of the PACs initial donors was a Perriello supporter during the primary, suggests that at least some of them will.

Rice gave $100,000 to the PAC; Gupta gave $60,000; and government contracting executive Dario O. Marquez Jr., also from Fairfax, gave $50,000. Marquez supported Perriello in the primary.

The fourth, San Francisco venture capitalist and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, gave $50,000.

Gupta said the group of donors had approached both Northam and Perriello during the primary and told them about their plans to start a PAC, hoping that whoever failed to get the nomination would agree to join them. After Northam won, they officially asked Perriello and he agreed quickly, Gupta said.

Northam issued a statement of support Wednesday night, saying Perriello had "helped make the Democratic party stronger" with his candidacy and that his leadership would help with a "historic opportunity" to win a majority in the House of Delegates.

Continued here:
Perriello, wealthy donors team up to help Democrats chase seats in Va. House - Washington Post

The moment that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Republicans that there could be no vote on the party's health-care bill this week, Senate Democrats were in a familiar position headed to a protest.

In the "Senate swamp," a well-kept lawn across from the Capitol, hundreds of activists from Planned Parenthood, AFSCME and smaller progressive groups were hooting and cheering their latest mini-victory. The "People's Filibuster," scheduled to last all week, had triumphed in its first few minutes.

"Senator Cornyn was just complaining to the press," crowed Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. "He said, 'the Democrats just won't cooperate with us.' I'm having crocodile tears here!"

For some Democrats, it was the fifth or six protest of the Better Care Reconciliation Act in 24 hours. Some of the protesters had done even more, with the progressive group Ultraviolet tailing Republican senators as they left their offices, the most aggressive of dozens of tactics to slow down or stop BCRA. More had been cycling in and out of Capitol office rooms for news conferences, where Democrats sat back and let Medicaid beneficiaries take over the microphone.

"You are the wind under our wings," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., to cheering protesters. "You are the reason we've come this far."

The delay of BRCA, which Republicans had hoped to vote on this week, came after disagreements inside the majority party. But it was egged on by the "Resistance," the loose collection of more than 1,000 groups working to stop the Republican agenda that sprang out of Trump's surprise election.

"A bill designed by wealthy white men, for wealthy white men will only further marginalize disenfranchised communities," said the organizers of the Jan. 21 Women's March in a statement. "While a delay on the vote is a small victory, it's time to crank up the outrage and tell all Senators to vote NO."

Before Tuesday, some progressive activists were already reading takes about how they'd lost the health-care wars. A Monday story in Politico reported that "liberal activists and Democratic senators have struggled to capture the public's focus"; a story in Vox, published the same day, noted how long it had been "since we saw the kind of overwhelming nationwide outcry that accompanied either the first attempt to pass the health-care bill, or that erupted during the women's march."

The point of comparison was the tea party movement, which played a role in slowing down the passage of the Affordable Care Act and then cutting away the Democrats' congressional majorities. Like the tea party, the "resistance" had been quickly embraced by a dazed, out-of-power party.

Unlike the tea party, which exploited the gap between former president Barack Obama's unifying rhetoric and the progressive agenda, the "resistance" was trying to stop a majority party ready to burst through guardrails the filibuster, the norms of the budget process to pass its agenda.

Importantly, by Tuesday, the new activist movement had absorbed some defeats. At rallies, MoveOn's Washington director Ben Wikler said multiple times that the resistance needed to remember the American Health Care Act's journey through the House from momentum to death, then resurrection.

"It was educational," said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the Indivisible network of local protest groups. "Paul D. Ryan gave up in March and called the ACA 'the law of the land.' And then he dusted himself off and got the votes. So we're taking today as a huge victory, but not a final victory. We recognize that Mitch McConnell will try to twist arms and get this through. Grass-roots pressure works, but this is going to require even more of it."

Activists and politicians both messaged on what was in the bill, not on the simple need to beat Republicans. The Tuesday events attended by Democrats centered on constituents, not politicians; a photo op on the steps outside the Senate had every Democrat holding up a sign with the face of one of their state's residents, and a story about what the BCRA would cost them.

"It's a scary thing 60 percent of the American people don't know what's in that legislation," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., at the "People's Filibuster" rally. "Your job, my job, is to make sure 100 percent of people know what's in that legislation and tell Republicans what they think about it."

Doing so, according to activists, would mean repeating what had seemed to be working. CREDO Action and Daily Action, two unrelated groups, had together helped organize around 135,000 calls to Senate offices. The Working Families Party had organized visits (and sit-ins) at offices; ADAPT, a disability advocates' group, had even run events that ended with police pulling protesters out of wheelchairs.

The message from Democrats: Keep it up.

"We've got to fight even harder over the Fourth of July and every day until we bury this atrocious bill," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., chairman of the Democrats' 2018 Senate campaign efforts. "All of you: When your senators go back to their states, when they go to barbecues and parades, will you be there to tell them to kill this awful bill?"

More:
Democrats' 'resistance' calls for a July 4 recess push to kill GOP health care bill - Chicago Tribune