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Not long ago, Terri Hodge, the ex-con, was leading a breakout discussion at table No. 3 at a meeting hall in the Cedars. The strategy talk in early January was part of a biennial get-together to discuss tactics on how to empower Democrats in the North Texas region. Specifically, Hodge was giving advice on the art of Building Better Vote-by-Mail Results, according to the days agenda. What this political jargon means is that the former state representative was explaining to volunteers and activistsand, as it turns out, at least one molehow to get more votes in ways other than the party putting forth better candidates.

Remember, Hodge told the group, according to my mole, the elderly and the disabled are excellent sources of mail-in ballots. Dont overlook them.

In a post-Trump landscape, when Democrats all over the country are trying to harness progressive zeal, the Dallas County Dems still seem like a party that has no idea how to remake itself and take advantage of that enthusiasm.

There is nothing untrue or illegal about this statement. Everyone deserves a vote. Just because there have long been allegations in Dallas County of Democratic operatives filing mail-in ballots without the consent or full understanding of elderly or disabled voters, that doesnt make statements like Hodges suspicious. Nor does the fact shes an ex-con, since she was convicted of tax evasion, not voter fraud. Nor does the fact that allegations of mail-in deception have long followed her. Nor does the fact that her old assistant was once indicted for helping a blind person fill out a ballot. The charges were dropped, after all.

Highlighting Hodge, someone with what you could at best call a checkered past, is not illegal, but it is indicative of a fundamental flaw in the Dallas County Democratic Party. The partys inclusion of Hodgeand, worse, its blundering, cornered-animal defense of herillustrates the partys slavish devotion to old-school Democrats who have strutted and fretted their hours upon the stage, and from whom we should hear no more. In a post-Trump landscape, when Democrats all over the country are trying to harness progressive zeal, the Dallas County Dems still seem like a party that has no idea how to remake itself and take advantage of that enthusiasm.

Case in point: Dallas County Democratic Party Chair Carol Donovan thinking it necessary to defend Hodges role as a party-supported strategist when her inclusion became public. (More on that mess in a minute.) And that was followed by several party loyalists taking to social media or comments sections to point out that Hodge pleaded guilty to tax problems, not to anything unlawful regarding mail-in ballots or political chicanery.

That is a lawyers argument, though. As the feds noted when Hodge pleaded guilty in 2010, the U.S. District Court sentenced her at the high end of the sentencing guidelines because the judge noted that while Hodge pleaded guilty to a tax offense, the Court did not view this solely as a tax matter. The Court further noted that Hodge was in a position of trust and her actions constituted an abuse of that trust. When youre trying to galvanize your party after a stinging national defeat, thats not the sort of person you turn to when training your troops.

The Dallas Democratic Party is the same as its counterparts in many big cities around the country, but it seems particularly bad here, says someone who has worked extensively in Democratic political circles in Dallas for over a decade. They rode the Obama wave, the city became very blue, and the party didnt have to work hard to win elections. Thats one reason it didnt develop a system to vet talent. Now all the talent is young and hungry and wants to respond to the post-Trump world with smart, grass-roots action. Meanwhile, Dallas County Democrats are defending people like Hodge. Its going to be ugly until it gets worked out.

That was an opportunity for a forward-looking Dallas County Democratic Party to step up, cancel Hodges appearance, and profess to be as concerned with doing the right thing as are its volunteers, activists, and supporters.

The background for this is playing out in the newspapers right now, headlined by the John Wiley Price trial. Jim Schutze, the Dallas Observer columnist and longest-tenured chronicler of Dallas politics, predicted this six years ago with a column titled Democrats! Are You Going to Let John Wiley Price Run Your Party? Really? Now Price is on trial, and the same dynamic Schutze mentionedlocal Dems enabling the old and weak southern Dallas political machine, ignoring the smart, sophisticated black and Hispanic people who could be brought along into leadershipcontinues.

Schutze updated this take with a look in February at the new minority faces of Dallas politics. The article focused heavily on District 100 State Representative Eric Johnson, the whip-smart West Dallas politician recently named to co-chair the Dallas County Democratic legislative delegation, replacing the old guarder Helen Giddings. Schutze mentioned that Price and his Democratic leadership were dying, while Johnson and a slew of young Turks should be considered the face of the partys future in North Texas.

Schutze is not wrong about the should. But he made it sound like its inevitable. I would say there is still too much stubborn resistance to those young, smart Dems taking overmostly because it threatens the livelihood of party hacks. At least I hope thats the reason, because at least that one makes sense. Worse would be if they really cant see how much the party needs to change to be successful.

Consider this story:

After D Magazines FrontBurner blog broke the news (by linking to the agenda) about Hodges inclusion in the daylong gathering, State Representative Johnson shared the blog post on his Facebook page, and Johnson in turn called out party leadership, saying Hodge shouldnt be representing the party. Granted, Johnson took Hodges seat. He has an interest in making sure she looks bad. He was also right to be offended.

That was an opportunity for a forward-looking Dallas County Democratic Party to step up, cancel her appearance, and profess to be as concerned with doing the right thing as are its volunteers, activists, and supporters. At worst, the party should have kept its mouth shut and taken the public scolding. Instead, Donovan, the party chair and a lawyer, sent an email to Johnson threatening, in my reading, to sue him if he didnt delete his Facebook post.

Please understand that I am a huge supporter of the First Amendment, Donovan wrote. However, as a fellow lawyer, I know you agree that misleading and/or incorrect information should not be distributed. If the post is not deleted this week, I will understand that you elected to deny my request, and I will be required to take whatever action is necessary to protect and defend the DCDP.

Theres no need to belabor the ham-fisted idiocy of such a request. Lets just agree it was ham-fisted and idiotic. Johnsons response, on that same Facebook page, was pretty straightforward and appropriate: I will not be threatened or bullied by anyone, and certainly not by my own local party chair. Well see what the politburo tries next since I didnt relent.

Look, this sort of asinine behavior by the local partydefending the indefensible, attacking smart new leaders, covering for their croniesisnt exclusive to the partys elders or to southern Dallas. The hacks and consultants whove sucked at the Dallas County Dem teat for decades respond this way all the time. Example: after I wrote last year about the great work the Latino Center for Leadership Development was doing in grooming smart, young politicians such as State Representative Victoria Neave and Dallas ISD school board trustee Jaime Resendez, the old guard Latino Democrats made sure to register their strong disapproval. They were smart enough not to do so in writing, however.

Its tempting to dismiss such contretemps as insignificant. Dont. These skirmishes are the death rattle of a broken machine that cant compete in a world filled with younger, better-educated blacks, Latinos, and women who demand accountability from their political party as they fight for progressive policies.

So how does the party save itself? It would be a long, slow, tough process, one that demands the party take a hard look at itself. Democrats I talked to are of course reluctant to speak out, but there was one primary suggestion they all mentioned: new leadership. When the next party chair election is held next year, they believe the Dems must elect a young progressive, preferably someone of color, someone with no ties to well-known political families, someone who would look at the speaker list for a party-sponsored event and say, Lets start by crossing off the ex-cons.

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How Dallas Democrats Are Destroying Themselves - D Magazine

By David Weigel, (c) 2017, The Washington Post

COVENTRY, R.I. At their first town meeting since the Republicans surprise surrender on the Affordable Care Act, progressives in blue America celebrated then asked for more. Rhode Islands two Democratic senators, joined by Rep. Jim Langevin, told several hundred happy constituents that the next step in health reform had to mean expanded coverage, provided by the government.

We have to look harder at a single-payer system, said Langevin, D-R.I., using a term for universal coverage.

The very best market-based solution is to have a public option, said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.

Progressives, emboldened by Republicans health-care failure, are trying to shift the political debate even further to the left, toward a longstanding goal that Democrats told them was unrealistic. They see in President Trump a less ideological Republican who has also promised universal coverage, and they see a base of Trump voters who might very well embrace the idea.

The weekend after the implosion of the GOPs American Health Care Act brought that into the open. In several TV interviews, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., promised to reintroduce a Medicare for All bill when the Senate returns to work. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., held a town hall in her San Francisco district where she happily egged on protesters demanding a plan like Sanderss.

I supported single payer since before you were born, said Pelosi, who has argued since the passage of the Affordable Care Act that it could be a bridge to European-style universal coverage. (The House passed a bill with the public option jargon to describe a Medicare-style national plan that could work as a competitor against private insurers.)

In the glow of victory, Democrats spent the weekend thanking activists who showed up at Republican town halls, worked congressional phone lines and made the AHCA politically untenable for many Republicans especially moderates. Activists also had succeeded in getting most Senate Democrats on the record against Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.

In Rhode Island, where Democrats hold every major office, activists have been pushing the local party to the left. Sanders won the states 2016 primary, and the Working Families Party, which endorsed him, has held weekly organizing meetings to find targets for activists. Gov. Gina Raimondo, D-R.I., a former venture capitalist, has pitched a version of the free public college tuition plan Sanders ran on. Whitehouse, who emerged in the Gorsuch hearings as a key critic, was even protested after hed voted for several Trump Cabinet nominees.

That was key, said David Segal, a former Rhode Island legislator and executive director of the progressive group Demand Progress. Fifteen hundred people showed up to demand that a senator whos generally seen as progressive be more progressive.

But health care was the issue with the most apparent running room for the left. Since January, Democrats and activists had held events that promoted the Affordable Care Act which for the first six years since its passage had been a loser in polls by presenting people whod been helped by the law. In the three weeks that the American Health Care Act was debated in public, even some conservative allies of the president argued that it had become politically impossible to scale back health coverage.

The victory of a Republican candidate who promised insurance for everybody, and who once favored universal insurance, made some Democrats ask if an idea once dismissed as socialism might have some bipartisan openings in the post-ideological era of Trump.

Donald Trump staked out the high moral ground by calling for a feasible system of universal healthcare to replace Obamacare, wrote Newsmax publisher Christopher Ruddy, a Trump friend, 11 days before AHCA crashed to earth. He shouldnt retreat from that no matter how much the establishment GOP dislikes it.

In response, elected Democrats have felt freer to make health-care demands, despite controlling no branch of government. The windup often suggests that Republicans are right, and that the health-care system must be tweaked.

We have ideas, they have ideas, to try to improve Obamacare, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a Sunday interview with ABC News. We never said it was perfect. We always said wed work with them to improve it.

On the details, Democrats now argue that Trump should move to the left. Asked where Democrats might work with the president to fix health care, Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., suggested expanding Medicaid in states that havent expanded it yet anathema to Republicans and conservative groups that fought against it. (Medicaid expansion is optional-only because of the 2012 National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius decision, which was argued by conservatives and struck down small parts of the ACA.) Sanders, who couldnt get all of his colleagues in the Democratic caucus to endorse a prescription drugs importation bill, said he believes that this Republican president might.

President Trump said a whole lot of stuff on the campaign trail, Sanders said on CNNs State of the Union on Sunday. One of the things he talked about was lowering the cost of prescription drugs. There is wonderful legislation right now in the Senate to do that. President Trump, come on board. Lets work together.

Some Democrats remain skittish about the threat of being tarred by ideological conservatives in tough elections. Saving the Affordable Care Act from repeal united Democrats and healed divisions between the partys base and its politicians. The next health-care debate might not do that. The only Democrats facing elections soon are candidates for open House seats in deep-red districts, and few have endorsed single payer.

Instead, theyve cautiously discussed fixes that might be worked out between the parties. Jim Thompson, a candidate for an open seat in Kansas, said after the AHCAs collapse that parties should sit down and find a plan that expands coverage, lowers costs, and brings us together. Jon Ossoff, whose bid for an open seat in Georgia has become surprisingly competitive, has run TV ads saying he opposes repeal but favors tweaks to the law. Both parties should sit down and deliver more affordable health care choices, he said after Fridays debacle.

That approach reflects how, despite Fridays setback, Republicans have long benefited from attacking a government takeover of health care. And most special-election Democrats arent ready to test whether the landscape has changed.

Obamacares ongoing collapse is a case study in what occurs with a top-down, government centered approach to healthcare, said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Jesse Hunt. Candidates who advocate for a Bernie-style single payer system do so at their own peril.

That hasnt stopped the Democrats base, just as Republicans demanded years of fealty to a repeal message, from seeking more on health care. The Coventry town hall, which filled most of the citys largest high school auditorium, was a target-rich environment for local groups trying to get signatures to support expanded health care. J. Mark Ryan, 49, who led the local chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, walked from row to row with cards that people could sign if they wanted the state to pass a single-payer bill.

Any Republicans who are interested in being re-elected should be interested in this, too, he said.

Michael Fuchs, 55, got Whitehouse to sign a different card, for a campaign simply to get Rhode Island to endorse the essential health benefits that were negotiated away in the final version of the AHCA. Doing so, he pointed out, would protect the states customers even if Republicans made a successful run at the law. But in the long run, he, too, wanted national health insurance.

We could at least lower the buy-in age for Medicare to 55, he said.

Over more than two friendly hours, the elected Democrats got the most applause when they swerved left on health care.

The very best market-based solution is to have a public option, Whitehouse said. Paraphrasing Benjamin Franklin, he said that a government-managed insurer would reveal what games private insurers had been playing. The best way to show that a stick is crooked is to put a straight stick next to it. If you do that, the private sector cant manipulate the market by withdrawing.

But as the town hall went on, activists demanded to know if Whitehouse could go further. After several rounds of questions about the need to investigate Russias involvement in the 2016 election, and the need to filibuster Gorsuch, Ryan, with the physician group, asked the senator if he could get behind universal coverage.

Why not endorse it this year? Ryan asked.

In the spirit of the weekend, Whitehouse didnt rule it out. We already do it for the people we care the most about our veterans and our seniors, he said.

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With AHCA defeat, some Democrats see chance to push for universal coverage - The Mercury News

When I was a Congressional staffer for a Democratic House member in the early years of the George W. Bush administration, a colleague said something that has stuck with me for the last decade and a half: The Democrats have not learned how to be a minority party.

At the time, my reaction was something along the lines of Good, I hope we never do. After four decades of controlling the House without interruption, Democrats at that point had only been in the minority for seven or eight years, and the margin was close enough to entertain notions of winning back the chamber in the next midterm election. I saw my colleagues observation as an expression of surrender, an unacceptable resignation to defeat before the next battle had even been fought.

Only in recent weeks did Iand perhaps Congressional Democrats as wellfully understand what my colleague meant. Learning how to be effective in the minority is not an acceptance of defeat, but rather the first step toward regaining the majority. And Democrats, by refusing to work with Republicans on their deeply flawed health insurance proposal, demonstrated that they are finally learning that lesson.

The president, after his fractured House caucus was unable to even bring his signature healthcare bill to the floor for a vote, blamed the embarrassing loss on the Democrats refusal to provide any support to the effort. Not a single vote! he complained.

One can be forgiven for rolling ones eyes at this unseemly whine after eight years of unflinching, united Republican opposition to President Barack Obamas agenda. And even putting aside the political payback angle, it also shouldnt have been impossible to anticipate Democratic refusal to lend any support to an effort to dismantle the health insurance plan they and their ideological forebears fought for 60years to get.

But I suppose one also can forgive the Republicans for their surprise that the Democrats finally figured out that playing along in the hopes of being thrown an occasional bone was ineffective. By refusing, as Napoleon once advised, to bail out their opponents when those foes were in the process of defeating themselves, Democrats demonstrated political acumen, unity and backbone that they often lacked during the George W. Bush administration, when they repeatedly allowed themselves to get played, bullied and rolled by the GOP.

I remember how, in those days, Democrats argued among themselves about whether to oppose each new piece of Republican legislation, or to work with Republicans in the hopes of improving an end result that they ultimately didnt have enough votes to block. There were always enough Democrats willing to roll over, and in the end, the Republicans got virtually everything they wanteduntil Bush went too far and suggested a partial privatization of Social Security, a pill that not even every Republican was willing to swallow. A key example was Democratic cooperation with Republicans on the No Child Left Behind Act, which some educators saw as a means of discrediting public schools by setting standards that were ultimately impossible to meet. Too often, the few concessions the Democrats received in return for cooperating were negligible, and the gambit was also a political loser for Team Blue: the party never got any credit from Republicans or independents for their cooperation, and their base was unhappy with the concessions.

But by remaining united, the Democrats put the onus of passing this legislation entirely on the Republicans, whose warring factions were not able to unite behind a mutually acceptable solution. The far-right Freedom Caucus felt that leaving any part of Obamacare in place was unacceptable, and the rest of the Republican caucus, beset by angry constituents at town halls, feared a midterm backlash against making any further cuts. In the end, the Republican leadership could not cobble together a plan that would produce a majority vote. By letting the Republicans fail, rather than trying to cut a deal, Democrats allowed their opponents to deal themselves a massive and embarrassing defeat. (They also kept Obamacare in place, at least for now. Who would have expected that result?)

Democrats have long prided themselves on being the party that makes government work, and there is often an inherent discomfort on the left with the notion of gumming up the works. Many Democrats view this as a tactic more befitting a party that regards government not as a problem solver but as the problem itself. But blocking legislation is better than cooperating to win minor concessions to a bad bill.

As one of the 20th centurys most noted Republicans, Ohio Sen. Robert Taft, reportedly said, The duty of the opposition party is to oppose. If the Democratic Party wants to return to the majority sooner rather than later, it needs to continue embracing its inner obstructionist and place itself squarely in opposition to Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and the entire Republican agenda. Democrats must offer a clear choice, not a muddled message. This is the way to distinguish themselves and to unify and motivate their base, which is no less divided than the quarreling Republicans.

Cliston Brown is a communications executive and political analyst in the San Francisco Bay Area who previously served as director of communications to a longtime Democratic Representative in Washington, D.C. Follow him on Twitter (@ClistonBrown)and visit his website atClistonBrown.com.

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Because Democrats Need a Refresher Course on How to Be Effective - Observer

TAKING HIS NEXT STEPS President Donald Trump announces the approval of a permit to build the Keystone XL pipeline in the Oval Office Friday. Trump, on Sunday, attacked conservative lawmakers for the failure of the Republican bill to replace Barack Obamas health care law as his aides pledged to court moderate Democrats on upcoming initiatives from health care to tax cuts -- Associated Press

WASHINGTON President Donald Trumps aides opened the door to working with moderate Democrats on health care and other issues while Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer quickly offered to find common ground with Trump for repairing former President Barack Obamas health care law.

Schumer said Sunday that Trump must be willing to drop attempts to repeal his predecessors signature achievement, warning that Trump was destined to lose again on other parts of his agenda if he remained beholden to conservative Republicans.

Trump initially focused the blame for the failure on Democrats and predicted a dire future for the current law. But on Sunday he turned his criticism toward conservative lawmakers for the failure of the Republican bill, complaining on Twitter: Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Ocare!

The Freedom Caucus is a hard-right group of more than 30 GOP House members who were largely responsible for blocking the bill to undo the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The bill was pulled from the House floor Friday in a humiliating political defeat for the president, having lacked support from conservative Republicans, some moderate Republicans and Democrats.

In additional fallout from the jarring setback, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, said he was leaving the caucus. Poe tweeted Friday that some lawmakers wouldve voted against the 10 Commandments.

We must come together to find solutions to move this country forward, Poe said Sunday in a written statement. Saying no is easy, leading is hard but that is what we were elected to do.

On Sunday, Trump aides made clear that the president could seek support from moderate Democrats on upcoming legislative battles ranging from the budget and tax cuts to health care, leaving open the possibility he could revisit health care legislation. Whether he would work to repair Obamas law was a big question.

White House chief of staff Reince Priebus scolded conservative Republicans, explaining that Trump had felt disappointed with a number of people he thought were loyal to him that werent.

Its time for the party to start governing, Priebus said. I think its time for our folks to come together, and I also think its time to potentially get a few moderate Democrats on board as well.

As he ponders his next steps, Trump faces decisions on whether to back administrative changes to fix Obamas health care law or undermine it as prices for insurance plans rise in many markets. Over the weekend, the president tweeted a promise of achieving a great healthcare plan because Obamacare will explode.

Priebus did not answer directly regarding Trumps choice, saying that fixes to the health law will have to come legislatively and he wants to ensure people dont get left behind.

I dont think the president is closing the door on anything, he said.

Schumer, a New York Democrat, suggested that if he changes, he could have a different presidency.

But hes going to have to tell the Freedom Caucus and the hard-right special wealthy interests who are dominating his presidency he cant work with them, and well certainly look at his proposals, Schumer said.

Their comments came after another day of finger-pointing among Republicans, both subtle and otherwise. On Saturday, Trump urged Americans in a tweet to watch Judge Jeanine Pirros program on Fox News that night. She led her show by calling for House Speaker Paul Ryan to resign, blaming him for the defeat of the bill in the Republican-controlled chamber.

Priebus described the two events as coincidental, insisting that Trump was helping out a friend by plugging her show and no preplanning occurred.

He doesnt blame Paul Ryan, Priebus said. In fact, he thought Paul Ryan worked really hard. He enjoys his relationship with Paul Ryan, thinks that Paul Ryan is a great speaker of the House.

Priebus said Trump was looking ahead for now at debate over the budget and a tax plan, which he said would include a border adjustment tax and middle-class tax cuts.

Its more or less a warning shot that we are willing to talk to anyone. We always have been, he said. I think more so now than ever, its time for both parties to come together and get to real reforms in this country.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the Freedom Caucus, acknowledged he was doing a lot of self-critiquing after the health care defeat. He insisted the GOP overhaul effort was not over and that he regretted not spending more time with moderate Republicans and Democrats to find some consensus.

Priebus spoke on Fox News Sunday, and Schumer and Meadows appeared on ABCs This Week.

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Schumer seizes on offer to Democrats - The Daily Times

New York Times

Democrats, Buoyed by GOP Health Defeat, See No Need to Offer Hand New York Times WASHINGTON President Trump, looking for a flicker of hope after his Republican majority fell to pieces last week, predicted that the opposition party would eventually give in: I honestly believe the Democrats will come to us and say let's get ... Democrats determined for 2018 | Government and Politics | qctimes ...Quad City Times Oregon Democrats call for party unity in wake of TrumpEast Oregonian (subscription) After Trumpcare Failure, Democrats Have a Small Window to Change Perception of Healthcare in AmericaThe Daily Banter all 50 news articles »

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Democrats, Buoyed by GOP Health Defeat, See No Need to Offer Hand - New York Times