My Date with Destiny.

Before I say a bit more about what value I will bring to the debate about our Party’s future at the scheduled public fora, I share here once more the link to my nominating petition.(Link from letter omitted. here)

I am a handful away with a bit over 24 hours to go before the recently extended deadline for participation in the first DNC virtual forum. The sooner I can jump this hurdle the sooner I can start engaging with all of you on a more relaxed timetable about the ideas that have brought me to this race. Already we have 5 state party chair signatures, and members from 23 separate states having signed. The faith those have shown in me is humbling, and I hope you will join them.

This Sunday at 2pm I am going to be interviewed on the YouTube program of the Podcaster Destiny. Appearing on popular social media is exactly the sort of reaching out that I have heard many say the Democrats must do, and so I rushed to accept. https://www.youtube.com/user/destiny.

Destiny is doing a series so you might well want to catch the rest of them. Admittedly, many viewers might find much to disagree with on Destiny’s show, but for the most part this is a guy who is playing for our team in a space where this isn’t the easiest stance with some of the young men in his audience. He also has nearly a million YouTube subscribers, and his show regularly gets over 100,000 views per episode. I confess that I had not heard of him until receiving his invitation despite the fact he is listed on the Wiki page for Liberalism right next to Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart , as commentators. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_the_United_States. There is a whole ecosystem largely missing from our discussions and so I am diving in this weekend. I hope you will listen.

This process so far has been a whirlwind journey, and I thank you for being on it with me, I have learned a lot. One thing has struck me about the process even more than the need to reach out to people far more frequently than would occur in other settings. My conversations with DNC members have focused understandably on why I think I should be DNC chair. I have a lot of experience at grassroots work and have been working on Democratic campaigns for more than 20 years. But I am also interested in the more urgent question of what should we as a Party do? I am offering a strategy for re-envisioning our approach that focuses on HOW we move forward not just where we should go.

Consider this analogy. If our group had to scale a mountain, having a strong leader who had scaled many mountains would be a great start. But how we traverse the mountain might be even more important, if suddenly conditions have changed and new techniques are needed. The person who offers, for example a new climbing shoe that decreases falling, would also be an invaluable participant.

The task before us of preserving American democracy and using the government to improve the lives of ordinary Americans is enormous. It will require everyone on the DNC and tens of millions more. Thinking about what each of us has to contribute to our future success is essential. What are we going to do, and how are we going to do it? Maybe you like some of my ideas and solutions, but maybe you don’t. But I know we all share a common goal and that everyone of us needs to be a leader in our own way. Only together can we bring the Democratic Party back into the majority where it deserves to be. Here is HOW I think we can make the best start. https//paulfordnc.com

Thank you again for reading along. Once this phase of the race is over, I will elaborate still further by speaking and writing on what we should do collectively. It’s not just “why me”. It’s “what we” can do together.

Jason