"(1) Don't nominate anyone from the Northeast; (2) Don't nominate anyone with  an Ivy League undergraduate degree"

I agree with not running stiffs, but why would you take potentially good candidates off the table?

People who run should be good candidates who can inspire the electorate period. If they are from Maine or New York or Vermont or New Hampshire. And if they went to Harvard or Cornell or Yale shouldn't matter. Good candidates are good candidates. Bush went to Harvard and Yale and Bush's father was identified as a Northeasterner who went to Yale as well.

So these labels are artificially created by you as "problems" when they aren't problems for Republicans at all. They use all the tool available to them to win.

If you become head of the DNC you had better drop this bias and support all candidates who are Democrats.

Thanks for dropping by. Sorry I'm so late in replying but I just found out about this thread.

I'm not a voting member of the DNC so feel free to ignore me completely but... IF... I was a voting member you would still be in consideration for me... however... I'm concerned about your answer to #3.

Marketing approach?

I think that misses the mark a bit. Yes, you need to identify your voters and potential voters. Yes, you need to figure out what they care about. Yes, you need to be able to answer to that in a favorable way.

But don't you think we need to be able to define ourselves and our own core values better? Doesn't this election (and the past several) really point out that it is the lack of voter identification of who and what the Democrats are these days that is the problem?

That's not marketing. That's self-definition.

The polls showed that most folks felt the country was going in the wrong direction and that the Republicans did NOT represent their own positions on matters... yet folks voted for them... apparently because they felt that the Democrats did not provide a recognizable alternative.

This is where I think Lakoff's framing comes in. We as Democrats intuitively known who and what we are but are unable to communicate it outward in a way that responates easily with others that might be open to our vision. We need to solve this problem and it is much more fundamental than marketing schemes.

On the tech side of the actual question... yes, the databases and the info are invaluable tools.

In my view it is the state, county, city and town parties that need access to that info. It is neighbor to neighbor that we get out our voters and convince "swing" voters to vote Democratic. Not at the national level.

What are your views of the state parties? The county parties? And the relation of the DNC to them and vice versa?

How do you see all of that operating? Improving? Synchronizing?