Paul Rieckhoff faces off with former DNC chair Jaime Harrison on MS NOW's The Moment with Katy Tur, in a heated debate over the future of the Democratic Party — sparked by the collapse of the party's Maine Senate candidate and the two-week scramble to find a replacement to take on Susan Collins.
Paul argues the episode is a symptom of a deeper failure: a party that keeps losing, run by a generation of "establishment leaders and grifters" who should face a real reckoning. "Most of the Democratic Party should be fired," he says (starting at 14:03), making the case for a new generation of competent, compelling candidates — and for independents as part of the answer.
He points to genuine outsiders like Montana's Seth Bodner, running as an independent, and argues a candidate free of establishment baggage can win in places like Maine and Nebraska, where the progressive playbook that works in New York, LA, and Seattle doesn't.
Shawn Griffiths
IVN Editorial Board
Matt Shinners
Jeremy Gruber
Cara Brown McCormick
Righteous Media
Independent Voter Podcast