I am in receipt of your letter (undated) and the “Urgent Annual Renewal Statement.” I thought this would be a good opportunity to communicate with you about my concerns with the party.

The only chance in hell of uniting progressives is for the leadership of the DNC to start immediately with an outreach to enfranchise new voices. That means real grassroots outreach. Do you actually know how to do this? Because if you don’t, you need to hire some new people.

Grassroots outreach means not deciding what you’re going to do until you listen to what people are saying. How do you do that? The national party depends on local and state affiliates to do their own thing, and many are doing a great job. But appropriate leadership from the DNC means ensuring that all state and local affiliates are building strong grassroots participation. You don’t do that by sending out donation form letters with a token mention of what the party stands for.

You missed an opportunity with this mail-out soliciting my donation. Why wasn’t there a questionnaire seeking input on issues ranging from how to improve the DNC to how to address the problems of domestic terrorism? Such a questionnaire should be formulated by the best strategists money can buy, people with experience in building grassroots campaigns and in dissecting big problems into identifiable components. Why aren’t you thinking about things like that? Involve the people in constructive dialogue about the future of the party and money will follow.

Create a national forum on social media. Once you’ve organized a method of outreach, the responses in turn will inform leaders and help frame the party’s platform. With a coherent plan of questions/topics, the national party then provides those questions to state parties who present these questions on their Facebook pages, soliciting feedback and engaging with persons who post comments.

Maybe you think you already know the answers, and that’s a big problem. You’re missing the point. It is the process that matters, developing a dialogue, listening, negotiating, arbitrating. Building consensus among those who desperately want to move the nation forward and don’t know what to do next. You have to tap that energy, help funnel it toward constructive action.

Right now liberals are arguing among themselves, pro Bernie, anti Bernie, pro Jill Stein, revolution, stay the course. It’s sickening.

Plan for two questions/discussions per month, no less. On alternate weeks, present a new face with background info on the person. Once a month, the new face is a potential presidential candidate. For the other once-a-month person, state parties plug in a potential candidate for state office. Include links to each potential candidate’s Facebook page.

State Democratic Party Facebook pages should include postings from any local chapters in that state even if such material is being posted on individual local committee FB pages. Minutes of meetings would be useful posts, local and state. Nationally, the DNC should also post on state FB pages any news from their various committees. Let the state parties be the active link that voters come to rely on for news about local, state, and national Democratic Party plans, ideas, and activities.

This is a starting place.

Surely I don’t need to list all the topics in need of discussion, but here are a few to get you started.

How do we develop clear recommendations about how to make the Affordable Care Act more viable? We need to present that in opposition to the Republican efforts to repeal and replace.

We need to solicit effective statements on why climate change threatens our future – specifics for each locality and when those changes can be expected.

We need to develop clear data on domestic terrorism and how it is tied to white supremacy and racism and outline how this parallels the rise of groups like ISIS. We need to develop creative ways to dismantle extremism in all its forms, understand the role of poor health and lack of education and other factors that contribute to a person’s sense of threat that underlies prejudice.

We need to have a thorough vetting of the school voucher idea and lay out the ways such programs violate the First Amendment as well as how they undermine public schools. Address the problems with public schools that cause parents to want vouchers – how do we make schools better?

These are but a few of the many pressing issues facing us. Elected officials current and future need to hear from the grassroots, not only concerns and ideas for solutions, but also the roar of their support as Election Day nears. This is the ultimate task of the national party, to develop effective ways to hear from the people. Everything else follows from that.

You may say that social media is easily infiltrated by trolls who would disrupt and spread false information. Well, that’s already going on. As long as we have public appearances by Hillary Clinton and Tom Perez rehashing old news, we’re going nowhere. Enough already!

Here are some potential presidential candidates for the next election. Warning up front: no women appear on this list. Let me point out that I am a woman, have been active in NOW, and believe women are in many ways the future of politics in this nation. But my objective is to elect a Democratic president in 2020. A female this time around is like shooting yourself in the foot and then a week later shooting the other foot.

Among the men I’m listing are very few minorities. Please refer to the last sentence of the previous paragraph.

Current governors:

Jay Inslee, Washington State. Governor since 2013, 20 years in the U.S. Congress, state legislature before that. Born 1951.

Roy Cooper, North Carolina governor since January this year. Attorney general from 2001-2017, previously state senate. Born 1957. **Extra points for beating an incumbent Republican.

Steve Bullock, governor Montana since 2013. Attorney general 2009-2013. Born 1966.

John Hickenlooper, governor Colorado since 2011, mayor of Denver CO 2003-2011. Born 1952.

Currently in U. S. Senate:

Michael Bennett, Colorado. Born 1964. Long track record in government office.

Chris Murphy, Connecticut. Born 1973. Long track record in state government.

Cory Booker, New Jersey. Born 1969. Previously Newark mayor, active outreach ongoing.

Sherrod Brown, Ohio. Born 1952. Long career in elected positions.

Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island. Born 1955. US Attorney 1993-1998; attorney general 1999-2003

Bob Casey, Pennsylvania. Born 1960. Government office since 1996. ***Extra points for defeating a Republican.

Mark Warner, Virginia. Born 1954. Lots of elected positions

House of Representatives:

Tim Ryan, Ohio

Jim Crowley, New York

Eric Swalwell, California

Ruben Gallego, Arizona

Joe Kennedy III, Massachusetts

Seth Moulton, Massachusetts

State Offices:

Pete Buttigeig, Mayor South Bend, Indiana

Joaquin Castro, Texas

Julian Castro, Texas (twins)

Jason Kander, Missouri

Of all these, I’ve seen only a few mentioned in media or Facebook posts. This is the point in time when voters need to consider possible candidates and rule them in or out. These decisions need to come from the bottom up.

Speaking for my home state, our Democratic Party Facebook page has seen about twenty posts since Trump took office. I’ve not seen any potential 2018 candidates put forth. Our local party is active, and in our region we’ve seen one potential Congressional candidate throw his hat in the ring. This is completely unacceptable. MORE!

As far as Bernie supporters go, the bitching needs to stop about what happened last year. That’s a good example of living in the past. It’s over. Now what? Let’s realize that plans to forge ahead as a Bernie/Independent Party has about as much chance to get a president elected as the success enjoyed by the American Independent Party candidate George Wallace, Reform Party candidate Ross Perot, or last year’s Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein.

The DNC must make a bigger demonstration of how it is incorporating Bernie ideas and people into the party. Bernie has a responsibility to bring his supporters to engagement with the Democratic Party. Where are his innovative ideas about how to do that? What ideas do his supporters have that could move the Democratic Party closer to positions they could embrace? It can’t just be about big banks and warmongering and money from billionaires and all those other old worn-out leftist rants. What are concrete, realistic steps that party needs to make to get Bernie supporters on board?

My hopes for the future remain invested in the Democratic Party. It hurts me to see how much we’ve lost over the last several election cycles. It’s the DNC’s job to figure out why and develop solutions to reverse this trend. You won’t figure that out with consultants or policy wonks. The PEOPLE have the answers. Ask us.