Welcome to Cape Up. This is Jonathan Kapart. Now last week we talked with Tom Perez about his run for DNC chair.

This week Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota discusses how he

envisions the job and how Ms. McGillicuddy figures prominently in his plans.

You don't know who she is, do you?

Well you're going to find out right now.

Congressman Allison, thank you very much for being on the podcast today.

Hey, great to be here, Jonathan.

Thanks.

So you're already a member of Congress.

So you're in public service already.

Why on earth do you want to be the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, arguably one of the most thankless

jobs in American politics.

Well, because I don't want to be a blue dot in a red sea. At this point man we didn't just lose the presidential

election to the worst candidate ever. We have lost a thousand elections. We've lost

about 950 some state legislative seats, a lot of

governors, secretaries of state, attorneys general. In fact, Democrats since 2008 have took the single most brutal beating ever in our history.

When I got to Congress in 2006, we didn't have the presidency, but we had both houses of Congress, and we were

ascendant. We took the presidency in 2008, so we had 60 votes in the Senate, a

majority, and we had the presidency, and we were doing well around state

legislatures all over the place and everything has changed and now we're in

danger becoming a coastal party but you know there's a lot of hope

though Jonathan I really want to say there's Democrats all over this country

...