Tom Perez enters race for DNC chair

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- The race for chair of the Democratic National Committee officially has a fourth member after Labor Secretary Tom Perez announced Thursday he will run for the job.

Perez joins the field as a challenger to the front-runner, Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, after being motivated to seek the position by President Barack Obama. Perez is touting his leadership experience and background in organizing as making him the most fit person to run the party.

New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley and South Carolina Chairman Jaime Harrison are also seeking the position, but most see the election as a two-person race.

Ellison was motivated early -- in the week after the Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's surprising loss in the Nov. 8 election -- to run for the job by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, among others, as a progressive voice who can steer the party back to electoral victory. He has racked up significant support in Congress and among the party faithful since then.

Despite Ellison and Perez having strong support from Democrats overall, some see Perez as the establishment pick because of his endorsement from Obama. The need to shift the party after Clinton's loss, and drubbings in Congressional elections since the election of Obama in 2008, has some concerned that sticking with the President's favorite may not be the right path for the party.

"I'm in this race because I really believe that this is one of those 'where were you?' moments in our nation's journey," Perez said during a conference call for DNC members. "We've got a lot of fighting to do, we've got a lot of advocating to do, and I've been doing that all my life."

Although Perez's has participated in only one election, when he held county office in Maryland, he has been a community organizer and activist, worked in the Department of Justice and has been labor secretary since July 2013.

There have been concerns about Ellison, from past comments and associations to whether another sitting member of Congress is the right choice to lead the party. The former chairperson, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, continued to serve in Congress during the five years she ran the party, which some have criticized as splitting her attention. Ellison has said, however, he would resign his seat if elected to be chair of the DNC.

Perez points to his success organizing and working with people, and running large operations like the federal Department of Labor, as what the party needs after what is seen by many as depending too much on data and not enough on talking to people to win their votes.

"The key to success there was organize, organize, organize," Perez said of the Democrats wins and losses up and down ballots across the country. "You run up the score in places where you know the votes are there through persuasion, through hand-to-hand combat. And then control the bleed through rural organizing. You look at Ohio, and we got our ass kicked in a lot of these rural pockets because we weren't there in sufficient force. We've got to have a 12-month strategy of organizing, and it has to be everywhere."