It seems that the worst fears of Sanders supporters regarding the DNC’s role in the primary now have solid evidence backing them up. I don’t know how Wikileaks got a hold of emails, and I’m not sure I like that people venting is now public, especially since the DNC is not a government entity and would not be subject to records laws like FOIA. (One article calls Wikileaks conservative, which I did not realize and also says the emails were illegally obtained.) Now that they have, however, I, like many Dem activists are disturbed by what they reveal. For those of you just joining us DNC staffers, who should be neutral in a primary, have been revealed to have discussed ways to undermine the Sanders presidential campaign and promote the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. The good news? These suggestions were never acted upon.
The immediate fallout was that DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was not going to preside or speak at this week’s convention, but now she will resign immediately following the convention. Donna Brazile will serve as interim Chair, presumably until the next regular election that would be in a few months anyway. She actually served as interim Chair once before, between the tenures of Tim Kaine and DWS, and has long been active in national Democratic politics, notably at least in my memory on Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign. Sanders, however, is still on board with Clinton, though he did call for the resignation of DWS as Chair.
it’s a blunder. One that needlessly inflamed passions and divisions in the party.
But Christopher, did you honestly think the DNC was being impartial in the primary? Sanders supporters didn’t “fear” this was the case, they knew it based on what DWS said and did.
I wish she’d left 2 years ago, maybe the House would be in play today.
…that DWS personally or the DNC as an institution were in the tank for Clinton. If you have some feel free to provide, but for me to accept it it has to be documentation, not just speculation about how the debate schedule may have been designed to help her or something like that.
Or the DNC employees discussing how to harm one of the candidates by going dirty on his religious views.
What I meant was that during the primary season I do not recall any hard evidence.
I read an exchange inquiring whether Mr. Sanders was more atheist than Jewish. The purpose of the exchange was inquiring about the accuracy of labeling Mr. Sander’s “atheist”. I’m at least an “agnostic” — accurately labeling somebody “atheist” is not “going dirty”.
“Going dirty” is, for example, accusing a candidate of murder. As embarrassing as this episode was, it was NOT “going dirty”.
No it wasn’t. It was about whether labeling him an atheist could hurt him in the south, particularly “KY and WVA.” They weren’t discussing what would be the most accurate statement. It was about hurting him.
And remember, this is the party organization, not an opponent’s campaign. Frankly, these workers doing anything to harm any Dem campaign is going dirty. Including playing the atheism card.
I agree that this was completely wrong for DNC workers to be doing.
I just don’t think accurately describing an atheist as such is “playing a card” or “going dirty”. I’m more disgusted by our party pandering to “Southern Baptist peeps” than anything else here.
In this case, I’m pretty sure that the outcome was a conclusion that Mr. Sanders is, in fact, a Jew — not much more was said about the matter (if you know differently, I’m open to correction).
“He doesn’t believe in Jesus” and the “Jesus” card were mentioned. Reminded me of a repugnant early Atwater campaign where a Jewish candidate who was leading in the polls was smeared a week before by leaflets saying “he doesn’t believe Jesus is our Lord and Savior”, well of course he doesn’t he’s Jewish! What’s the problem? But it sunk him there and would sink Bernie in Appalachia.
Nobody on our side, especially with what our President has gone through, should ever make anyone’s religion or lack thereof a subject of attack. Especially against a fellow Democrat in a race you’re required to be neutral in. My friend was saying for months that the DNC was in the tank for Hillary, he’s on staff at her campaign.
Tom you really think this ain’t a big deal? I’m honestly surprised you’re not outraged, you’re one of the most outspoken proponents of church/politics separation here.
I’ve already said I don’t like it. I think it’s outrageous that the DNC was so plainly working to sabotage Bernie Sanders. I also didn’t say that this isn’t a big deal.
What I said was that calling him an atheist isn’t “dirty”, no more so than calling him a “Jew” or a “Socialist”. He is who and what he is. He knew there would be opposition to his religious beliefs and his political affiliation going into the campaign, just like every other candidate.
This was a hard-fought primary campaign. I strongly suspect that if somebody cracked the email servers of the Bernie Sanders campaign, they would find a trove of equally outrageous internal emails filled with hostility towards Hillary Clinton. It’s easy for me to speculate that somewhere in those emails is an exchange, never acted on, where a staffer contemplates emphasizing the gender of Ms. Clinton or perhaps fanning the flames of her rumored “lesbian tendencies”.
People write stupid things in emails. It’s just the nature of the media.
I think it’s long past time to STOP paying attention to stolen emails about internal conflicts between two strong presidential candidates and START paying attention to winning the November election.
You are probably right, and if this was coming from Sec Clinton’s email server there is not an issue. This came from the DNC’s email. They are supposed to be impartial.
Please reread my first paragraph, above:
“I’ve already said I don’t like it. I think it’s outrageous that the DNC was so plainly working to sabotage Bernie Sanders. I also didn’t say that this isn’t a big deal.”
I agree that the DNC is supposed to be neutral. I’m challenging the characterization, upthread, as “dirty”. I just don’t think this exchange is dirty — hence my speculative counterpart in the organization of Mr. Sanders.
This was a competitive primary fought by men and women who absolutely relish such competition. I view emails like this as analogous to the hard-hitting that takes place at the line of scrimmage. “Dirty” would be somebody hooking an arm or a facemask. There is no evidence that anything “dirty” happened.
I agree that the DNC shouldn’t have been playing the game at all. I just don’t agree that the emails were dirty.
Nope, nothing dirty there…nope, nothing at all. The Clinton Machine rolls on….clean as the driven snow…..angelic in a way….
Do you really think that southern voters who react to “Jew Boy” (your epithet, and yours alone) will be any more receptive to a woman candidate?
You spend months here inventing cutesy names (like “WMD”) to insult those you disagree with, and think its dirty to mention the religion of Mr. Sanders?
Jeesh.
..so it’s okay.
“I strongly suspect that if somebody cracked the email servers of the Bernie Sanders campaign, they would find a trove of equally outrageous internal emails filled with hostility towards Hillary Clinton.”
Nope, not going to buy that line of horse manure. Besides, this was the DNC, not the Clinton campaign….but you seem to want to go the ends of the earth to defend her. Why is anyone’s guess.
If this were a baseball game, you’re the parent who would whining about the high inside fastball thrown to move your child away from the plate.
Get a grip.
It shouldn’t have been done at the DNC. I’ve already said that multiple times. It isn’t “dirty”, it’s politics.
If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
NO! The person that threw the ball is on the other team!
This is like a parent complaining about the umpire that is calling pitches right down the center of the strike zone a ball because their kid is at bat!
It is dirty because the DNC is supposed to be neutral among Democrats.
How would you feel about the Federal Election Committee giving the press stories about ways to hurt Sec Clinton’s campaign? Would that be dirty or just “politics”?
they might find Clinton’s NGP-VAN data.
Come on john, campaigns are filled with people. People who have high emotions, who make mistakes under pressure, who are imperfect. And s’tom was neither defending HRC nor DWS — but you’re on the attack. Again.
It would be a problem if the DNC had actually launched attacks on Sanders on account of his Jewishness. But as far as I know that didn’t happen. From my experience in civil litigation, I can tell you that every business, from the smallest to the biggest, from the least sophisticated to the most sophisticated, has a lot of embarrassing crap in its email servers, mostly because we treat email the way we used to treat oral office scuttlebut. This story was an interesting “gotcha,” but in my view it has been way overblown and in a more rational world would not have led to Wasserman-Schultz’s resignation.
Or the DNC employees discussing how to harm one of the candidates by going dirty on his religious views.
A few thoughts:
1 – I liked DWS long ago, and actually thought she would be a good option for Kerry’s VP. How wrong I was.
2 – Though the Democratic Party didn’t “owe” a whole lot to someone who really was never a Democrat, they do need to run the primary process transparently. I suspect they’d have been just as unfair to O’Malley if he’d gotten further down the road.
3 – DWS needs to resign, not just for this, but for her unwillingness to target winnable seats in Florida, her refusal to start grassroots organizing in potential areas of gain in red states and her ongoing lack of transparency.
4 – Don’t think WIkileaks is conservative. However, the source of the documents they’re publishing, Guccifer 2.0, appears to be Russian. The Russian regime has invested a great deal recently in supporting Western political movements that destabilize the consensus in favor of NATO, such as the French Front National. Trying to boost Trump would be straight out of Putin’s playbook.
REALLY – how tone deaf can Clinton and her campaign possibly be? As to poor judgment, this is a glaring example. Not smart. And absolutely does NOT pass the smell test.
Also, to update a point I made in the diary, the latest word is that she WILL in fact gavel the convention to order and make some opening remarks.
Is Clinton putting DWS on the payroll or bringing her onto the campaign in a voluntary role? The only media I’ve found on this is the slimy right wing variety, and it seems pretty fast and loose with the word “hired.”
Anyone got an actual scoop?
She was made an honorary chair, but is receiving no paycheck.
.
HRC isn’t exactly the biggest fan of DWS, going back to a falling out in 2008.
Why investigate non-existent conspiracies from the past when we can get worked up about ones that haven’t happened yet?
And I am excited about that primary campaign
Sanders was criticized by some for throwing his support behind her challenger, which was seen by said critics as a waste of resources and clout with no motive other than political vengeance.
And I’d vote for him in her district. Bernie is doing what everyone here is begging our local partisans to do and primary some dead weight! He is backing challengers to shitty Congressmen in NY State too, and even some state senate candidates. I am hoping he can back our state rep candidate on the south shore who is/was a proud delegate. Our politics won’t change unless we contest every election, even the folks we like deserve an opponent. That is what democracy is supposed to look like!
You can donate here! I’m about to throw another $25 his way!
Not a clue whether this is paid or unpaid. However, what it IS is a stamp of approval – a “high profile executive role” and total acceptance of what to so many of us absolutely does not pass a smell test. Nothing “slimy conservative” about reporting the role and the quote. I will say it again “This is a tone deaf move” that comes across as validating and accepting what, to many of us, was a partisan management style, at best, of the DNC and a total absence of impartiality. See http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/obama-clinton-praise-debbie-wasserman-schultz-amid-controversy/2286664
I don’t see this as more than her being offered a graceful way out. If we see her again in the presidential campaign outside of FL or a second-tier cable show, I’ll be surprised.
The Obama statement is particularly telling. If he called DWS, it would have been the first time in years. The rumor is that he wanted to replace her a while back, but she refused to resign then and would make sure that any effort to replace her was as ugly as possible.
And she should’ve been fired after 2014. At least the GOP leadership falls on its sword when it doesn’t deliver. At least their grassroots have the courage to challenge leaders to make a statement. I think if DWS loses her primary it’ll have the same chilling effect Cantor’s loss had. No more corporate candidates and no more taking voters for granted. Why is this so dangerous and radical to so many people here? It’s exactly what we’ve been arguing for about a decade but now isn’t the right time? I don’t get it.
Never before has a major party chair opposed the signature foreign policy achievement of their President and not only gotten away with it but got continually praised for presiding over loss after loss. And then she totally undermined the unity of the party at its most critical moment.
Serving her head on a platter is the best favor Hillary can give to the Bernie people, considering how rightly outraged they are over these leaks which validate some of their conspiracy theories (unfortunately) and undermines the idea Hillary won this fair and square. Giving her this honorarium is not, it’s just rubbing salt in the wounds caused by the Kaine pick. The sad thing is when Hillary loses this thing all the hard working Bernie folks who campaigned for her will be blamed for being disloyal soldiers just like the Berwick people were in 2014. We never fucking learn.
And Obama wanted to, but she wouldn’t go quietly & he made the political calculation that the fight wasn’t worth it. If she doesn’t resign, my understanding is that only a vote by the DNC can ‘fire’ her, there was no appetite on the part of the president & his operation to push her out in a big public battle.
I wasn’t disputing either your facts or your opinion of it.
She’s dismal. A bad message-deliverer, and a bad election-deliverer.
On the one hand … I don’t think any of this internal hostility to Sanders actually affected any outcomes. Substantially, there’s not much here. Even with the debates, I think we all came out adequately exposed to the candidate’s viewpoints. And honestly, it’s not too surprising that the one constituency that actually cares that Bernie wasn’t a Dem, works for the party itself.
But even accounting for the unguarded nature of internal emails, it really gives a bad impression of the temperaments at work. The party should have a classy organization — you know, honest and professional. I’m sure there are any number of Dem apparatchiks around the country who fit that mold.
What’s Steve Grossman doing these days?
Wasserman Schultz to Have a New Role in Clinton Campaign
That’s the pathetic part……the Clinton machine is not even trying to cover up the corruption.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz did not get promoted and she’s not running Hillary’s campaign
Putting her anywhere near the lectern this week is malpractice, and is returning the beautiful gift Ted Cruz gave the Democrats. The Times is just itching to write their “both parties utterly in disarray” articles.
We’ve all seen the quotes.
The DNC backed the Democrat over Sanders (I) VT? Good. They were supposed to.
….see the pattern?
The DNC has chosen a candidate in Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton chose a running mate in Tim Kaine who is more conservative than she is.
As a liberal independent, I am being asked to choose between a nut-job conservative and a moderate conservative for president. Fantastic. That makes me really psyched to go out and vote, and to cheer on the Democratic Republican-lite ticket. /s
And the primary reason for me to vote for Hilary Clinton is “Trump will be worse”. Hillary can now propose cutting social security, making all states right-to-work, eliminating things like CDBG monies, cutting welfare, sending jobs to other countries, and making a handful of banks the foundation of our economy, but it’s nothing like President Trump.
Nice.
is bringing back all of the opinionated stupidity of the primary!
Good job, fellow Democrats.
N/T
I’m worried what they’ve still got left.
I don’t know if Wikileaks has more left.
I imagine Russian State Security for Trump has a great deal saved up.
They refer to this release of 20,000 emails as one of a series.
…then bring the country along with a heavy dose of patriotism of our own, along the lines of, “Are you going to let Putin decide this election for us?!”
Glad to see you embrace it! This is a strong talking point and it’s not red baiting if it isn’t inaccurate and Putin is more Mussolini than Lenin.