“Warren’s charge that the Democratic primary was ‘rigged’ says more about 2020 than 2016” – the commentary is written by Annie Linskey & co-author.
The real bone of contention here seems to be about how primary Democratic campaigns are going to be funded, going forward. The DNC has allowed big-donor supported candidates to get funding in primary campaigns. Without the DNC vehicle, big-donor candidates would be hamstrung in the primaries by the $2,700 personal contribution limits.
This is a fight over who should the Democratic party represent: small contributors, or very wealthy contributors.
It’s not something that the Globe commentary is interested in mentioning.
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I think Warren will need to walk back that comment as even Donna Brazile is insisting that she didn’t say the primary was rigged (which of course it wasn’t – state parties and governments run that process for the most part). However, there are people at Daily Kos saying this comment on Warren’s part is forever unforgivable, which I also think is an overreaction.
If you explained the details of the Democratic Party’s handling of the primary to a five year old child, they would call it “cheating”. A child knows what is far and not fair. Sadly, at times, humans are rational animals and able to rationalize bad behavior as acceptable behavior. Perhaps to some the ends justify the means. Others may feel that Sanders was not really a Democrat and that while all Democrats are equal, we have super delegates that are more equal than others. Still others are emotionally attached to the Clintons and as we have seen, will go to extremes to defend them against any negative charges. And finally there are the Democrats who hold firm that money wins elections, not values, and all we need is a lot of money, which Clinton had.
It was rigged. The Clinton Campaign cheated. The DNC was not impartial.
Indeed, where do we go from here?
Imagine the Democrats running a candidate who could look America in the eye and say, “I have not accepted any large amounts of money from anyone, any corporation, any special interest, In fact, my average donation is less than fifty bucks”. I am asking for your vote not to protect the interests of ANYONE who can afford to donated tens of thousands of dollars. I am asking for your vote to protect the interests of people like you.”
I think that could work.
Which is exactly why I never try to explain the nuances of party operations to a five year old child. You still have never shown any actual thumbs on the scale that had a material effect on the outcome.
Christopher – come on. There was a written agreement re Clinton’s control of DNC finances and staffing during the primary.
So? How did that prevent anyone wishing to vote for Sanders from doing so? Was the party providing resources to Clinton it was not to Sanders?
nuances = rationalization of lies.
Brazile’s narrative potentially changes part of the Russia investigation. There are two conflicting claims about how the Podesta emails got to Wikileaks. The favored one is that they were hacked by Russians and turned over by the Russians to Assange. People who doubt the Russia investigation claim that the emails were actually leaked by a disgruntled DNC staffer. Brazile’s revelations about what was going on at the DNC fits in pretty well with the disgruntled staffer theory, although of course it doesn’t prove anything.
According to Brazile, Podesta got an phishing email requesting he change his Google password. That’s how the Russian hackers got into Podesta’s account.
The FBI had been monitoring the DNC email snoop for many months, but neither the FBI nor the DNC were quick on their feet to stop it. It took them several months to act in coordination on it. The FBI agent calling to notify the DNC was routed to a low level sysadmin, who initially treated the call as a prank.
Brazile says it was a very unequal fight – the DNC, not having much network security expertise,, attacked by professional Russian hackers specialized in election hacking.
At least not until the DNC hired some knowledgeable network consultants, after the Comvention – but, by then, the damage was done.