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A small note - that’s actually a big one - on the subject of “rigging...”
The @donnabrazile excerpt is causing lots of sturm und drang w @SenWarren joining the chorus saying it proves the ‘16 Dem race was “rigged”
in favor of Hillary Clinron. But I think we need to take a deep breath and unpack what’s at issue.
The question is: what does the DNC actually do, and can it, even if it wanted to, rig 50+ primaries for any given candidate?
Well let’s start with what the DNC (and RNC) actually do: they are the governing bodies for their parties. They write the platform...
support candidates up and down ballot, fund state parties and operate what’s called the “coordinated campaign” for the presidential nominee.
They do NOT determine whether states have primaries or caucuses — that’s up to the states and state parties: washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-ca…
Most state parties prefer primaries because the state pays for them, while parties preferring caucuses do so for more control.
Other than using their delegate allocation power to lock in the “go first” states, the DNC also doesn’t set primary/caucus schedule.
That too is up to states, who generally pass laws to fix the date leaving it to the state party (not the DNC/RNC) if thwy’re open or closed.
That’s why we already know the order for 2020. States for the most part already decided: pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/…
Here’s the 2020 primary schedule: frontloading.blogspot.com/p/2020-preside…
The DNC in 2016 also used the same delegate allocation rules from 2012, so all the candidates knew the deal.
The DNC and RNC also form joint fundraising committees with the eventual nominee. They offer these agreements to all the candidates.
Per Donna’s contention, that process was polluted by the fact that Hillary Clinton was both a candidate and bailing out the DNC financially.
There’s some question about whether she acquired the control every nominee gets over the DNC before or after she clinched the nomination
but that, and the clear preference of DNC staff and longtime Clinton loyalist are the source of the “rigging” claim.
Well the setting of the debate schedule, which you could argue was done to bury Sanders' appeal, though clearly that didn't work.
But the question is -- what could the DNC have done to actually cause Sanders to lose the states he lost, which cost him the nomination?
Even if one objects to the JFA as Donna did it didn't hurt Sanders financially. By April he'd raised as much as HRC. cnn.com/2016/04/21/pol…
I was in S Carolina covering that primary. Sanders had robust staff, enthusiastic supporters and lots of money. Did the DNC "make him lose?"
South Carolina is the giant-killer in presidential campaigns, D and R. Had Obama lost it in '08 Clinton would likely have been the nominee.
The DNC & the party writ large very openly favored Hillary Clinton. Obama lost huge primaries and won caucuses. He still got the nomination.
Since the rules were the same -- including the superdelegate rules -- why was outsider Obama able to beat the DNC establishment then?
And by the way, if you made the superdelegates proportional, or disappeared them, Clinton still would have won: vox.com/2016/5/6/11597…
The superdelegates strongly favored Clinton in 2008 by the by, including the CBC. They couldn't stop him from getting the nomination either.
Even if the DNC passed a rule binding superdelegates to their state primaries, Clinton would have won: politifact.com/truth-o-meter/…
So here's the deal: the DNC is full of super-Democrats who are party loyalists and yep, they favored Clinton over the independent Sanders.
They snarked about him in emails stolen and released by Russian hackers. They were a sloppy organization that was broke and needed Clinton.
And they entered into a deal that basically saw the more or less inevitable nominee, based on the primary calendar, loan them money.
But snarky emails didn't cost Bernie Sanders the nomination. DNC fundraising deals with Clinton (for money to spend in the GENERAL election)
didn't either. Sanders didn't win the nomination because Hillary Clinton got more votes than he did. She won the calendar.
And she got more votes particularly in states with large black voting populations, which is how Democrats win primaries.
The DNC, from what I gather, including from Donna's book excerpt, could barely function, let alone rig 50+ primaries.
Because again, how would an organization compel/force more people to vote for one candidate over the other?
Perhaps if they had run a disinformation campaign against Sanders? Which is odd because there was one: that Russia ran against Clinton.
The candidates traded insults and accusations but that's hardly rigging a campaign. He portrayed her as a crook, she called him unrealistic.
(Well maybe "crook" is too harsh - but you get my drift.) The JFA is interesting news to me in that it shows how fecacked the party was.
But I can't see how that fundraising arrangement actually rigged the election in Clinton's favor. Perhaps I'm missing something.
Anyway, apologies for the typos. Was tweeting from the shaky Amtrak and then the car on my way home. Going to bed now, goodnight!
One more note: I was in the BACK of the car tweeting, NOT driving! The good folks in Bmore got me a car ride home from Penn Sta. Cheers :)
I would never tweet and drive -- and don't you do so either, kids! xo
