Democratic (Party) Direction

According to the excerpt, the deal was more about the Clinton campaign helping keep the DNC afloat, rather than the DNC helping Clinton. It points to a mindblowingly incompetent DNC over the years.

Which on the other hand is why this doesn't prove 'Bernie would have won.' The DNC in this telling could't have rigged an election for dog catcher...

huh people are shocked that Hillary Clinton used a dodgy fundraising scheme exploiting her direct connections to party insiders. this is bad, wholly predictable, and exactly the kind of thing Bernie rails against when it comes to money in politics but it's also not the same as election rigging and I dunno if I really give a fuck at this point. The DNC has always been a cesspool.

you don't think the Clinton campaign keeping the DNC afloat would result in other candidates getting lesser treatment?

don't think anyone said this proves Bernie would have won.

xp

it might have - but then Brazile writes "I had tried to search out any other evidence of internal corruption that would show that the DNC was rigging the system to throw the primary to Hillary, but I could not find any in party affairs or among the staff. I had gone department by department, investigating individual conduct for evidence of skewed decisions, and I was happy to see that I had found none." which makes it sound like this fund raising scheme was the entirety of it. otherwise presumably she would've at least found some evidence of skewed decisions?

When I got back from a vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, I at last found the document that described it all: the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America.

The agreement—signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook with a copy to Marc Elias—specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.

literally nothing could "prove" BWHW

i'd feel differently about hillary purging voter roles during the primaries than i do about this fundraising agreement. maybe i shouldn't but one feels more like "rigging" to me.

That would be practical 'rigging', yes. This is apparently an agreement that the primaries should be rigged, but it's really hard to find anything at all that was in actual fact rigged.

It's like the opposite of Russian collusion. We have the agreement (apparently) but no evidence that anything actually happened.

BWHW

Brazile Withdraw Hillary Worship?

bew wave of heavy wetal

Bernie Sanders lost the 2016 primary by 3 million votes. That didn't happen exclusively because the DNC is/was corrupt.

— R.L. Stephens (@RLisDead) November 2, 2017

I can kind of see both sides on that one. I've never thought of the primary as "rigged." Bernie did come in as an upstart/outsider, and it's not totally surprising that the party machinery didn't fall in line behind him. That goes way beyond the DNC -- ha also barely picked up any endorsements from significant dems. His success was quite beyond my expectations. At the same time, it does seem like there's something seriously wrong with the way the DNC is run.

Oh, lol, no doubt about that :)

How does this agreement differ from the joint fundraising agreement Sanders signed with the DNC when he entered the race? (sorry if answered in anything linked/at work)

Dorothy Z.‏ @KTMWI4 3m
Replying to @RLisDead @daveweigel
I never want to hear Bernie's name again. I'm so tired of this.

Seth Pollack‏ @sethmpk 2m
Bad news: there's only like 100 senators so he's gonna keep coming up

loool

pretty nuts that one of only two major political parties in the world's largest democracy/economy is totally bankrupt and in debt.

i must say it doesn't really help the "governance" argument that the dems are trying to push

*competent governance

is it weird of me to read about the DNC's massive debt problems and then end up a little dumbfounded when the debt only amounted to $2 million? that's a lot more money than i'll ever see, but that's seriously like a rounding error on the net worth of many people in the democratic party

the DNC's debt problems are impossible to resolve. i mean, we could ask that one of our many really rich people to auction off a superyacht and then donate 10% of the proceeds to our debt problems, but that conversation would be so awkward, so...guess we'll go bankrupt and gnaw each other's faces off as we go down in flames

lol @ this story trending on Twitter

well Clinton-Sanders is Twitter's War of the Roses, no?

dumber things than this trend on twitter literally every day

good thread imho

― Simon H., Thursday, November 2, 2017 12:01 PM (thirty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea I think this is pretty important too. I've always found the "DNC rigged it against Bernie" narrative irritating because he lost by a large number, and most of the events cited in the leaked emails happened after he was mathematically eliminated. not saying the DNC isn't incredibly broken right now, but I think that context is important

Basically, the way I see it: on one hand, it's naive and silly to think the DNC would be a completely neutral arbiter between a party insider and an upstart outsider. OTOH, it's worth asking whether the system should work differently.

'political flacks have different opinions in private than on national TV during a campaign' seems like a rather obvious point Nate's missing https://t.co/YvgyVJ5GHn

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) November 2, 2017

lol @ this story trending on Twitter

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, November 2, 2017 1:31 PM (one hour ago)

lol ok buddy

I'm with Karl.

WOW. Elizabeth Warren just told @jaketapper that she believes that the DNC/Primary situation was rigged for Hillary Clinton.

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) November 2, 2017

Warren really should have run.

Is this the first time she's said something to that effect?

The real 2016 dirt isn't Bernie related, IMO, but Obama and Clinton clearing the field of Biden/Warren/etc..

How is that dirt

It didn’t get much coverage, but I stated last year that people close to Warren told me she wanted to run and was told “it was not her time” https://t.co/dku1GC8mDM

— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) November 2, 2017

It's almost as if ppl don't understand how parties, power and politics work in this country. LBJ was also told when it wasn't his time, for ex.

Is there another element to this story than both campaigns being asked to share money and Bernie saying “no”?

So was Reagan lol

Xp

"The way things always worked" is definitely the path to emulate.

It's dirt that Obama strongarmed Hillary into the nomination that then gave us President Donald Trump.

It may well work that way, but it's leading to lots of bitterness, division, and disappointment.

There are plenty of people who felt the primary process didn't give enough candidates a fair shake, and this story today is certainly adding more fuel.

Yes, and they're wrong.

Well yeah perception continues to be reality for people who have no idea how elections are run.

I just feel like complaining that people in power groomed their successors - through entirely legal means - and that there is some kind of party mechanism or legal avenue that can prevent that, is somehow fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of political power.

Knowing what I know now about Wisconsin voter fraud, Russian bots, and the uniqueness of the Trump candidacy, I'm sure Warren or my boy Sanders would have lost in 2016 too. That's my mea culpa.

Like, yes, of course the sitting President (ANY sitting President), concerned for the safeguarding of their legacy and the direction of the country, will make moves to exercise their power in a way that will secure those goals. They'll talk to people they knows are interested in running, encourage some, discourage others, point some towards resources, deprive others of resources, network, cajole, argue, intimidate exert pressure. This is power, it's how it works and it's what it's for. This is not illegal or even unethical. When you're at the top of a political machine - which is what a party is - you have been selected to exercise that power, and people inevitably do.

xp

It’s always impossible to know how the narrative of a campaign will play out but I think a candidate with the perception of being more progressive would have pushed Trump into more of a traditional GOP candidate role, rather than someone who could effectively bs being to HRC’s left on certain things with people who wanted to believe that.

I mean people made disingenuous anti-wars arguments that HRC was going to start a nuclear war over emails.

It's dirt that Obama strongarmed Hillary into the nomination that then gave us President Donald Trump

this is so ridiculous. What does "strongarm" even mean in this sentence? That he had private discussions with Biden, Warren etc. that he thought Hillary should get the nomination? Why is that wrong? And what's more, how is that a subversion of the Democratic primary process? They could have ignored Obama and run anyway, without Obama's blessing, and if they had secured the necessary votes, they would have won. It's the votes that matter. The rest is normal jockeying for power that is inherent in having a functional party structure at all.

Like, yes, of course the sitting President (ANY sitting President), concerned for the safeguarding of their legacy and the direction of the country, will make moves to exercise their power in a way that will secure those goals.

This would make more sense if the two biggest names he helped keep out weren't his own VP (with a much closer relationship than Obama/Clinton) and a strong Senate ally.

That's why it stinks - there's much more "your turn" quid pro quo than doing the best thing to win 2016 and protect his legacy.

idk why it's such a mystery that Obama thought Hillary would be the most likely to win and continue/secure his policies, he was pretty vocal and open about both. Biden and Warren both had drawbacks he likely viewed as bigger liabilities than Hillary's. There's nothing that "stinks" about it - do you think Hillary bribed him or something?