How Clinton Bought the Loyalty of 33 State Democratic Parties

[Time for change]

I just heard Bernie on TV acknowledge that Hillary Clinton would make a much better President than any Republican candidate – before going on to state his many differences with her (which in my opinion make him far more qualified to be our President than her.)

But I have to say that it makes me sick to see the many ways that this campaign is stacked against Bernie. Perhaps he ought to be saying more about this, but of course our national news media would just make him out to be a “Conspiracy theorist” if he did that. But the fact is that among Western country democracies, the United States election system is ranked last. This is related to money in politics, voter purging, and elections run by electronic machines that produce votes that cannot be accounted for or recounted. We all know that Hillary has much more money than Bernie, coming from the big money interests in our country. What went on in Arizona and is now going on in New York, along with good evidence that the purging is directed against Bernie, shows the major role that voter purging is playing in the Democratic primaries this year. And the fact that exit polls are consistently deviating from official election results, in favor of Hillary, also suggest substantial problems with our election system that is working against Bernie.

Now we have another revelation of how big money is working against Bernie in highly undemocratic and immoral ways. I have to admit that I don’t understand all the legal discussion in this article, but I think that this is something that all voters ought to know about. Here is my brief summary of what I do understand, quoted directly from the article:

Collusion between the Clinton campaign and the DNC allowed Hillary Clinton to buy the loyalty of 33 state Democratic parties last summer…. The Super Delegates now defying democracy with their insistent refusal to change their votes to Sanders in spite of a handful of overwhelming Clinton primary losses in their own states, were arguably part of that deal.

In August 2015, at the Democratic Party convention in Minneapolis, 33 democratic state parties made deals with the Hillary Clinton campaign and a joint fundraising entity called The Hillary Victory Fund. The deal allowed many of her core billionaire and inner circle individual donors to run the maximum amounts of money allowed through those state parties to the Hillary Victory Fund in New York and the DNC in Washington…

The idea was to increase how much one could personally donate to Hillary by taking advantage of the Supreme Court ruling 2014, McCutcheon v FEC, that knocked down a cap on aggregate limits as to how much a donor could give to a federal campaign in a year….

Not only did Hillary’s multi-millionaire and billionaire supporters get to bypass individual campaign donation limits to state parties by using several state parties’ apparatus, but the Clinton campaign got the added bonus of buying that state’s Super Delegates with the promise of contributions to that Democratic organization’s re-election fund.

What do billionaires like... all have in common? They all appear to be brilliant business people who have all given millions to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and to her various PACS…. None of these are awful people; they are simply awfully rich…. And if some of their millions will buy her way into the White House then so be it. None of this is illegal. But it makes a mockery of Ms. Clinton’s pledge to further the cause of campaign finance reform….

Being told who to vote for in a primary by your party’s big wigs is not part of that tradition….“It just becomes a way to funnel more to the DNC to support the Clinton Campaign”, said Paul S. Ryan, deputy executive director of the Campaign Legal Centre, which advocates for campaign finance reform.

The Democratic spokespeople for the17 states that refused to go along with the Clinton campaign’s plan… were clear that it seemed less than democratic to be choosing sides in a primary that hadn’t happened yet. That the very purpose of a primary was to let the people choose which candidate they wanted to represent them and to not let the party establishment load the dice in their own favor. They made it obvious that they were choosing democracy over kick-backs.

“A joint fundraising committee linking Hillary Clinton to the national Democratic Party and 33 state parties is routing money through those state parties and back into the coffers of the Clinton campaign and all its PACS and Funds” “It is a highly unusual arraignment if only because presidential candidates do not normally enter into fundraising agreements with their party’s committees until after they actually win the nomination. And second, Clinton’s fundraising committee is the first since the Supreme Court’s 2014 McCutcheon v FEC decision eliminated aggregate contribution limits and congress increased party contribution limits in the 2014 omnibus budget bill”…

What it really does is seriously handicap the Democratic Primary Race. Every one of the states charging electoral interference by the Clinton campaign is a state that made a deal with the Hillary Victory Fund. Insinuations of conspiracies are unprovable in these cases. But the perception of fraud and corruption is glaring and damaging.

What the Clinton campaign appears to be in stunning denial about is that most of us “regular folks” are not burdened with an inability to confuse morality with legality. Corruption is corruption is corruption no matter how many laws there are allowing it. Very few brilliant business people give presidential candidates upwards of six million dollars without expecting something in return. There is a reason they are brilliant business people…. Many local politicians become terrified of voicing support for alternative candidates out of fear of being cut off the Democratic Party gravy train.

The article goes into many examples and specifics of the funding mechanisms that I’ve left out here, in the interest of keeping this relatively short. The writer goes on to say, specifically with regard to Montana:

Our state party leadership signed a deal with a woman who out here, on our turf, possibly wouldn’t last a week. They signed away our unobstructed right to choose which Democratic candidate we supported for President. Given that we have 15 pledged delegates and seven Super Delegates, we have lost our absolute right to have Super Delegate endorsements proportional to the wishes of the primary voters. For what?

[djean111]

1. And loses the loyalty to the Democratic Party from this voter, at least.

Not just for the primary, either.

[brooklynite]

2. ...by supporting the election of Democrats? Why didn't anyone think of that before?

...and just to be clear, Sanders agreed to do the same thing, right?

[bigbrother05]

4. After the nominee is chosen as is the usual way it's done

[brooklynite]

8. Why then did Sanders sign a Joint Fundraising Agreement last year?

[Time for change]

10. I strongly object

to the Democratic Party supporting the election of "Democrats" during the primaries. What does it generally mean to support the election of "Democrats" during the primaries? For the DNC, it usually means supporting the election of the establishment candidates against more liberal challengers. It's become more like a private club than an organization interested in democracy.

[brooklynite]

12. No, it means supporting incumbents, who are PART of the Democratic Party...

...they'd take the same attitude if a Blue Dog had decided to Primary Alan Grayson.

[bvar22]

18. Except if you are Debbie Schultz, head of the DNC, and willing component of the Hillary Campaign,

then you can refuse to endorse or help Democrats running against vulnerable Republican seats, and even help Republicans because she doesn't want to upset her Republican friends.

AFAIC, the National Party has absolutely NO BUSINESS interfering with local Democratic Primaries.
Every time they do so, it is to deny the Will of the People.

SEE: Arkansas Democratic Primary, 2010
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6936981


SEE: DCCC King Making
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=160&topic_id=14207

[bigbrother05]

3. That's not a bug, it's a feature!

How often do you hear the Clinton campaign tout how much they've raised for the state campaigns while Bernie hasn't done squat?

Maybe he's just not "qualified" enough to navigate the serpentine pathways needed to exploit the depths of CU. Or maybe he's not willing to sell out to the lure of big money.

[stuffmatters]

5. 33 states the superdelegates "presold" via DNC kickbacks to Clinton, essential reading here!

While it might be legal, it's certainly not democratic or moral. Electoral triangulation, essentially money, power and vote laundering.
Clinton wins, democracy looses in 33 states seems the slimy endgame.

[Lucinda]

6. This is such nonsence. The whole point of these agreements is to raise funds to elect Dems...which

is exactly what the party is supposed to be doing.

"After months of discord and delay, the Democratic National Committee announced Thursday that it signed a joint fundraising agreement with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
The document will enable the DNC and the campaign to conduct events and other fundraising activities together that will generate money for both entities. Clinton wouldn’t have access to the money unless and until she’s the nominee — but this is seen as an essential step for banking cash to counter what’s expected to be massive Republican spending next year.

“Through this agreement and others we will sign with our party’s candidates, we are building the organization we will need now to make sure that whoever our nominee is, they are in the best possible position to win next November,” said DNC chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.).
All 50 state parties were invited to join the agreement as well. Several had already pursued their own joint fundraising agreements with the Clinton campaign while the DNC had held off on signing — largely over disagreements over how the money would be able to be spent. The Clinton campaign, wary of management and structural problems at the DNC, insisted on a tight rein on spending."


http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/dnc-democratic-committee-hillary-clinton-fundraising-agreement-2016-121813

And Bernie has done the same:

Sanders campaign inks joint fundraising pact with DNC

Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign has signed a joint fundraising agreement with the Democratic National Committee, the DNC confirmed to POLITICO.
The move, which comes more than two months after Hillary Clinton's campaign signed such an agreement in August, will allow Sanders' team to raise up to $33,400 for the committee as well as $2,700 for the campaign from individual donors at events.
Story Continued Below

The candidate rarely headlines fundraising events, and is not close with many big-money Democratic donors, but he has been working to prove his proximity to the party in recent months as he competes with Clinton.
The Vermont senator, who is an Independent but caucuses with Senate Democrats, also recently lent his name to a fundraising letter for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, according to a campaign adviser, in another indication of his slowly growing ties to the party's infrastructure.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/bernie-sanders-2016-fundraising-dnc-215559

[Time for change]

11. The party is supposed to be supporting Democrats during the primary season?

Do we the people get any say in which Democrats they support? Generally they use the money that we donate to them to promote the nomination of establishment candidates against more liberal challengers. That is just one among many reasons why the Democratic Party has moved so far to the right in recent years.

[Time for change]

13. Thank you, bvar

I too long to return to the days of FDR, which built a foundation for a better standard of living for all Americans -- which lasted quite a while, but in recent years, the corruption of politics by money has torn so much of it down.

[Lucinda]

14. The funds are used in the GE. Electing your candidate in the primary

gives you your say.

[Time for change]

16. You're telling me that these funds aren't being used to get Hillary the nomination?

Is that really what you're saying?

[Lucinda]

17. Are you telling me you overlooked the section in my first post, in bold, that says

"...Clinton wouldn’t have access to the money unless and until she’s the nominee..."

It is her way of banking cash for the GE. With this system, what she brings in through her campaign fundraising now is used in the primaries. The money from those joint agreement fundraising ventures is banked for the GE.

[Time for change]

19. The whole article that this OP is about

and the link that goes with it talks about how she's using the money to win the nomination.

Are you saying that everything Margot Kidder says in the article is a lie?

[Lucinda]

20. I can either believe Open Secrets, Hillary, Bernie, and my party, to be transparent

about the purpose and administration of these arrangements, or I can believe an activist actress. I don't think I will be going with Kidder on this.

This was last updated Dec 31st so the fund likely reports quarterly. But you can see the income to date, dispersements, and quite a bit more info here:
https://www.opensecrets.org/jfc/summary.php?id=C00586537

[bvar22]

7. Thank You, Time for a Change.

Glad to see your post. They are always well written, well supported, informative.....and sometimes anger provoking, like this one.
I am so damned angry at what passes for the Democratic Party today.
It is nothing like the Party I joined in 1967...the Party of the Working/Middle Class, The New Deal, and the Great Society. I loved THAT Democratic Party, and worked my ass off for it.

It is long past the time to return to the values and goals that made our party Great, and say Good Bye and Good Riddance to the grafters, scammers, extortionists, and Corporate/Wall Street Lackeys that are now running the show. They have made a mockery and a cheap, rip-off carnival sideshow out of something I once loved.

I am ashamed of the Party we are leaving to our children.
Lifetime indentured servitude seems to be what is on the Democratic Party Menu for them,
and I would understand if they decide to burn it all down and start over with the important things:

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be[font size=3] established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.[/font]

Among these are:

*The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

*The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

*The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

*The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

*The right of every family to a decent home;

*The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

*The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

*The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

[font size=3]America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.[/font]--- FDR, SOTU, 1944.

Please note that the above are stipulated as Basic Human RIGHTS to be protected by our government,
and NOT as COMMODITIES to be SOLD to Americans by For Profit Corporations.

[Time for change]

15. Thank you, bvar

Please see post # 13, which was meant to be my response to you, but I screwed up.

[seabeyond]

9. Lifetime Democrat vs Lifetime attack democrat. It is gonna matter.