So Many Folks Confused About What Impartiality in the Primary Means for a Democratic Party Organizat

[stevenleser]

http://steveleser.blogspot.com/2016/07/so-many-folks-confused-about-what.html?spref=fb

With the current brouhaha about Debbie Wasserman Schultz and whether emails leaked by a hacker in Russia show wrongdoing, I think it’s important that folks know exactly what the applicable rules mean in terms of how Democratic Party officials are supposed to conduct themselves with regards to contests for a Democratic nomination.

Many people seem to be attempting to apply these rules in a way they were not intended.
I’ve been subject to similar rules in the past. As a past precinct chair, then District Leader and then County Public Relations Chairperson for the Pinellas County Democratic Executive Committee in Florida, we were subject to the following rule:

PCDEC Bylaws
ARTICLE XIII
Endorsement of Candidates
The endorsement of candidates in Primary elections is prohibited to the County Committee, the Chair of the PCDEC, and all groups within its jurisdiction, except as otherwise provided by the FDP Bylaw

Every two years, at least while I was an officer of the PCDEC, the county chairperson would go over with us exactly what that means and how it affected us.

The main idea is, you cannot endorse any candidates or make it seem to voters as if you were using your office to promote a candidate for the Democratic nomination or that the local county apparatus endorsed someone. You were absolutely permitted to volunteer for a campaign, work for a campaign and to have a strong personal preference for a candidate. The key is not to make a public endorsement. If you think about it, it doesn’t make sense to do otherwise. To prevent all local Democratic Party officials from working on campaigns removes the most active Democrats from helping candidates until very late in the process. That is not the intent of the rule.

Now let’s examine the DNC bylaws applicable to the situation with DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz:

DNC Bylaws Article 5, Section 4
In the conduct and management of the affairs and procedures of the Democratic National Committee, particularly as they apply to the preparation and conduct of the Presidential nomination process, the Chairperson shall exercise impartiality and evenhandedness as between the Presidential candidates and campaigns. The Chairperson shall be responsible for ensuring that the national officers and staff of the Democratic National Committee maintain impartiality and evenhandedness during the Democratic Party Presidential nominating process.

The bold, italics and underlining are mine and they are the key point to this rule. Again, the point is not that the national chair and DNC members can’t have a strong preference for who wins the nomination it also doesn’t mean that the national chair and other DNS members can’t express their preference privately. It doesn’t mean that a candidate can’t anger them or that they can’t express that anger privately.

Understanding the rule, did Debbie Wasserman Schultz break it? I don’t think so.

Let’s also understand that we are dealing with extraordinary circumstances here. I want everyone reading this to picture this scenario. For 25 years you have been a member of an organization that you believe in and whose goals you believe are very important. During that time, an outside individual has been attacking your organization and calling it insincere. He says he upholds the principles your organization espouses better than you do and says joining your organization would be committing treason to his beliefs. He belittles and criticizes your organization at every turn. When it comes to making decisions in a group he does support what members of your organization are doing but only because it serves his interests to do so.

At the end of those 25 years, he joins your organization, something he said he would never do, only because it is the only way he can try to get something he wants and he contends in the highest level election against someone who has been a loyal member of your organization for 30+ years. Your responsibilities are as article 5 section 4 express them above.

Do you think you and/or members of your organization would have a strong preference against this individual? Do you think you might express that privately in emails since that does not violate the rule? When it turns out that members of this individual’s campaign have early in the process improperly used computer resources to gain an unfair advantage in the campaign, do you think it would make you upset? Whose fault is it that there is antipathy toward this individual in your organization? I think the answers to those questions are obvious.

But hold on, it’s more than that. When Sanders’ campaign was caught improperly accessing Hillary Clinton campaign information on DNC servers and the DNC moved to sanction him, Sanders sued the DNC to avoid the punishment. So you have retaliatory litigation against the DNC by Sanders on top of everything I discussed in the previous two paragraphs. Now what kind of a relationship and private opinion do you think DNC leadership and staffers have with/of Sanders?

One of the things I keep asking myself when I think about the relationship between Sanders and the DNC is, did Sanders ever do anything to reach out and mend fences? You have his 25 years’ worth of attacks on the Democratic Party. If you were in the position he was in at the start of his campaign, wouldn’t you have seen the need to try to work to improve the relationship because of your prior behavior/statements? Did Sanders ever do anything at all along those lines? If so I haven’t heard of it. For someone who purports to have the skill to be President, a job where negotiations, diplomacy and dealing with countries and foreign leaders, not to mention domestic members of the opposite party, whose opinions might differ for yours and where you need to be able to craft compromises, are we to understand he was unable to reach out and try to come to some sort of détente with the DNC?

Another issue is whether any of this had any impact on the race. Hillary’s early and insurmountable lead came from winning African American votes in the South by huge margins and from Florida which has long been a Clinton stronghold. Nothing that I have seen has proposed anything that suggests that the DNC influenced that in any way. I am not sure African Americans in the South care that much about what the DNC says nor is there much else the DNC could do to change how they would vote. So whatever the DNC did had little impact on the race.

Of course the other upsetting point is that the leak of the DNC emails comes from a Russian hacker who almost certainly operates with the tacit or full-fledged permission of Putin. People in Russia who do things Putin doesn’t like have a tendency to disappear or turn up dead see http://news.sky.com/story/the-putin-critics-who-have-been-assassinated-10369350 and note this is an abbreviated list. Even when they escape Russia, many of them have a tendency to end up dead before their time and some by horrific means, like Alexander Litvinenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko so I think it’s fair to say that this hacker operates with Putin’s permission. Putin’s attempt to put his finger on the scale here for Trump against Hillary indicates one of two things, either he really likes Trump and thinks Trump sees eye to eye with him on world affairs, or it means Putin thinks Trump is a dupe who would be easy to control or subvert. Neither possibility is a good one.


I don’t care what things were said about the candidates among DNC members in private emails. But, if Debbie Wasserman Schultz or other members of the DNC went beyond privately talking/emailing and expressing personal preferences, even though it’s something that any sane person knowing the background would probably understand, they should face repercussions for that. To this point, I haven’t seen any evidence that they did.

[kestrel91316]

1. Perhaps she didn't violate the letter of the rule. But she certainly violated its spirit.

NO FAVORITISM.

[MohRokTah]

6. I couldn't disagree more. eom

[stevenleser]

8. That is not what the rule means. You are absolutely allowed to have favorites. The reason folks

are members of political parties is that they have favorites in the political process.

What the members of Democratic Party organizations from the top down are not allowed to do is officially endorse or alter the process to help one of the folks contending for the nomination.

[Imperialism Inc.]

36. Favoritism not favorite.

favoritism: the practice of giving unfair preferential treatment to one person or group at the expense of another.

As you yourself just said, and the part of the rule you didn't underline said, that is definitely not allowed.

[stevenleser]

38. And there is zero evidence of that.

There is no evidence that there was favoritism in the conduct of the primary.

End of story.

[wiggs]

2. Good and reasoned post. Too bad media would rather see drama and outrage....

...because when the media wants to emphasize something they hijack the tone of public discourse. They play it up then report that people are outraged. They omit points like yours then report the opinions of the uninformed public.

I'm no huge fan of DWS's performance (though I do think she's smart and savvy) but this is another example of media-driven headlines over nothing.

I hope this doesn't cause a serious disruption during a critical pivot of the party to the general election. If so, I would have to ask Bernie why he didn't squash this.

[AgadorSparticus]

3. Agreed. I haven't read anything that would make her guilty of not doing her job.

[elleng]

4. Senator Sanders was not the only 'other' candidate.

by BRENDAN BORDELON August 28, 2015 6:26 PM





Minneapolis — Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley effectively declared war on the Democratic establishment today, accusing a room full of liberal elites of having “rigged” the 2016 primary debates in favor of Hillary Clinton, his rival for the party’s presidential nomination.



Standing just feet from Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D., FL.) at the DNC’s summer meeting in Minneapolis on Friday, O’Malley delivered a fiery speech slamming the party’s “cynical” debate schedule.



“Four debates and only four debates — we are told, not asked — before voters in our earliest states make their decision,” he said. “This sort of rigged process has never been attempted before.”

Though O’Malley is struggling to break out of the low-single digits in the polls, his speech received numerous standing ovations — particularly from the substantial contingent of Bernie Sanders supporters seated behind the DNC delegates. “Is this how the Democratic Party selects its nominee?” the former governor asked, prompting large swaths of the crowd to shout back “No!” Wasserman-Schultz appeared less-than-pleased by the criticism and the crowd’s response to it.



http://www.nationalreview.com/article/423259/martin-omalley-dnc-rigged-debates-hillary-clinton

[stevenleser]

9. No one was an "other" candidate. Hurling accusations doesnt make it so. nt

[elleng]

14. Steve, you're too smart and plugged in to not have recognized what went on

for the several years pre-final primaries. All the non-hrc candidates were treated with the back of the DNC's hand, and it became especially apparent when it came down to the Governor O'Malley/Senator Sanders/Secretary Clinton months.

Pretending it was not so does us NO good. DNC messed up, and if we're LUCKY, the Democratic Party will prevail in congress and the White House in November.

[stevenleser]

15. Nice try, but no. All of these silly insinuations like debates on the wrong nights. Are you kidding

me?

Bernie and O'Malley used the DNC like Trump and his folks use the "establishment" or the "Media" as convenient whipping boys to try to gin up outrage and support.

Hillary created an insurmountable lead and won because of her dominance of the south because of her support among African Americans, and because of her strength in Florida that goes back a long time. There is nothing the DNC, Sanders or O'Malley could have done to change any of that.

Crying about things like the nights the debates were scheduled is nonsense.

[elleng]

19. Sorry, steve.

[Dawgs]

33. Holy cow! Are you serious? nt

[treestar]

34. Exactly

Candidates just show up for debates normally. Only Bernie is such a special snowflake. If the debate had been held on another night it would be different? Ridiculous.

[katsy]

5. Yeah yeah because nothing says impartiality than wondering how bringing up SBS' personal beliefs

would affect the southern baptist vote.

Totally on the up & up right? Nothing divisive about that? Can we mine any more bigotry out of this? Against muslims maybe? Jews? Athiests are already under the bus, right? 👎🏼

[stevenleser]

10. Is there anything in that which violates the rule? No. nt

[glennward]

13. Did Debbie do that? nt

[stevenleser]

20. Nope, she didn't. nt

[Octafish]

39. People working for her did.

New Leak: Top DNC Official Wanted to Use Bernie Sanders’s Religious Beliefs Against Him

Sam Biddle
The Intercept, July 22 2016, 12:38 p.m.

AMONG THE NEARLY 20,000 internal emails from the Democratic National Committee, released Friday by Wikileaks and presumably provided by the hacker “Guccifer 2.0,” is a May 2016 message from DNC CFO Brad Marshall. In it, he suggested that the party should “get someone to ask” Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders about his religious beliefs.

From:[e-mail]
To: [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]
Date: 2016-05-05 03:31
Subject: No shit

It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.

The email was sent to DNC Communications Director Luis Miranda and Deputy Communications Director Mark Paustenbach. It’s unclear who the “someone” in this message could be — though a member of the press seems like a safe bet. A request for comment sent to Marshall was not immediately returned.

CONTINUED...

https://theintercept.com/2016/07/22/new-leak-top-dnc-official-wanted-to-use-bernie-sanderss-religious-beliefs-against-him/

[JaneyVee]

18. Thats how political strategy works. like it or not.

[BlueMTexpat]

31. That was NOT DWS -

who is herself Jewish.

But please don't let such let facts skew your perceptions.

[napi21]

7. Sorry, but I see her actios differently.

(The main idea is, you cannot endorse any candidates or make it seem to voters as if you were using your office to promote a candidate for the Democratic nomination or that the local county apparatus endorsed someone. You were absolutely permitted to volunteer for a campaign, work for a campaign and to have a strong personal preference for a candidate. The key is not to make a public endorsement.)

Not included in that statement is permission to withhold pertinent information from one candidate like when she insisted vital voter contact information (much of it HIS) from Bernie's campaign people. When she arranged to have all debate held at times when nobody watched TV. Those things did get worked out, but they shouldn't have ever existed to begin with.

IMO, she WAS making a veiled endorsement of one candidate over another. As to Bernie being an Independent, he almost always caucused with the Dems, and when he disagreed most of the time it was over actions that most Democrats disagreed with too. Nobody said she had to LIKE every candidate, just be even handed with ALL rules & guidelines of the DNC.

[stevenleser]

11. You mean when Bernie's folks tried to access data that was not theirs to access?

Because that is the only contention along these lines that is acknowledged by all sides. Anything else is an unproven accusation.

[glennward]

12. Excellent post. But don't think truth, fact, or reasonableness apply to the obsessed. nt

[still_one]

29. unfortunately you are right

[Ken Burch]

16. Bernie wasn't attacking the party. He offers legitimate critiques of it.

Those critiques express views that tens of milliions of Democrats agree with.

What difference does it make that he was outside the party? He ran in our primaries because most Democrats(even a lot of people who supported HRC in the primaries, as has often been expressed here)wanted the party to embrace a new, more committed and more progressive set of values than we have since, at the very least 1984(or maybe since the 1970's).

If Bernie had tried to work within the Democratic party during that quarter-century, he'd have been forced to keep silent on many of the issues he cared about. He'd have been forced to accept the whole DLC era(an era when, for all practical purposes, we stopped being a separate party from the GOP).

It is not a mark against Bernie that he was outside this party until recently: it's an indictment of the stifling arrogance of much of our party's national leadership and the way that leadership essentially made dissent and progressive activism(other than on a handful of "approved" issues, such as the mildest, most shame-based defense of choice possible and the most moderate, corporate-subservient forms of LGBTQ activism)impossible.

If HRC wants to build a lasting progressive majority, she needs to let the party be changed. She needs to let this be a place where economic justice advocates(and less "mainstream and respectable" social justice advocates)can have a place, a vote, and a say.
And she and whoever she chooses as DNC chair needs to see grassroots activists as partners in the process of change, rather than assuming that insiders and big donors are the only people who matter.

I think she is up to that challenge.

And I think she could have been nominated without the DNC treating Bernie as an illegitimate candidate and as the enemy.

[stevenleser]

17. Do you really want me to post examples of those legitimate critiques as you put it? nt

[still_one]

30. Just trying to push the idea that someone who isn't a registered Democrat should be able to vote in

a Democratic primary is just one example

[aikoaiko]

21. I think what you're describing are human responses from DNC folks, but not professional.

As a HRC primary supporter I can see why you want us to empathize with their very human responses as they sided with HRC.

If you cannot maintain impartiality because of your human responses, then you are required to resign or recuse in order to maintain professional conduct. This is true of any profession.

[stevenleser]

22. Nope, you are still misinterpreting the rule. nt

[aikoaiko]

23. You are describing private feelings. How is calling out Bernie's atheism on DNC email a feeling?

[stevenleser]

24. Nope, I was discussing the rule and what it means. nt

[Cha]

25. Kick.. thank you, Steven

[David__77]

26. The tone of some of the emails strikes me as unprofessional.

I don't really care about the rule very much.

[still_one]

27. A very good explanation of the situation, and its appreciated. This won't stop the Hillary

and DNC haters.

Nothing in those emails showed actual interference by the DNC

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/24/politics/dnc-email-leak-wikileaks/index.html

but that doesn't matter to those with a mob mentality. It is like the "Hillary indictment" falsehoods, and misreporting that the media participated in, which started with the NY Times, when they misreported that Hillary was being investigated for a criminal indictment.

This is the same medium that told us there were WMDs in Iraq, that the SC ruled the ACA unConstitutional, that Gabby Giffords was killed, and a lot of other false reports which had to be retracted.

[BlueMTexpat]

32. Actually, the results ...

DWS's resignation ... have only encouraged them.

[Hekate]

28. Kick and Rec

[treestar]

35. K&R

Bernie himself did not feel so entitled. And he had access to the lists of voters and all privileges of a candidate and he had just joined the party? And isn't he leaving it after the election? Why should the DNC bow down to Bernie. They expected the DNC to literally change any small detail they thought would give Bernie an advantage.

[Evergreen Emerald]

37. Thank you! I was going to post the same thing

You said it much better than I did.

Talking shit about someone, albeit not work appropriate, is not giving a leg up to the other candidate. DWS did nothing to favor Clinton. The Russian Dump discloses that someone suggested something stupid (and inappropriate) and it was immediately shut down.

For the media, like whirling dervishes, to escalate these stupid e-mails to the idea of DWS actively attempting to sway the election, is incorrect, and frankly irresponsible. Dang the establishment media hates Cinton.

[JCanete]

40. The posts suggest that she was willing and able to tip the scales.

Your characterizations are pretty dubious. Saying that his very legitimate criticisms have amounted to "25 years of attacking" the same party that he has always caucused with is over the top. Also, suggesting that his running as a democrat was entirely cynical rather than a respectful gesture to the democratic party--had he run third party he would surely have handed the presidency over to the GOP--is also not a very generous read.

I do agree with you about Debbie's poor opinion of Sanders,and frankly, it sounds like you as an insider take the same point of view, if your post is any indication. How dare anybody criticize the great work these people are doing? How dare anybody try to undo what they've built? Don't they understand what good work is being done? Don't they understand how sausage gets made? I agree, there is nothing not genuine about who she thinks should be the next President, because Hillary is her kind of politician.

But it was still shady. What is the point of pretending that you are impartial if you aren't going to act impartial? I can tell you the effects. Plenty of people have been saying ad nauseum that the DNC welcomed Bernie in with open arms as result of that pretense. They've continued, as you have done, to laugh off any charges of gaming the system in Clinton's favor, and the fact that you say you "can't see it" when it comes to the debate schedule is pretty astonishing to us who do see it. Why don't you explain how something like that might happen then? Its weird that as soon as Hillary thought she needed some more debates that we suddenly had them.

and I find it interesting that you bring back up the DNC servers, because at the time many of us were really fucking cynical about how that went down, not because we thought nobody in the Sanders campaign could do no wrong, but because we couldn't put it past the DNC leadership. The Sanders team apparently reported the ability to access the files and nothing was done. So some idiot or idiots on his campaign got too temped and looked at it, but it was one of those things that felt very much like a dirty trick, and it doesn't feel less likely after these email revelations now does it?

Fuck dude, it isn't about what's provable, its about what she has demonstrated she is willing to do, which muddies a lot of waters, and doesn't make us confident in our party's leadership.

And what was Bernie supposed to do to repair the relationship? What would have been accepted as reparations? Not criticizing the DNC? Not campaigning on principles that the DNC has clearly abandoned or never adopted, thus sweeping those inconvenient truths under the rug, because they made them sad? Flowers?

[stevenleser]

41. "Suggest that she was willing and able?" That isn't close to proof.

The rest of what you wrote doesn't make up for that problem.

[JCanete]

42. So I wouldn't try her for it in a court of law. The ability to trust our leaders isn't

important to you?