When excerpts from Donna Brazile’s books were released that suggested that Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton signed different fund raising contacts with the DNC I was not shocked. The narrative validated the circumstantial evidence already in the public domain and played into my own confirmation bias of how the democratic primary played out.
[Gary Gensler, the chief financial officer of Hillary’s campaign] described the [DNC] as fully under the control of Hillary’s campaign, which seemed to confirm the suspicions of the Bernie camp … Individuals who had maxed out their $2,700 contribution limit to the campaign could write an additional check for $353,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund—that figure represented $10,000 to each of the 32 states’ parties who were part of the Victory Fund agreement—$320,000—and $33,400 to the DNC. The money would be deposited in the states first, and transferred to the DNC shortly after that. Money in the battleground states usually stayed in that state, but all the other states funneled that money directly to the DNC, which quickly transferred the money to Brooklyn.
“Wait,” I said. “That victory fund was supposed to be for whoever was the nominee, and the state party races. You’re telling me that Hillary has been controlling it since before she got the nomination?”
Gary said the campaign had to do it or the party would collapse.
“That was the deal that Robby struck with Debbie,” he explained, referring to campaign manager Robby Mook [and U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, then the chair of the DNC]. “It was to sustain the DNC. We sent the party nearly $20 million from September until the convention, and more to prepare for the election.”
[…]
I gasped … When we hung up, I was livid. Not at Gary, but at this mess I had inherited … It would be weeks before I would fully understand the financial shenanigans that were keeping the party on life support.
Brazile has since then (oh what a long two days) said that the excerpt is being construed wrongly and that both Sanders and Clinton had the same agreement in 2015. I remember when this event happened in April of 2016 and the Sanders campaign released a statement about the fund raising agreement. They brought up many of the concerns that are being expressed now again.
berniesanders.com/…
The financial disclosure reports on file with the Federal Election Commission indicate that the joint committee invested millions in low-dollar, online fundraising and advertising that solely benefits the Clinton campaign. The Sanders campaign “is particularly concerned that these extremely large-dollar individual contributions have been used by the Hillary Victory Fund to pay for more than $7.8 million in direct mail efforts and over $8.6 million in online advertising” according to the letter to the DNC. Both outlays benefit the Clinton presidential campaign “by generating low-dollar contributions that flow only to HFA [Hillary for America] rather than to the DNC or any of the participating state party committees.”
The questionable outlays “have grown to staggering magnitudes” and “can no longer be ignored,” Deutsch added.
The expenditures on advertising and fundraising are at best “an impermissible in-kind contribution from the DNC and the participating state party committees” to Clinton’s presidential campaign, the letter said. “At worst, using funds received from large-dollar donors who have already contributed the $2,700 maximum to HFA [Hillary for America] may represent an excessive contribution to HFA from these individuals.”
In addition, the joint committee has paid the Clinton campaign committee $2.6 million ostensibly to “reimburse” the Clinton presidential campaign staff for time spent running the joint committee. The unusual arrangement, Deutsch said, “raises equally serious concerns that joint committee funds, which are meant to be allocated proportionally among the participating committees, are being used to impermissibly subsidize HFA through an over-reimbursement for campaign staffers and resources.”
Beyond the arrangement that the Clinton campaign had with the DNC and the fact that Sanders decided to sign the contract anyway; regardless of the questionable financial arrangements — the word in question is “rigged”.
Rigged.
What does rigged mean? Does it mean electioneering? Does it mean cheating? Does it mean the whole system is corrupt? I’d wager one of the reasons there is so much consternation regarding the use of a “rigged primary” or a “rigged system” is because words are fungible and have subjective definitions that are not universally accepted.
The same could be said about the use of the word “establishment”. Establishment only references the political power in control at the current time. You would be shocked at how many people don’t understand that basic concept and its implications that you can rail against the current establishment as an outsiders and then you can become the establishment when you gain political power. That is how Bernie Sanders was able to authentically claim to be an outsider despite spending over thirty years in Washington because the democratic wing of the democratic party of which Sanders leads has not been in power for forty years.
When I think of how the “system was rigged” against Bernie Sanders in the primary I don’t automatically blame Clinton. Sanders attempted to articulate a hundred times during the primary, in nearly every early interview, that he was not railing against Clinton personally, but that she represented establishment politics and was endemic of the current political establishment. Not the nebulous “establishment” that hippy punchers like to make hay of when decrying reform.
What does rigged mean to me and other people?
www.nytimes.com/...
1. Rigged means that Donald Trump got between 2 — 5 billion dollars in free advertising in the media throughout the entire primary season. Cable news channels — who are owned by republicans gave Donald Trump billions of dollars of free advertising and broadcast his hate rallies non-stop. Going so far as to film empty podiums as “awaiting Donald Trump” as Sanders addressed tens of thousands at the same time in arenas. The media could not stop salivating about what “crazy” outrage Donald Trump would spew next while ignoring the Sanders campaign and to an extent the Clinton campaign.
www.mediamatters.org/...
2. While Trump was getting all of this free attention at the time Sanders got less than 1 minute of news coverage for the entire year on network TV.
Does that ratio seem out of whack? That's the ratio of TV airtime that ABC World News Tonight has devoted to Donald Trump's campaign (81 minutes) versus the amount of TV time World News Tonight has devoted to Bernie Sanders' campaign this year. And even that one minute for Sanders is misleading because the actual number is closer to 20 seconds.
For the entire year.
3. The media reporting on super-delegates was horrendous and unethical. In every screen count of delegates that flashed on TV in peoples homes the media (CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC) included the super-delegate count along with the pledged delegate count giving the impression that the lead Clinton had was insurmountable before any votes were cast. That certainly gave the impression that the campaign was “rigged” since it was not something that was done in the 2007 contest before Clinton and Obama.
www.nydailynews.com/...
Not on a hot mic or during a commercial break, but live on the air, Luis Miranda, in no uncertain terms, told Jake Tapper that the media should not be including them. Miranda said, "One of the problems is the way the media reports them. Any night that you have a primary or caucus, and the media lumps the superdelegates in, that they basically polled by calling them up and saying who are you supporting, they don't vote until the convention, and so they shouldn't be included in any count."
Beyond Donna Brazile’s passage in her book it’s important to understand why there are so many bitter feelings about the 2016 primary among my generation (millennial) and why it is easy to accept what they feel is true about how the contest was waged by not only just the campaigns, but the media. You can’t separate the Clinton campaign and the way the establishment media arranged coverage. Peoples brains don’t work that way. We know that people draw associations and pair events together.
11 seconds for an entire year? Sure you can argue that Sanders was getting his message out online and thus explains his massive support among those under 30 but let’s be real.
When I was going door to door in NY asking for people to support Sanders in the primary one of the rationals for voting for Clinton that I heard the most was that “I support his ideas but he can never win. Look at the delegate count.”
Would fairer allocation of time and resources have given Sanders the ability to overcome Clinton’s commanding 4 million vote win in the primary? Doubtful, given that Clinton had spent the last twenty years running for president and building allies in state parties. I can only speculate that Sanders strategy of spending so much time in NH and Iowa was wrong and that he should have continued on his tour in southern states rather than ceding them as unwinnable.
I’m not going to talk about the debate schedule since it’s well known that DWS set up all of our debates on nights to garner the least amount of coverage like the Sunday of MLK Jr weekend since apparently Christmas Eve was booked but the perception that the primary was rigged lives on.
What can be done to change that perception?
1. Acknowledge that the networks were biased against Sanders and Clinton.
2. Acknowledge that the DNC was not a neutral arbiter between the two candidates and that reform is/was needed.
3. Acknowledge that the current establishment has no interest in getting money out of politics and that it’s one of the biggest problems the democratic party faces.
4. Stop saying it is “time to move on.” before people have had a chance to process and reflect. Honestly, a lot of what has been written here sounds like republicans offering prayers after a mass shooting and saying “Now is not the time for blah blah blah.” The time after something happens is ALWAYS the time to discuss it. Seize the day. Otherwise you are denigrating peoples feelings about the matter and further alienate them from your cause. I can fight fascists and at the same time recognize the problems within my own house. The two are not mutually exclusive.
I can punch Nazi’s and at the same time understand that money is a really corrupting influence.
I wrote this to further clarify where the idea of a “rigged primary” or “rigged system” comes from. Already progressives feel marginalized on everything from climate change, income inequality, civil rights, to economic justice.
The reality that Sanders said he would challenge the “establishment” on those issues was then marginalized and treated in a condescending manner by every serious person only made matters worse and fed the perception that Clinton was an out of touch elitist party insider who was activity trying to marginalize people who already feel powerless and without a voice.