PeterZ wrote:Eyal,
Upon reflection you are correct the DNC staffers didn't materially aide Clinton vs. Sanders. They simply showed the poor grace of rooting for her in a manner that could be made public. She beat Sanders fair and square. She went on to lose to Trump fair and square.
I disagree that she articulated her policies well. Too often in debates she spent time attacking Trump as unfit, having poor judgement and regaling us on his with all the his statements she deemed damning. Addressing policy issues she referred the voters to her website. Of course, she may well have articulated her policies with sufficiently clarity. If true, this argues the past 8 years of Obama were being repudiated by most people in the US who didn't live in big cities.
No matter how you look at it, she did not read the electorate well. She read them so poorly, she accepted a strategy personal attack and spent a fortune on paid media. Stepped into his wheelhouse and turned the election into an insult contest where both candidates were hammered into tarnished personalities. That equalized each in the view of the average undecided/independent/largely non-political voter outside the big cities.
Oh, there were a lot of things she could have done better, don't get me wrong. But arguing the media was on her propaganda arms certainly doesn't fit how policy issues were given almost no play throughout the elections (and some other things)
gcomeau wrote:Second, they launched coordinated media campaigns to convince Sanders voters that their vote wouldn't matter because Clinton had too commanding a delegate lead from day one... by counting Super Delegates. Which according to DNC rules are uncommitted to any candidate until the convention. Rigging the process.
Skipping the debates question as I don't know enough about it.
The DNC
asked media outlets not to mention the superdelegate count along with the delegate count, a request the media ignored. On the other hand, are you arguing that superdelegates should be forbidden from expressing their preference beforehand?
Third, they launched "Victory Fund" fundraisers which were claimed to be raising money for down ticket candidates and thus not subject to donation limits on Clinton's campaign.... then took the VAST bulk of that money and redirected it into spending that directly materially aided Clinton's campaign in a manner which frankly stretched the bounds of campaign finance laws. Rigging the process.
While I can't speak to the finance law issue, ISTR a similar joint fund being established for the Sanders campaign, but they didn't make use of it.
Fourth, they then launched another media campaign sending people out to attack Sanders for NOT helping down ticket because he didn't participate in that scam. Rigging the process.
There were actual down ticket runner who were aligned with Sanders and were complaining about his lack of support. Sanders did fairly little to support downticket races which is fairly important in the role he was seeking (as an aside - politically, it's arguably better for the Democrats that they lost the Presidential election, given that they failed to flip the Senate).
Without the constant rigging interference it is very likely the entire momentum of the primary would have been different from day one and Sanders would have won, then crushed Trump in a head to head anti-establishment campaign only with Sanders campaign not being run by an ignorant narcissistic zenophobic bigot who liked to brag about getting away with being a sexual predator.
But no, Clinton got foisted on the electorate instead. Trump's one chance at winning. And then we ended up here.
Sanders lost by 3 million voters. His supporters kept talking about his momentum but he was trailing for almost all of the primaries. That's not a close race by any means (and the delegate gap would have been even bigger if not for caucuses - which have no equivalent in the general).
Nor do I think that it's inevitable Sanders would have won. Just like Clinton was unpalatable to some of his supporters, he was unpalatable to some of hers. And by the time Trump's smear machine got through with him, he'd be painted as an anti-American, rape-supporting communist who dumped nuclear waste on poor Hispanics (among other things).
