Donna is trying to pass the buck. It may have been that way but she seems to be trying extra hard to exonerate herself

The dnc.

Bad bad woman I guess.

I've always suspected Brazile was a drama queen. The purple prose in that article confirms it. If she had a point to make, she didn't have to use the OMG OMG OMG format.

That PROVES there was corruption. Even if there isn't anything that really calls for investigation....

Last edited Thu Nov 2, 2017, 05:19 PM - Edit history (1)

try to resuscitate her career by trashing our party -- in THESE times, when Democrats are the one big force battling to preserve our government of, by and for the people?

Both political parties have become very weak as power has become diffused, but I don't believe for a moment that our party would have collapsed under debt if Hillary hadn't stepped in and saved it. Honorably. As the only strong candidate, and as this indicates an extremely strong one, she was Obama's successor, and everyone knew it.

Everyone knew from the beginning that there was zero chance of any of the unprepared competitors, who had virtually no support from the thousands of Democratic power bases around the nation, winning. One did better than expected, but at least 15% of that vote was spoiler vote from conservatives who had smirked as they voted against our future candidate and had no intention of voting for any Democrat in November. Pew measured percentages of "genuine" supporters for that reason.

And Brazile is plain lying that her travels around the nation found anything different from the final result: That Hillary won by the nomination by a far larger margin than reported. Her official majority of nearly 4 million Democrats wasn't counted against just the opponent's genuine supporters but against the total vote for the opponent, including millions of conservative spoiler voters. Democrats chose Hillary as their candidate by far more than just a 4 million majority. And the other, who knew that as well as she and Pew, and exit pollers checking for the spoiler vote, then tried to take the nomination by fiat by asking superdelegates to set aside the Democratic membership's choice and appoint the loser the winner, but they all refused. Of course.

But it broke Brazile's heart.

NOW I"m wondering more than ever what the true story about Brazile's supposed passing of debate questions to Hillary was. I always questioned the whole thing because she was far too far ahead to risk her lead with this shabby nonsense and because I never believed Hill needed that information in the least. She could recite her position on the death penalty in her sleep, in 15-second, 2-minute, and 7-minute versions, or far longer if appropriate.

Why did Brazile do it?

Corruption? For sure, Ehrnst. And given the context of this election, Brazile should be investigated to make sure she wasn't conspiring in illegal and unethical activities to throw this election. The Russians are almost a minor note drawing attention away from the huge forces pulling the strings of the GOP.

She won't, not by the feds, anyway, but let's definitely watch to see who she aligns with and who pays her in future.

them when these people are busy?

They would be out there VERY quickly to shut it down.

Too many were fooled in 2016 by attempts by anti-democrat radicals to hide themselves among more liberal types. Among the unrepentant 10% or so were some so angry at losing that they were willing to turn the nation over to the archconservative, dark money forces behind Trump and Pence. They seemingly still are, and there's nothing liberal about any of it.

and PACs for Hillary's election loaned them the money to get out of the hole, is that money from states coming back into her PACs the repayment of that loan? Or was it a gift? I read the entire article and it makes no sense. It even says that Bernie wasn't particularly concerned about the agreement and that he was aware of it. So where's the issue? Sounds like Brazille opened a can of worms for nothing... but maybe it will sell a lot of books.

It's all about the link bait. I'm still wondering where the proof is of anything.

You can call that a shrewd business arrangement in the political realm or you can call it making a mockery of the stated position of neutrality in regards to candidates that the DNC publicly claimed to uphold.

The DNC was in fiscal distress, and Hillary drove a hard bargain to bail it out. It made sense to her at the time. Even in August of 2015 she already presumed she would be the Democratic Party nominee for President. So she was just taking control of the DNC a little earlier than she otherwise expected to. But in return for the bridge financing she was able to arrange for the DNC, she took effective control of it's operations. That would have been standard procedures if she had waited for the nomination to be in hand. She thought it was, but in reality, as it turned out, it wasn't. The only problem is that the Democratic Party represented to the world, ito t's members, and all of its donors, big and small, that it was an honest broker, and that the Democratic Nomination for President for the 2016 campaign was not pre-determined but would be decided through the primary process with all candidates receiving fair treatment with no favorites being given behind the scenes advantages.

"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."

...When you have an open contest without an incumbent and competitive primaries, the party comes under the candidate’s control only after the nominee is certain. When I was manager of Gore’s campaign in 2000, we started inserting our people into the DNC in June. This victory fund agreement, however, had been signed in August 2015, just four months after Hillary announced her candidacy and nearly a year before she officially had the nomination."

Earlier in Donna's piece she revealed:

"Yet the states kept less than half of 1 percent of the $82 million they had amassed from the extravagant fund-raisers Hillary’s campaign was holding, just as Gary had described to me when he and I talked in August. When the Politico story described this arrangement as “essentially … money laundering” for the Clinton campaign, Hillary’s people were outraged at being accused of doing something shady...."


So Hillary got to handle over 81 million and the states less than 1 million, from a pool that in the past was set aside for both the states and the eventual winner of the nomination. In return for that, and also for full operational control of the DNC throughout the entire nominating process, the DNC was fronted twnety million by Hillary's people:


"That was the deal that Robby struck with Debbie,” he explained, referring to campaign manager Robby Mook. “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.”

We can disagree on whether or not Hillary's campaign did anything "wrong" in the process.

When you are trying to keep the White House after two consecutive terms, you need to start at least two years in advance.

That includes the finances.

Yes, she was the presumed nominee - which is why Benghazi was investigated.

Anyone who knew anything about national elections, especially those who planned to run, would have known this was the situation.

To clutch pearls about it is disingenuous.

But as with virtually all things, there is never only one option forward. I do not accept that the only way for the Democratic Party to prepare in order to hold the White House in 2016 was to unite behind Hillary Clinton's campaign early, before Democratic Party members had a chance to cast a single primary ballot. I also understand why it must have seemed like a mere technicality to get hung up over a process matter like that under the circumstances; Hillary was the heir apparent. From her perspective at the time it made sense to take over the party apparatus well before the nomination process for the Party's candidate had begun.

I am, and always have been, very process oriented. I do not believe in suspending normal democratic (that's small "d" democratic) procedures for the sake of expediency. The Democratic Party stands for bottom up representative government with all having equal rights and every vote being equal - not for back room deals with the then prevailing powerful interests. I also do not believe in benevolent dictatorships for example, no matter how noble a theoretical leader may be.

Even the most well grounded assumptions remain assumptions. The Republican Party establishment for the longest time assumed that Jeb Bush would be the Republican nominee for President if he decided to run. No one assumed that Donald Trump would be. Partially because they were enamored with their own assumptions, they were unable to respond to changing political winds and deal with the rise of Trump politics effectively. The Democratic establishment assumed for years that Hillary would be our candidate in 2016. They also assumed that Democratic primary voters would overwhelmingly approve of that choice. The DNC betrayed its ideals for political expediency, and then lost.

two years in advance would not have worked, and I would have agreed with them. From all the screaming that I have seen about how the Democrats need to win elections at the expense of certain platform planks, one would think that they would want the Democrats to go more Machiavellian in the pursuit of a win.

"Small d" democracy doesn't apply across campaigns and even representative government. For example - caucuses and the Senate. Not to mention the electoral college.

And it turned out that the DNC was absolutely right in that HRC was the overwhelming choice of party voters, and won the popular vote in the General.

Not seeing what ideals the DNC betrayed, or how they "lost" - certainly not the popular vote.

I consider our disagreement to be a respectful one. You say " HRC was the overwhelming choice of party voters". First off, that's moving the goal post I believe, if your intention is to distinguish between registered Democrats and those who legally participated in the Democratic Party primaries and caucuses. The latter category is the one that the Democratic Party bases it's nomination upon.However, even if you chose to separate out registered Democrats from Independents voting in our primaries - then you could reasonably say that Hillary was the "clear choice" - but IMO, not the "overwhelming choice".

The DNC lost in the same way that America lost. It failed to swear in the Democratic candidate as the next President of the United States. That's the bottom line. There are many reasons for that, and Hillary would have won a fair fight, but that is still the bottom line. Perhaps another candidate would have kept Trump out of the White House. We will never know so that part is pointless to relitigate. The process we use in the future though remains relevant. But a more transparent even handed process might have brought a candidate stronger than Sanders into the race against Hillary early in the process.

I am a strong believer in the primary process, over back room deals designed to grease the skids for heir apparents.

The ideals compromised start with basic honesty. The DNC claimed to be an unbiased referee facilitating a fair and open nominating process. Meanwhile Hillary's team held sole veto power over DNC staffing, strategy and communications decisions.

So no, that wasn't moving the goalpost.

"Meanwhile Hillary's team held sole veto power over DNC staffing, strategy and communications decisions."

From Brazile:

Hillary wasn't the overwhelming choice of primary season voters no matter how defined.

I answered your quoted excerpt below in reply to another of your posts. I'll put that reply here as well:

That quote you included was her progress report (of her process of discovery): "I had done this, and then I had done that", as in "so far so good". Later she found the contract that forms the basis for the chapter Brazille ultimately wrote.

And she found no evidence of rigging, and those facts didn't change once she found out about the joint agreement.

Did she suddenly go back and find different evidence, not there before, that indicated rigging? Documents that she didn't find that contradicted what she found before, etc?

If so, where was that?

She never said, I believe, whether or not she ultimately found evidence of "rigging". Here is what Brazille did say however:

"The funding arrangement with HFA and the victory fund agreement was not illegal, but it sure looked unethical. If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead. This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party’s integrity."

As to 15%, we will disagree. O'Malley was "overwhelmed" by the vote count - not Sanders who won over 13 million votes. Keep in mind that, among Democrats at least, Hillary Clinton entered the nominating contest as the second most celebrated politician in America - after Barack Obama, with early endorsements from half of Congressional Democrats. Sanders was virtually unknown. This is as far as I will venture down this particular discussion path. Hillary was the victor in the primaries. I supported her for President

And this is from August 2015, (NOTE: This is not rehashing the primary insofar as the OP is talking about these things as being "secret" until Brazile "discovered" the agreement.)

Clinton got more votes than Sanders. She beat him 55 to 43.

The DNC did not raise money for her or organize volunteers for her. They did not scare donors or volunteers away from Bernie Sanders. The states ran the primaries, and decided their rules, not the DNC. The state parties, not the DNC, ran the caucuses--where Bernie cleaned up. The more control the Democratic Party had over the process, the better Bernie Sanders did.

The DNC wasn't refereeing anything, the states and state parties were.

I know Bernie thought the debate schedule was unfair--but so did Hillary Clinton in 2008. And I doubt he would trade the 2016 schedule for the 2008 schedule. He got debates during the primaries when he most needed them.

Bernie lost because he got clobbered among minorities and because a lot of people didn't want to vote for a candidate who identified himself by the word socialist.

Look on the bright side: the 2020 debate schedule will almost certainly be designed in a way that best validates your historical narrative. Sanders supporters will insist on it.

"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."

Ant that is more than enough to create an impression of partiality if not a reality of partiality. Hillary's team was the victim of illegal hacking. Contracts like that cited above can give illegal hackers ammunition to work with.

Or a lot, depending on your perspective, I guess:

I also posted these here: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029783278#post432

And letting the primaries play out organically?

What was there to lose by respecting the right of primary voters to have an ACTUAL say in the nominating process?

HRC won the nomination...I believe she would have done so without the DNC acting as if no one else should even be in the race, and without acting as if the ideas and activists of the Sanders movement(whatever one thinks of Bernie as a candidate or as a person-the ideas were always popular and were never inseparable from the shortcomings of the candidate) had no real support and no legitimate place in our process.

As to needing the extra time...we elected Obama with majority popular support in 2008, and the nomination there wasn't settled until June. Why couldn't we have done that this time? HRC was and is a formidable person-why assume she could only be elected if the primaries were free from any real debate? I think she was always capable of winning on the merits in a real contest, and without anyone on our side of the spectrum being silenced.

Anyone have the $$$ numbers he pitched in?

It's not about money, it's about inclusion...inclusion of ALL the voters we needed if we were to win, and inclusion of the ideas that rose to be part of the discussion.

If we're going to be a party where the DNC essentially decides who the nominee is before the primaries and caucuses happen, there's no reason for the primaries and caucuses even to occur.

And if we're going to be that party...what do we do if(and let me make it exceedingly clear that this didn't happen this time, but the potential has been there in other situations)"the presumed" is discredited by some sort of horrible disclosure late in the game? What if, for example, John Edwards had become "the presumed", and then everybody else had essentially been pushed out early, and then the stories about him had hit at the time they did hit(which was right before the convention, and fortunately long after he had withdrawn)? Would we have a "backup presumed" waiting for such an eventuality, and who would designate who that backup would be?

This is precisely why we NEED "small-d democracy"-the only way to be sure we're going where we should be going is to give the rank-and-file, the activists, the base a REAL say in who is chosen. The people who vote for us regularly and the people who do most of the work of electing Democrats have common sense and a good eye for what's needed. We're better off trusting them then we are trusting "the pros".

The current slam today is that Hillary bailed out the DNC and infused money to keep it going. Does Bernie get equal access to that without contributing money himself? I guess if you're going to make it about money and access for one, then you should make it about money and access for the other.

At the time the bailout occurred, was Bernie even in the race at the point of the bailout? Was it fair to expect him to contribute to the bailout if he wasn't and if(as it seems obvious) he simply didn't have anywhere near the equivalent amount of funds to contribute

And what should a potential candidate making such a bailout be entitled to from the DNC in exchange?

Do we want to set a precedent for future campaigns in which a candidate can buy presumptive nominee status in exchange for financial considerations?

If we go there, in what sense will we still be the DEMOCRATIC party? How can we be worthy of that name if we establish a convention in which the demos is denied any direct voice in who we nominate?

edit: if you are running to be the leader of a party but do nothing to contribute to its continuity and expansion, then how much should you criticize others who work towards those goals.

It's about the process.

The 2016 primaries are over and the outcome of those primaries cannot be reversed. We're past that now.

Let's look at the implications of this for the future, the only point in time we can still influence:

If we're going to say that a candidate who can afford to make a huge donation to the party gets some sort of preferential treatment in the nominating process and possibly gains control of the entire party in exchange for a period of time, that means we are no longer democratic in the small-c sense. That means that there is no reason to hold presidential primaries or caucuses or delegate selection at state conventions, because the whole thing will be decided in advance. That means there will be no reason ever to hold another national convention, because a convention at which everything will be a pre-determined formality, at which there can be no debate or discussion, in the run-up to which nobody other than the nominee will have any say about the platform, is pointless. Nothing that matters can happen at such an event, and no one would have any reason to watch or attend such an event.

As to your question:

I don't know how much money Bernie contributed...HRC is massively wealthier than he is on a personal level, so she would always be able to provide more financial help. But is financial contribution the only thing that matters now?

Are we just going to create a culture in this party where we say "only multimillionaires can run for our presidential nomination"?

As to Bernie's contribution...I'd say he brought a massive number of new people into the political process and created the conditions in which those people would see this party as a place where they could play a meaningful role and work for what they believed in. If we don't have all of those people working for us now, it's because there's been a concerted effort to keep the Sanders-Clinton rivalry from ending and a lot of those people are being treated as untrustable outsiders who can't be assumed to be against institutional bigotry or social oppression and strongly pro-choice, even though the prohibitive majority of people on this side of the spectrum center those issues, while also centering economic justice.

endeavor, so where does the line get drawn that one candidate can benefit from a system to which he hasn't contributed while using that same benefit as leverage to clobber his opponent. Didn't he make a choice to keep his donations and email list to himself? At some point, there is practicality to it all like keeping operations going and actually fighting the GOP, not just fight with our own party over who is more pure.

And it wasn't a "huge donation", or "massive wealth" -- it was a lifetime investment of time and energy into the Democratic party. People shouldn't have to feel bad or dirty because they worked within the system as we know it.

Basically, all these so-called complaints against the DNC have turned out to be pretty empty and superficial. Certainly not worth the damage/cost to our party that it wound up being, and certainly not worth a Republican having control over the Treasury to disperse to his cronies.

Funny damn bailout when she was the primary recipient:

I've never seen any good come from the party putting any candidate in "presumed" status.

We did that in the run-up to '72 with Ed Muskie.
We did that in the run-up to '84 with Walter Mondale.
We did that in the run-up to '88 with Michael Dukakis.
We did that in the run-up to '00 with Al Gore.
We did that in the run-up to '04 with John Kerry.

Not a particularly good series of result from all of that presuming.

It doesn't work to try to settle the nomination before anybody votes, to try to make the nominating process into a mere formality.

We are the DEMOCRATIC Party. We should trust democracy and let the process play out organically, without trying to privilege any candidate over any others and without trying to force anybody out of the race.

And I think Hillary would have been nominated anyway had we done that, and would have come out of Philly with a more unified party, and would have won the votes she needed to win in the places she needed to win.

We had a excellent nominee-it's just that the process didn't end up doing her any favors.

Is she suppose to wait until bernie tells her she is the nominee before she can continue on with her candidacy as the nominee.

I mean, if you want to get into what is and is not "democracy" we could talk about caucuses. All day. But caucuses are a part of a democracy, yes?


The population of Delaware has the same voice as the entire state of California in the Senate - and that is still "democracy," yes?

So, no, starting a campaign in 2014 when a party needs a campaign to start in 2014 isn't "anti-democracy."

It's common wisdom to keep the WH after two consecutive terms. And all the candidates knew that Hillary was the front runner, and that the campaign needed to have started in 2014.

Hell, I knew that.

The only thing "bad" described is the use of the DNC, before she had the nomination, to raise money for her campaign. She would raise money for the DNC that would then get moved over to use for her campaign. It isn't clear if that money was sequestered for the general election, or whether it was usable during the primary.

But really, mostly this is a statement about the DNC, Debbie, and the Obama administrations neglect of the party. I suspect a bit of digging would demonstrate that they were far more focused on OFA than the DNC. Hillary came along and found a party structure in collapse and rescued it, and in the process took it over.

It does confirm however that the DNC was under the control of HRC during the primaries and all decisions had to flow through Brooklyn. In essence the DNC was bought and paid for by the campaign very early on in the primary. Something that was asserted for months during the campaign. It also suggests, without being stated, that she had control before the debate schedule was decided. Basically, it confirms that the DNC was "in the bag" for HRC the whole time, which is what the general assertion was.

Quite honestly, it kinda doesn't put Donna and the rest of the DNC officers in much of a positive light either. This had been going on for more than a year and none of them knew anything. Not exactly alot of oversight on their part.

That's standard for keeping the WH after two consecutive terms - you have to get the machinery going at least two years in advance, because of the statistics against keeping it for longer.

ANYONE who ran in 2016 would have known that.

This arrangement was exceptional. Money being raised ostensibly for the DNC was being controlled by the campaign well before the first primary. The only way the campaign could legally raise that kind of money was through the party. Donna doesn't really explain it in detail, but it would be interesting to know if any of the other campaigns could have arranged something similar. I can guarantee they couldn't control the party.

The real "fall guy" here is the Administration. They should have been doing much of the planning and fundraising you describe. The fact that HRC showed up and did instead merely shows that she was much more engaged.

to the end that Sanders was "cheated" as Brazile implies.

She did control the party. As such, the debate schedule, and any press releases from the party had to be cleared by her first. Also, she had alot of say over how much DNC money went to the states during the primaries and for what uses. I think that Bernie was mostly validated by what he was told. Not sure he would have used the word "cheated". But it's not a bad description of the deception that was going on.

Where did you see that?

She saved the parties finances, and there was no evidence, at least according to Brazile of any rigging the primary: