Sanders is a good man who needs better advisers
I've said repeatedly that I think Bernie Sanders is a good man with good ideas. However, I'm increasingly convinced that he needs better advisers. In recent days, his advisers have refused to put the data breach story away, and struck an all-encompassing defensiveness. Unfortunately, this resulted in Sanders himself on Meet The Press repeating that his campaign did not seek out Clinton's confidential data-- a claim that Politifact rated Mostly False.
Now, at least one of them seems to have elevated the data breach issue to moon-landing-hoax territory, apparently suggesting that fired staffer Josh Uretsky was a plant by the evil DNC or NGP VAN.
Story from Yahoo! Politics
According to the adviser, one of the references that Uretsky gave when he applied to work with the campaign was the DNC’s National Data Director Andrew Brown, who works closely with the shared voter file program.
“Andrew Brown spoke to us and gave him a positive review, as did this guy Bryan Whitaker,” the adviser said.
...
Still, given what happened with the breach, the adviser suggested Brown’s recommendation of Uretsky could be evidence of a conspiracy.
“I don’t know how you can more centrally connect this thing than those two entities,” the adviser explained. “Here we are being attacked by both of those entities when, in fact, they recommended this guy to the campaign.”
Now, to be fair, I can read these quotes to simply mean that it's unfair to attack the Sanders campaign for hiring someone who came with good references from the DNC and NGP VAN. And references to a "conspiracy" might refer only to the DNC and NGP VAN wanting to help Clinton. (For what it's worth, I think many DNC officials want Clinton to win; however, it is unfair to attack NGP VAN.) But almost all responses to this article interpret this as claiming that Uretsky is a plant, including a very large number of Sanders supporters themselves on DU, DailyKos, Reddit, and other sites.
I personally think this kind of claim is absurd, and I'm astonished that a top Sanders official (not sure who, but most reporters seem to think it is Jeff Weaver), would say this to a journalist. I doubt very much that Sanders himself believes this, and I really hope he brings his advisers in line. He deserves a lot better.
= new reply since forum marked as read
to drop out of the race?
You wish.
Cuz they have nothing to hide!!
Oh, and the vendor says no critical data was exposed and nothing was 'taken'. But don't let that stop you from perpetuating this stuff that was debunked on December 18th by the president of VAN.
"In interviews conducted before the debate, Sanders ran closer to Clinton, with 37% support to Clinton's 45%. Among those interviewed after the debate, Clinton's lead grew to 60% vs. Sanders' 27%."
First he claimed the guy who was fired was a white hat. Now he's a double agent?
Maybe Weaver is a plant.
