so opted for waiting for more facts to come to light.

Why would he lie?

I believe that he was used to working with issue-based campaigns (as am I) and needed to be briefed on some sort of "rules of engagement" as far as campaigns w/ political candidates.

do you mean? Can you give me an example without giving away any confidential or harmful personal information?

I do know that as an activist in my state, I keep running into the same people. I see the same people as paid campaign managers and staffers. I see the same volunteers. It is not that hard to believe that Bernie's data manager worked for VAN and had a history with the DNC. He would not be a properly qualified person to work on a Democratic campaign at a high level if he had not had that type of prior experience.

What would there be about an issues-based campaign would make the rules different? Snooping someone else's data, no matter what type of campaign is going on, is not acceptable!

Trying to get people to write to Congress about things or persuading to donate to issue organizations or in general trying to build support for political ideas, rather than about identifying voters and get people to the polls.

Just a guess.

Last edited Sun Dec 27, 2015, 05:09 AM - Edit history (1)

IIRC, he worked on a couple of candidate campaigns in Philly but the bulk of his work was with labor issues...that's stuff that is publically accessible.

EDIT: As a somewhat lowly volunteer data entry person, I worked with the VAN system before on an issues based campaign. Based on that and some of the data that I entered, I suspect that there's even some Republican info in the VAN system, based on the fact that some Republicans agreed with a issue primarily associated with democrats (in my case, the issue was marriage equality).

Even though I chose option 4, I do have a theory as to what went on here, at least in the initial stages...part of that theory is that some people decided to go all the way to Defcon5 with the issue and everything at this point is simply political posturing.

trash that fired data director (who is probably being shit upon because he is COOPERATING with the investigators) I'm starting to think this goes higher.

I still don't think Sanders knew or had anything to do with it. DWS had to TELL him what was going on--his own staff was trying to keep it from him.

any way you slice it. And from what I've seen of this and earlier campaigns he is no stranger to deception.

about that whole ugliness (when caught with hands in cookie jar, accuse baker of making cookies too delicious to resist...or something).

This bullshit, though--this is starting to stink a bit.

If that national data manager guy is cooperating with the investigation, that would explain why some people might not want his version of events to get out, especially if he was ordered to do stuff by higher ups.

We know that he made several accounts to access the material--only two people have been let go besides the data director, and there were at least five accounts with access....!

with the camera aimed at Hillary's face for her reaction, which as far as I could tell was mild surprise. Then the ABC web feed cut out for a minute and when it came back they were onto another subject.

Which suggests to me that Bernie has been on the case since at least October and can't plausibly pretend that he was out of the loop.

The VAN people said WTF? for good reason--it had nothing to do with them.

Further, that Uretsky guy didn't sound any alarms, or tell the DNC anything--they caught him rooting around. No one told Sanders, either. The DNC had to give him the bad news.

I think the reason they're trying to diss Uretsky so bad is that, even after he tried to put a good face on his data theft, even after he took the hit and slunk away, fired, even as he continued to try to tamp down the flames, his OWN people--his campaign--is throwing him under the bus AGAIN.

Which makes the rumor that he is cooperating with the investigation all the more plausible. If this is true, who will HE throw under the bus? Who will he HE claim told him to grab that data? Hmmmm....

Sanders apologized to Clinton at the debate and apologized to his supporters, and said that wasn't the kind of campaign he ran, or words to that effect.

They're trying to minimize the damage to the campaign and their candidate's image. The lawsuit is a distraction from that. The conspiracy theories are a distraction from that.

Unfortunately, it also makes the Sanders campaign look very weak. They should be spending all of their time & energy getting their supporters out to vote in Iowa & New Hampshire. They're spending it on a meaningless lawsuit instead.

They do appear weak/whiney, though. It doesn't make sense to me--unless their National Data Director is spilling some beans to the people doing the audit, or something. In that case, it would be important to try and tarnish him before any findings came out.

From all reports, though, he was an enthused Sanders supporter from the get - go, so that might be a tough sell. I wonder how devoted he is now, with all those tire tracks decorating his carcass after being tossed under that public conveyance not once, but twice!

Of course it was still a theft. If I leave. my door unlocked, the robber who takes my stuff doesn't get a pass because of my carelessness.

That's all.

Number 3 is a possibility so we need an investigation to find out. There are too many coincidences that do not look good. But, they are all explainable so they don't look like actual evidence either, just probably cause to investigate. I will wait for more information before saying any it was definitely option 2 or it was option 3.

jumped at the chance to exploit it. Sanders et al had nothing to do with it and dumped the people who did.

Tales of the "high ranking" adviser charging HRC and DWS conspired against Bernie are, I believe, largely bullshit.

As to fears of a "conspiracy" against Bernie I doubt there is one, at least not one directly involving HRC. She has no need to take part in any sort of conspiracy. There are enough people invested in her drive for the White House that all of that stuff can happen without any direct involvement by her. It's like the English king talking about Thomas More and asking, rhetorically, if there was no one who would remove that pesky cleric.

Certainly Senator Warren was seen as a much more potent threat than Senator Sanders and once she more or less removed herself from the race the left was seen as largely impotent and easily dismissed.

Possibly a big mistake. Possibly one that the Clinton campaign can't come back from.

We will see.

By the way, I have found my DU experience much more relaxing and pleasant now that i have discovered how easy it is to block posts from people I don't want to hear from.