Donna Brazil: DNC Was Deeply in Debt and In Hoc to the Clinton Campaign

[Cleopatra7]

If you had any questions that the outcome of the 2016 Democratic primaries was rigged, here’s your smoking gun, straight from Donna Brazil:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774

I can’t seem to quote on my phone, but the whole thing is quotable. It illustrates how dysfunctional the Democratic Party has been, and the rot didn’t just start in 2015 or 2016. Those of us who want real change need to look outside of the electoral system and the dead ends of both parties.

[formergothardite]

I think that after this past election both parties will pretty much have to start from scratch if they want to survive. 

[apple1]

18 hours ago, formergothardite said:

I think that after this past election both parties will pretty much have to start from scratch if they want to survive. 

I agree.

 

Now - back to the DNC-Clinton discussion. I admit I'm confused. Here's what I THINK I read:

- DNC was broke (in deep debt?)

- Both Clinton and Sanders signed joint fund-raising agreements (as had Obama in the past).

- Clinton raised money for DNC; Sanders did not.

- In return for bailing out the DNC, some (many) of Clinton's policies and wishes were followed by DNC.

- What exactly are we talking about here? Did I miss something? Brazile's narrative is very confusing to me.

- Apparently none of this bothered Brazile enough at the time that she found it necessary to resign. Funny timing, at the release of her book. Oh, besides it being all Clinton's fault, it's all Obama's fault, right?

_ ???? CONFUSED.

[Cleopatra7]

@apple1 this article helped me understand the intricacies about the situation:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16599036/donna-brazile-hillary-clinton-sanders

As for what Brazile’s long game is , that’s harder to understand. If the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is somehow triumphant, she could be positioning herself to get in on that. Or she may be tired of politics and may just want to cause as much destruction in her wake. Who knows? People at dailykos are complaining that this news is distracting from the GOP tax plan and the Russia investigations, but I think it’s never to early for the Democrats to start cleaning house.

[formergothardite]

I think the Democratic party needs to make it clear they won't tolerate shady shit, if they don't they are well on the way to being like the Republican party. The GOP has sold their souls and is turning a blind eye to everything, even the destruction of our country. I'm not even sure the republican party can be saved right now. 

I don't think Bernie would have beaten Hillary or Trump, but the DNC should have behaved in a fair way. They also need to get a handle on their budget so they aren't in this position again. 

[Zola]

So I was looking around and found this:

http://deepstatenation.com/primary-error-donna-brazile-mixed-up-two-different-clinton-dnc-agreements/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

and I don't know how valid the source is, but thought I'd mention it.

I'm really confused as to what really went on right about now.

[apple1]

I had read the Vox article and still found the whole mess confusing. I will read the link @Zola posted above as soon as I get a chance.

My instinct (which I admit might be wrong) says that Brazile has some self-interest thing going on. The timing sure is odd (and unfortunate).

And yes, both parties need to clean up their acts and get it together - for the sake of our nation.

And no, I don't think the Dem mess is even remotely in the same ball park as the Trump (I was gonna say Repub but changed my mind) mess. And there is a Repub mess that overlaps but is not the same as the Trump mess.

 

[OtterRuletheWorld]

I think in this regard, voters l decided the gig was up with the Clinton's a long time ago. Nobody really wanted more Clintonian politics, much like they didn't want more Bush. (Jeb!) There are issues with the GOP too, but that doesn't negate that a lot Democratic voters were clearly voting for someone else. Would he have beat Trump? We can argue back and forth about that all day, but a large majority of voters would have preferred him over Clinton and people were rightfully angry in this case. So many voters felt the Clinton's were corrupt.

[formergothardite]

21 minutes ago, OtterRuletheWorld said:

voters l decided the gig was up with the Clinton's a long time ago.

Well not exactly. More people voted for her than for Trump. The fact that more people chose Hillary with all her baggage over an overtly racist, asshole who bragged about sexually assaulting women gives me a tiny bit of hope for this country.  

21 minutes ago, OtterRuletheWorld said:

but a large majority of voters would have preferred him over Clinton

I"m not really sure how true that is. She won the nomination by a good bit. Even if none of the weird stuff with Hillary and the DNC was going on, it doesn't seem like Bernie would have won the nomination.

 

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/was-the-democratic-primary-a-close-call-or-a-landslide/

ETA: Whatever happened with the DNC and Hillary doesn't appear to be even slightly illegal. 

 

[OtterRuletheWorld]

I"m not really sure how true that is. She won the nomination by a good bit. Even if none of the weird stuff with Hillary and the DNC was going on, it doesn't seem like Bernie would have won the nomination.
 
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/was-the-democratic-primary-a-close-call-or-a-landslide/
ETA: Whatever happened with the DNC and Hillary doesn't appear to be even slightly illegal. 
 

Okay, a large number. I am not talking about the general election. I am talking about the primaries and many people who ended up voting for Clinton in the general, only did so because they felt they had to. Not because it is who they would have chosen at all. I am not even suggesting it is illegal...just that some Democrats were tired of the corruption within their own party.

It is a good thing that people were resistant to corruption. There is nothing wrong with that.

[formergothardite]

Here is an article about the agreement Hillary signed with the DNC back when it happened. It wasn't some hidden thing, so I"m not sure why Brazile is acting like she had to dig deep to find it. 

https://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/dnc-democratic-committee-hillary-clinton-fundraising-agreement-2016-121813

Bernie signed the same thing:

https://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/bernie-sanders-2016-fundraising-dnc-215559

 

 

 

 

 

[formergothardite]

Here is another article that explains a bit more. 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/02/politics/donna-brazile-dnc-book/index.html

Quote

 

both Democratic campaigns signed joint fundraising efforts with the Democratic National Committee, allowing the presidential campaigns to raise money for the Democratic committee and a host of state Democratic parties for use in the general election. The agreements, sources told CNN at the time, were the same as the ones Obama's successful 2008 and 2012 campaigns used.

Clinton, though, was the only candidate to use the agreement, raising by May 2016 close to $50 million for the DNC and state parties through the Hillary Victory Fund.

 

Quote

Joint fundraising committees were created between the DNC and both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in attempt to raise the general election funds needed to win in 2016," she said. "Clinton was the only candidate who raised money for the party through her joint fundraising committee with the DNC, which would benefit any candidate coming out of the presidential primary process.

Quote

Sanders had the option to raise money for the DNC and state parties but decided not to do it because it would have been politically difficult for the candidate to slam the DNC in public while raising money for them in private. Sanders had largely eschewed fundraisers, too.

It does seem like Hillary had a lot of say in what went on. It appears she was worried that the DNC would blow through the money so she limited how it was spent.

Quote

A source confirmed that Clinton's campaign did stipulate rules to the DNC for the fundraising help. It agreed to provide the DNC with money each month to pay for overhead. A concern was that Wasserman Schultz would take the money from the joint fundraising agreement and begin quickly spending it, so they limited how much the DNC could spend

It also appears that a lot of money went to Hillary's campaign instead of small local campaigns. The DNC has changed how they do fundraising.

Quote

under new DNC chair Tom Perez, the committee and state parties have dispensed with the old fundraising agreement and signed a new agreement with state Democratic organizations.

So basically what happened was Bernie refused to raise money for the DNC, Hillary did, she also provided money each month to keep the DNC going and made the stick to a budget. A lot of the money raised went to Hillary. 

As for Brazile, in her book she writes this:

Quote

 This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party's integrity,

But she was also the one who gave Hillary advance notice of questions before a debate with Bernie. She is presenting herself as a beacon of integrity who stood up for Bernie when in reality she helped Hillary out instead of Bernie.

I think she is trying to sell a book. 

[Rachel333]

Trump tweeted this this morning:

It just isn't true. I was watching CNN and they featured this story heavily last night. And because he lies all the time he just gets away with it. It's so frustrating.