The DNC's Profound Lack Of Professionalism Is The Shame Of The Democratic Party
The DNC’s Profound Lack Of Professionalism Is The Shame Of The Democratic Party
Emails Posted By Wikileaks Reveal Democratic National Committee Actively Worked Against Bernie Sanders
Emails posted online by Wikileaks
reveal a hidden media war between the Democratic National Committee and
the Bernie Sanders campaign. The refusal of party officials to address
criticism with maturity serves to demonstrate the realities of the
“rigged” electoral system.
In
the early morning hours of May 21st, 2016, DNC Press Secretary Mark
Paustenbach wrote to Communications Director Luis Miranda, vapidly
pondering
the following: “Wondering if there’s a good Bernie narrative for a
story, which is that Bernie never ever had his act together, that his
campaign was a mess.”
“…the Chair has been advised to not engage”, reads the reply. “So we’ll have to leave it alone.”
If it should seem odd that Democratic Party officials would actively
conspire against a primary candidate, you probably believed Party Chair
Debbie Wassman Schultz’s
statement in response to the Nevada fiasco: “The Democratic National Committee remains neutral in this primary, based on our rules.”
The hypocrisy of this denial is apparent to anyone studious enough to wade through the 20,000
leaked emails.
Most of them come in the form of replies to news articles—with long
discussions about press and public relations dominating the sea of RE:s
and FW:s. It is in those media discussions that the bias against
Sanders, and toward Clinton, is most apparent.
“If Bridgette wants it, well the (sic) gosh darnit #ImWithHer”,
writes Pablo
Manriquez, Broadcast Media Director, in response to a Hillary Clinton
press release. “Should we just parrot Hillary’s message? My gut says we
should.”
“In this, of all emails,”
writes Luis Miranda, in response to a Clinton campaign donation email, “did they really need to use ‘steel ourselves’?!”
Promoting candidates is one of the committee’s functions. But
favoring one candidate over another, in the midst of a heated primary
race, is against the rules—if you believe Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Had the committee promoted Sanders and Clinton equally, there would be
no damning evidence that party officials broke their vow of neutrality.
But that simply isn’t the case.
“He isn’t going to be president.” Schultz
wrote in May.
“It might may (sic) no difference,” writes CFO Brad Marshall, in an email titled
No shit,
“but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he
believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I
think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference
with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference
between a Jew and an atheist.”
A reply from CEO Amy Dacey read simply: “AMEN.”
Marshall has since reached out to The Intercept,
denying the email was about Sanders, and insinuating it was about
a surrogate. Contributor Sam Biddle notes that Sanders was the only
Jewish candidate running. Marshall has thus far not responded to
inquiries about who the elusive surrogate might be—but targeting any
person affiliated with a Democratic Party candidate for president on the
basis of their religion, or lack thereof, is yet another example of the
DNC’s moral vacuity and profound lack of professionalism. Is this or is
this not a political party which abhors prejudice and discrimination?
On the subject of ethics, chief investigative reporter at
Politico Kenneth P. Vogel apparently sent Press Secretary Mark Paustenbach a draft of his story,
Clinton fundraising leaves little for state parties, ahead of time—before sending it to his editors.
Paustenbach explains why:
Vogel gave me his story ahead of time/before it
goes to his editors as long as I didn’t share it. Let me know if you see
anything that’s missing and I’ll push back.
An email dated May 20th, 2016, provides
more evidence
of party officials working directly with journalists to plant subtle
anti-Sanders narratives. “Phil Elliott is doing a lengthy cover story
for next week’s issue of TIME on the Sanders phenomenon, which he needs
to finish by mid-day Tuesday”, writes
Paustenbach again. “He
wants to interview the Chair in person or over the phone before then.
Phil would need at least part of the interview to be on-the-record and
the rest can be on background. As he said, we’d be mad if they did a
story on the soul/direction of the party and decided not to talk to her.
The piece will tee up nicely the California primary.”
Listing the proposed key points of Elliott’s article,
Paustenbach notes:
“The culmination of this election is about what
the soul of the Democratic Party looks like. Deliberate, policy driven
and results-oriented or more liberal, pie-in-the-sky?”
Another
email reads:
“The Confessore story on Bernie’s impact on the
Party beyond his electoral prospects is out. Overall I think it’s as
good as we could hope for. We were able to keep him from including more
on the JVF, it has a mention in there, but between us and a conversation
he had with Marc Elias he finally backed off from focusing too much on
that. Longabaugh also strikes a somewhat conciliatory tone described
here as saying : he believed the campaign would ultimately be well
represented on all the committees as more members are named.”
As criticism against the DNC mounted, party officials reacted defensively. Below is the full text of
Paustenbach’s email to Luis Miranda, mentioned at the outset:
From:markpaustenbach@gmail.com
To: mirandal@dnc.org Date: 2016-05-21 22:23
Subject: Bernie narrative
Wondering if there’s a good Bernie narrative for a story,
which is that Bernie never ever had his act together, that his campaign
was a mess. Specifically, DWS had to call Bernie directly in order to
get the campaign to do things because they’d either ignored or forgotten
to something critical.
She had to call Bernie after the data breach to make his
staff to respond to our concerns. Even then they didn’t get back to us,
which is why we had to shut off their access in order to get them to
finally let us know exactly how they snooped around HFA’s data. Same was
true with the standing committee appointments. They never got back to
us with their names (HFA and even O’Malley got there’s in six weeks
earlier) for the committees.
So, again, the chair had to call Bernie personally for his
staff to finally get us critical information. So, they gave us an awful
list just a few days before we had to make the announcements. It’s not a
DNC conspiracy, it’s because they never had their act together.
It is well within Schulz’s ethical dictum for party officials to
complain about the Sanders campaign or dismiss criticism (though the
former action lends itself to the terribly awkward notion that the
Democratic Party isn’t as enlightened as it pretends to be). But the
repeated pontification over ways to damage the Sanders campaign proves
the committee was unable to separate reactionary criticism from
appallingly blatant insider favoritism.
One has to respect Luis Miranda for shutting
Paustenbach down—or
at least respect whomever advised Schultz to disengage from the
argument and reaffirm the Party’s commitment to neutrality.
“It’s not a DNC conspiracy“, said the conspirator.
That
the Democratic National Committee is unwilling to accept criticism from
a populist movement is the Party’s greatest shame. Over the hours I
spent pouring through the emails, I encountered scant ideological
discussion, or even serious conversation about addressing what ills the
Democrats. What I found instead are reams of PR concerns. The Democratic
Party, as an institution,
must appear perfect—the supposed party of the people is terrifyingly dogmatic.
“Morning Joe today was ridiculous calling it a rigged system for the first half hour”,
writes Luis Miranda. Another email suggests taking cues from the Republicans:
“My suggestion is that the DNC put out a
statement saying that the accusations the Sanders campaign are not true.
The fact that CNN notes that you aren’t getting between the two
campaigns is the problem. Here, Sanders is attacking the DNC and its
current practice, its past practice with the POTUS and with Sec Kerry.
Just as the RNC pushes back directly on Trump over ‘rigged system’, the
DNC should push back DIRECTLY at Sanders and say that what he is saying
is false and harmful the the Democratic party.”
Harmful to the Democratic Party. And here I was thinking rhetorical
criticism was an inalienable facet of the Liberal values the Democratic
Party pretends to represent. The Democrats will never serve as a
megaphone for the
vox populi, or as protector of minority
voices, or as a party committed to the unfettered practice of democracy,
if they continue their shameless pageantry at the expense of improving
themselves.
But one is led to the inescapable conclusion that the committee is
disinterested in their own purported ideology. Their job is to get
Democrats elected—but under the leadership of
Debbie Wasserman Schulz,
they’ve evidently taken it upon themselves to decide which ponies to
trot in front of the roaring crowd, and which ones would be more useful
as glue.
Highlights From The DNC Leak
From:MARSHALL@dnc.org
To: MirandaL@dnc.org, PaustenbachM@dnc.org, DaceyA@dnc.org
Date: 2016-05-05 03:31
Subject: No shit
It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get
someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on
saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This
could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist
peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.
From:MirandaL@dnc.org To: MARSHALL@dnc.org, PoughT@dnc.org, HoughtonK@dnc.org, hrtsleeve@gmail.com, DaceyA@dnc.org, ReynoldsL@dnc.org more Date: 2016-04-25 12:11
Subject: FW: NYT: Bernie Sanders and Allies Aim to Shape Democrats’ Agenda After Primaries
The Confessore story on Bernie’s impact on the Party beyond
his electoral prospects is out. Overall I think it’s as good as we could
hope for. We were able to keep him from including more on the JVF, it
has a mention in there, but between us and a conversation he had with
Marc Elias he finally backed off from focusing too much on that.
Longabaugh also strikes a somewhat conciliatory tone described here as
saying : he believed the campaign would ultimately be well represented
on all the committees as more members are named
From: Paustenbach, Mark Sent: Monday, April 25, 2016 9:56 AM To: Miranda, Luis
From:MirandaL@dnc.org To: hrtsleeve@gmail.com, PaustenbachM@dnc.org Date: 2016-05-18 23:13 Subject:
Well to that I say “lolz!”
Sent via the Samsung GALAXY S®4, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone ——– Original message ——– From: hrtsleeve@gmail.com Date: 05/18/2016 20:38 (GMT-05:00)
To: “Paustenbach, Mark” <PaustenbachM@dnc.org> Cc: “Miranda, Luis” <MirandaL@dnc.org> Subject: Re: NY Times – Bernie Sanders’s Defiance Strains Ties With Top Democrats
Btw, Nancy Cordes had the most
puzzled look on her face when she asked me to respond to Weaver saying I
had been throwing shade at Sanders. I said, well, my response to that
is #SMH. She paused for a second and looked very confused. 
DWS
From:hrtsleeve@gmail.com To: MirandaL@dnc.org, PaustenbachM@dnc.org, BanfillR@dnc.org, PoughT@dnc.org Date: 2016-05-19 16:27
This is really a problem, guys. We cannot allow this
narrative to continue. Where is the balance? We have plenty of people
that could push back. We must get a pushback story out there.
From:hrtsleeve@gmail.com To: PaustenbachM@dnc.org Date: 2016-05-18 22:24
Every time they get caught doing something wrong, they use the tactic of blaming me. Not working this time.
DWS
From:PaustenbachM@dnc.org To: MirandaL@dnc.org Date: 2016-05-20 14:46
Phil Elliott is doing a lengthy cover story for next week’s
issue of TIME on the Sanders phenomenon, which he needs to finish by
mid-day Tuesday. He wants to interview the Chair in person or over the
phone before then. Phil would need at least part of the interview to be
on-the-record and the rest can be on background. As he said, we’d be mad
if they did a story on the soul/direction of the party and decided not
to talk to her. The piece will tee up nicely the California primary.
Here are the key points the story will hit on (not to be shared outside
the building): – A general look at “Feel the Bern”/”Bernie-mentum”/”Bern
this Down” and the implications for the next generation of the
Democratic Party. – He thinks Bernie is a zombie candidate that will
continue to exist even after his likely loss. o Bernie is perhaps
preparing for a floor fight o He plans to mess with the platform
committee o He will come out against everything in the platform that HRC
pushes for – Relationship between HRC and Bernie o In the 1990s they
were friends o They met a couple months ago in the Acela lounge and
chatted warmly o Then, Bernie rolled his eyes at the debate and called
her “unqualified” – Can HRC and Bernie reconcile? What does détente look
like? – The culmination of this election is about what the soul of the
Democratic Party looks like o Deliberate, policy driven and
results-oriented or more liberal, pie-in-the-sky? Mark Paustenbach
National Press Secretary & Deputy Communications Director Democratic
National Committee W: 202.863.8148 paustenbachm@dnc.org<mailto:paustenbachm@dnc.org>
From:PaustenbachM@dnc.org To: MirandaL@dnc.org Date: 2016-04-30 22:32 Subject:
Vogel gave me his story ahead of time/before it goes to his
editors as long as I didn’t share it. Let me know if you see anything
that’s missing and I’ll push back.
From:hrtsleeve@gmail.com To: MirandaL@dnc.org Date: 2016-05-18 09:22
Are you serious?? Unbelievable. What did they say? Yes,
bigger push. Just send Sunshine State whatever it is we come up with as
an op ed. DWS >
On May 18, 2016, at 7:11 AM, Miranda, Luis <MirandaL@dnc.org>
wrote: > > We’ll reach out but it’s worth a series of op eds so
we’ll make a bigger push. Morning Joe today was ridiculous calling it a
rigged system for the first half hour >
From:MElias@perkinscoie.com To: MirandaL@dnc.org, DaceyA@dnc.org, MARSHALL@dnc.org, ReynoldsL@dnc.org Date: 2016-05-03 19:06
My suggestion is that the DNC put out a statement saying that
the accusations the Sanders campaign are not true. The fact that CNN
notes that you aren’t getting between the two campaigns is the problem.
Here, Sanders is attacking the DNC and its current practice, its past
practice with the POTUS and with Sec Kerry. Just as the RNC pushes back
directly on Trump over “rigged system”, the DNC should push back
DIRECTLY at Sanders and say that what he is saying is false and harmful
the the Democratic party.
From:DaceyA@dnc.org To: melias@perkinscoie.com, MirandaL@dnc.org, MARSHALL@dnc.org, ReynoldsL@dnc.org Date: 2016-05-03 19:07 Subject: Re: Brad – is the building aware of this?
I do think there is too much of this narrative out there- I
also worry since they are emailing t o their list (which has overlap
with ours!) Would be good to push back… Amy K. Dacey | Chief Executive
Officer
From:HelmstetterT@dnc.org To: BrinsterJ@dnc.org, Comm_D@dnc.org Date: 2016-05-02 13:13
Subject: RE: FLAG: Clinton fundraising leaves little for state parties
Fyi – Bernie’s rapid response director is tweeting out the
section of us giving talking points to state parties
https://twitter.com/cascamike/status/727128917354631168
From:MirandaL@dnc.org To: hrtsleeve@gmail.com, PaustenbachM@dnc.org, BanfillR@dnc.org Date: 2016-05-19 15:07
Yes, and Hilary sent part of that.
Mika is willing to do a call with you, so we need to know if you want to
make that happen too. We figure it can’t get worse, so worth having a
call.
From: hrtsleeve@gmail.com<mailto:hrtsleeve@gmail.com> [mailto:hrtsleeve@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2016 1:05 PM To: Miranda, Luis; Paustenbach, Mark; Banfill, Ryan
Subject: MSNBC story
This is a good story. Did we get them the info near the bottom?
From: Reif, Eric Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2016 11:58 AM To: EMail-Vetting_D; Walker, Eric
Hi all — Below are three emails we’re planning to send from
Hillary Clinton on Monday. HFA and she have already signed off on these,
but let me know if you have any flags.
From:DavisM@dnc.org To: ManriquezP@dnc.org Date: 2016-05-17 23:57
Idk…hmmm! Marilyn D. Davis National Director of Community
Engagement Democratic National Convention M: 609-218-3254 Twitter:
@marilynddavis
Facebook.com/marilynddavis<http://facebook.com/marilynddavis> Sent
from my iPhone, please excuse any typos
On May 17, 2016, at 9:54 PM, Manriquez, Pablo <ManriquezP@dnc.org<mailto:ManriquezP@dnc.org>> wrote:
If Bridgette wants it, well the gosh darnit #ImWithHer. Should we just parrot Hillary’s message? My gut says we should.
From:PaustenbachM@dnc.org To: MirandaL@dnc.org Date: 2016-05-20 22:58
After they get nervous for our strong stand against Bernie
violence, Brooklyn suddenly grows a backbone. Sad! Mark Paustenbach
National Press Secretary & Deputy Communications Director Democratic
National Committee 202.863.8148 paustenbachm@dnc.org<mailto:paustenbachm@dnc.org>
On May 20, 2016, at 8:56 PM, Miranda, Luis <MirandaL@dnc.org<mailto:MirandaL@dnc.org>>
wrote: In this, of all emails, did they really need to use “steel
ourselves”?! Sent via the Samsung GALAXY S®4, an AT&T 4G LTE
smartphone
As previously noted, the Wikileaks email dump is large, containing about 20,000 messages. You can search the database yourself
here.
Electoral cheating has probably existed since the second election ever held, but cheating by American Democrats has 