I’m interested in a non-partisan, factual answer to the following question.
Leaked e-mails from the Democratic National Committee show that a few DNC officials were considering making Sanders look bad. Press accounts say the DNC is supposed to be candidate-neutral. But doesn’t the DNC already express a candidate preference through the superdelegates?
Of course they’re not and shouldn’t be candidate-neutral, and I don’t have any idea why the press or anyone else would say otherwise.
And for what it’s worth, I voted for Sanders.
The DNC doesn’t control the superdelegates, they’re independent (but party-affiliated) entities that can back whoever they choose. Their support, individually or in aggregate, for any candidate can’t really be interpreted as the DNC as an entity expressing preference, though it can bias peoples perceptions and allowing them to declare their preferences before the convention could be a problem for that reason.
Because (once again, mit der feeling) most people including all too many members of the press don’t understand the difference between party elections and general elections.
If a party has a preferred candidate and works to ensure that candidate’s nomination, it’s not only within the rules but how the freaking system works.
The DNC by-laws contain:
…which has been the basis of many Facebook posting claiming that great sins have been committed. It makes no mention of what constitutes “impartiality and evenhandedness”, offers no guidance or limits and does not describe any consequences for not doing so.
Superdelagates are simply party office holders. Even Bernie Sanders himself was given superdelagate status as a Senator, even with his very tenuous relationship with the Democratic Party.
If, for example, the 2016 race had featured candidacies from Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, Al Franken, and Tim Kaine, you could reasonably assume that each of those candidates would have drawn initial superdelagate support and that supers would have flipped as the field narrowed.
Sanders is very independent in the Senate and is well known for not playing well with others. Even people who agree with him ideologically found him impossible to work with, not exactly a good quality in a President.