Wasserman Schultz: Toast or not toast?

[DSeid]

@Damuri_Ajashi

79, 86, 89, 90, 101, 103, 119, 146, 189.

These posts seem to be pretty sanguine about tilting the playing field in favor of candidates like Clinton over candidates like Bernie.

Dutifully scrolling through the thread to find them, I read most of those posts as pretty neutral on the subject actually, more making observations: the process actually is not one that promises complete neutrality (whether or not it should) and has built into it less party apparatus control than it did historically, and is more democratic than it historically was, but still explicitly does give the party elite an option of some explicit extra say. A few that further observe that the risk of not having that is that a demagogue who is not of the party could come in with an excited following (that is a minority of Democratic voters) and win … especially in the context of a split field (see Trump, Donald on the GOP side). Maybe one or two posts in the whole thread explicitly identify preventing that as a good thing worth some extra party “elite” impact, but not many.

Now in post 194 (no need to scroll looking for it, just click) I attempted to give the historic context for the Hunt Commission’s explicit backtrack from more extensive democratization to some small reassertion of party sayso (much less than had been the historic norm) and tried to raise a discussion about whether or not a stronger attempt at democratization (albeit still giving excessive power to frontloaded states) was desirable.

There were no takers.

Personally I am not convinced in either direction at this point. The sound bite appeal of “democracy good!” weighs strongly but so does the more thoughtful analysis of what that as a completely unfettered party primary principle could mean, again, especially in the context of an outsider demagogue in a divided field or candidates who appeal to the majority of the party and of voters.

[CarnalK]

You didn’t need to scroll through, DSeid. I quoted most of them two posts before his list. Kind of a stretch to say they were neutral on the subject at all. One said he would hope the party machinery worked against certain types of candidates. A couple others were saying why shouldn’t the carpetbagger get lesser treatment.

[JohnT]

None were saying “You know that $5 million check we owe Bernie? Tell him it’s in the mail… and wait until the third call to send it!”

[DSeid]

@CarnalK

You didn’t need to scroll through, DSeid. I quoted most of them two posts before his list. Kind of a stretch to say they were neutral on the subject at all. One said he would hope the party machinery worked against certain types of candidates. A couple others were saying why shouldn’t the carpetbagger get lesser treatment.

Nope, having looked at each of his nine numbered examples I stand by the “most” vs “a few.”

Yup, a few noted a few reasons why the primary process does not promise to be explicitly completely democratic (even if in practicality it has, since the Hunts Commission’s changes, including this time, always been extremely democratic).

Are you, or D.A. wanting to argue the point that the simplistic sound bite “democracy good”, ehem, trumps, the concerns regarding an outside demagogue bringing in voters who are not usually party identified potentially winning a nomination with a minority of the votes in a crowded field that divides the vote of the more usual party members and which selects a candidate less likely to win the general?

I am willing to be convinced of it but am not yet so.

To re-emphasize: this is a hypothetical argument. This election appears t have completely free of bias being acting upon in order to impact the result. Bias among political insiders and operatives is a given and is completely unavoidable. Demonstrating bias a well duh thing. The issue is not if there is bias but what is done as a consequence of that bias.

Obama is biased towards Clinton over Trump. I don’t need no stinkin’ hacked emails to know that. Your position in that thread is that therefore it is reasonable to suspect Obama and his administration of corruptly rigging the upcoming election.

[CarnalK]

Look, I don’t think this is remotely as big a deal as Damuri Ajashi does but he’s not wrong to say a numberof people in this thread think tilting the playing field is A-OK.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Sherrerd

You seem to be using some very idiosyncratic logic throughout this thread; your argument appears to be:

PREMISE: Some people who post on the SDMB believe that in the present American Presidential election system, it’s reasonable for the leaders of each of the two major parties to believe one candidate more likely to win in the general election than others.

CONCLUSION: Therefore, underhanded conduct by the party leaders must have occurred!

Somehow you are getting from 'beliefs held by people posting here’ to ‘actions committed by leaders of the DNC.’ And I’m just not seeing how you’re making that leap.

Wow, that’s a lot of straw.

Let me fix that for you:

PREMISE: Some people who post on SDMD believe that in the present American system, it is reasonable for the leaders of the parties to tilt the playing field in favor of a candidate that they think will win.

CONCLUSION: Therefore those people who believe this are wrong.

Please cite to where I make the leap that the DNC has done anything. They might have but I can’t prove it and you can’t prove they didn’t. This sort of thing makes it very hard to defend Hilary’s integrity when the organization that is nominating her seems to be biased in her favor.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Lance_Turbo

I don’t know if it rises to the level of proof, but I don’t think a reasonable person can look at what happened in primaries and conclude that the DNC tilted the playing field.

Hilary won. Bernie losing was about as foregone a conclusion at the beginning of the season as Trump losing.

The primary process is relatively transparent and the DNC only has control over a few parts of that process. They have some control over the schedule of primaries, the debate schedule, and how delegates and superdelgates are assigned. All of the rules they set were in place before Sanders threw his hat in the ring. Here absence of evidence is evidence of absence, because the absence of evidence that the DNC changed any rules is in fact evidence that they didn’t change any rules.

Well, the DNC’s cavalier attitude re: their bias could easily have been reflected at the state level and who knows what happened there. It throws the entire fucking thing into question if you want it to.

Individual state level democratic parties also have some control over how primaries are conducted in each state. Some state’s rules were more favorable to Clinton, but some state’s rules were more favorable to Sanders. The important part is that every state’s rules were in place before Sanders declared as a candidate. If, after Sanders entered the race, all the caucus states switched to closed primaries this would evidence of tilting the playing field. Once again absence of evidence that this occurred is evidence that this did not occur.

Why did a fight break out at the Nevada caucuses?

Other than that there is nothing the DNC can really do to tilt the playing field and there’s no way for them to tilt the playing that wouldn’t be noticed.

Was the debate schedule set before the primaries started?

I do not share this sentiment. This, however, seems like a problem you have with posters in this thread and not with the DNC or Debbie Wasserman Schultz. If that’s the only thing you want to discuss, you should probably restrict your posts to that topic.

This is my primary complaint. I am also saying that this sort of shit reflects on Hilary and makes all the other shit people say about her integrity easier to believe.

I believe the primary rules should be set in advance, transparent to all candidates, and applied equally to all candidates. This is what happened in this primary. Sanders knew the rules and knew he had a tough road ahead of him, not because the playing was tilted, but because he was much less popular among democrats than the person he chose to run against. He closed that gap throughout the process, but he never closed it completely.

Some may argue that the closed primaries some states used tilted the playing field toward Clinton, but I don’t think so. First, I believe state level democratic parties should be able to have some control over who participates in their primaries as long as the rules are transparent, non-discriminatory, and there is a low barrier to entry. And secondly, all the rules were in place when Sanders entered the race. No one tried to restrict or open up access once the candidates were known.

Are you familiar with the phrase, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”?

Yes but you have even less evidence than I do.

Large swaths of the Republican party hate Trump. I would be absolutely stunned if there were no emails sent between RNC members about Trump and how to stop him, but the RNC didn’t get hacked so we may never know. I don’t, however, think that such an email would be evidence that RNC tilted the playing field away from Trump because the RNC, like the DNC, doesn’t have that much control.

He won. What’s he got to complain about?

However, at least one state level Republican party did tilt the playing field this year. Kentucky held a Republican Caucus this year instead of a primary this year like they usually do. This change was made for the benefit of exactly one guy, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.

Was this change made before or after the primaries started?

[dalej42]

The change was made before the primaries started, but it was proposed during the time of presidential campaign announcements. Rand Paul couldn’t run in a presidential primary as well as defend his senate seat without this change

[Lance_Turbo]

I’ll answer your questions, but I’m starting to think that you’re not really open to changing your mind about this.

@Damuri_Ajashi

Why did a fight break out at the Nevada caucuses?

Some people tried to thwart the will of the voters. They were upset when their attempt was stopped.

@Damuri_Ajashi

Was the debate schedule set before the primaries started?

The schedule was set in August of 2015. The schedule was later modified at the request of the Sanders campaign. This is a great example of the DNC treating Sanders fairly.

@Damuri_Ajashi

What’s he got to complain about?

Donald Trump has many things to complain about. Voters with college degrees, Mexicans, small hands, etc. I can’t imagine what the answer to this question has to do with the point I made.

@Damuri_Ajashi

Was this change made before or after the primaries started?

This change was made in August 2015 about four months after Rand Paul began running for president. The change was made at the request of Rand Paul and the the Rand Paul campaign paid for the caucus.

[JohnT]

I keep on seeing the following, or similar, in this thread:

“ We literally have people in this thread saying that if the DNC DID act on a bias in favor of Hillary and against Bernie, that would be a feature not a bug.”

Since this is my position, and there seems to be surprise that this position should actually exist in this world, let me explain it, please.

As a general rule, every organization has three stakeholders: Workers, Investors, Customers. You can rename these stakeholders:

… A “customer” to one organization is a “parishoner” to another, is a “voter” to a third.
… A “worker” in one organization is a “volunteer” in another, is a “staff member” to a third.
… A “investor” in one organization is a “Organizer” in another, is a “politician” to a third.

But they remain, essentially, the same three stakeholders.

And, of course, there is constant blurring of the lines. Voters might become politicians. Politicians might work on staff for a year or four. Politicians might quit or lose. Voters might not vote, or vote for the other guy. But the organization remains, regardless of purpose. (If it’s successful that is, of course.)

But what is being debated here really is the purpose of political parties, and I come from the position that like any other organization, political parties can and need to be self-directed in order to survive and thrive.

I, myself, think the idea that selecting the entire leadership of any organization in accordance to the whims of the least invested stakeholder (the customer) without any counter-balance to their populist whims is fucking insane. Period. And when you ignore this, you end up with Donald Trump. Or John Sculley. Or Gil Amelio.

And I think the Democratic Party realizes this, which is why Super delegates are a worthy idea – to counterbalance populist impulses.

In short: the organization doesn’t exist for the voters, the workers, or the investors, it exists for the organization. It becomes a self-perpetuating entity because that is the purpose of organizing it in the first place.

However, as with your typical “scandal” involving Hillary Clinton, there’s no fire here. Given the importance of this race, the overwhelming influence the Clintons have over the Democratic Party, and the complete “newness” of Bernie Sanders, I find that the staff acted appropriately within the confines of their own rules - and so does Mr. Sanders and his staff. Yes, there was some complaining among influential people on the DNC staff – if you do not complain about what others in your organization do, you’re not experienced enough in organizational theory and practice to participate in this discussion, frankly – but there were no actions made to the detriment of Mr. Sanders.

TL;DR: Organizations have the right to select their leaders any damn way they want. I, personally, think that throwing the decision of leadership to the least invested stakeholder (the voter) is insane without any checks to populist impulses, and have no problem with political parties putting in checks to make sure that qualified candidates come to the fore. However, in regards to the mission and language currently in the DNC charter, the Democratic National Committee staff worked as honestly and diligently for all candidates as they could, despite their understandable and very human biases towards the Clintons.

[foolsguinea]

So, your argument is that the Democratic Party should be anti-democratic because businesses aren’t run by their customers.

[DSeid]

I read it as not stating “anti-democratic” but stating not completely democratic and as stating that organizations are not run by the least invested stakeholders alone, be that least invested stakeholder be the voter or the customer.

Again, not convinced either way yet myself.

I guess I’d ask if the purpose of any political party is to serve the party’s success (which members of the party believe serves the best interest of the country and of the world) or to serve as a neutral tool of a more arbitrary democratic process for the sake of the principle of the process rather than of the goal.

If the latter then the analogy fails; if the former it seems to be of some validity.

My current lean is to the former, that the party serve o advance its own cause, not to be a neutral tool of the process, with the caveat that serving the customers well and having them perceive that their wishes are being respected and met is in the best interests of most businesses. Likewise for the perception of all stakeholders in any organization, including political parties and voters. Business leaders fail to attend to the desires of their customer base at their own risk and a party leadership widely perceived as ignoring what their voters were expressing would also be doing so at some costs. hence superdelegates will almost always (and so far have always) follow the will expressed by both the popular vote and the “regular” delegate count. Acting on bias is a step that comes with such cost that would and should only be done in an extreme circumstance.

[JohnT]

@foolsguinea

So, your argument is that the Democratic Party should be anti-democratic because businesses aren’t run by their customers.

If that’s how you wish to interpret my, I thought, clear position, no.

The Democratic party needs to self-select the people that best serve its current mission: to bring about Progressive change to America. Part of this selection, yes, involves the customers (voters) saying “I want this, but not that. A little more sauce, not so much tomato” with the politicians changing (by modifying their position or getting voted out (with more suitable ones replacing them)) to match these changing needs. The party, the organization as a whole, is charged with selecting* and presenting these candidates to the voters

No organization, except the Republican Party, allows their top person to be selected purely on the voice of the customer, completely ignoring the other stakeholders. Not even the United States of America, which has the Electoral College, giving it’s stakeholders (the individual states) sway in this decision too.

Point of Fact: Johnson isn’t head of the Libertarian ticket because he had a primary - the inner circle of the Libertarian party effectively chose Johnson, both by not challenging him, actively supporting him, and placing in rules and policies that effectively shut challengers out. Check out this wording on their website, 2016 Election page:

@Libertarian Party

You can browse the other Libertarian candidates by clicking on the image or text of your state below.

The chair of each state Libertarian Party affiliate is the primary arbiter of which candidates should be listed at this website.

Where is the democracy in that, Foolsguinea? The Libertarian party doesn’t even have a process where voters across the country are allowed to select their Presidential candidates without having to make the trip to the national convention, at their own expense. Where is the outrage? They can’t even be bothered to put all comers on their website. What… they never heard of web forms and submission/approval processes?

Same thing with Stein - who challenged her? Where is the proof the Green party treated those challengers, if they existed, fairly? Where is the outrage, FG?

*If you don’t think politicians are “selected”, you’ve never been asked to run for office.

[JohnT]

@DSeid

I read it as not stating “anti-democratic” but stating not completely democratic and as stating that organizations are not run by the least invested stakeholders alone, be that least invested stakeholder be the voter or the customer.

Again, not convinced either way yet myself.

I guess I’d ask if the purpose of any political party is to serve the party’s success (which members of the party believe serves the best interest of the country and of the world) or to serve as a neutral tool of a more arbitrary democratic process for the sake of the principle of the process rather than of the goal.

If the latter then the analogy fails; if the former it seems to be of some validity.

My current lean is to the former, that the party serve o advance its own cause, not to be a neutral tool of the process, with the caveat that serving the customers well and having them perceive that their wishes are being respected and met is in the best interests of most businesses. Likewise for the perception of all stakeholders in any organization, including political parties and voters. Business leaders fail to attend to the desires of their customer base at their own risk and a party leadership widely perceived as ignoring what their voters were expressing would also be doing so at some costs. hence superdelegates will almost always (and so far have always) follow the will expressed by both the popular vote and the “regular” delegate count. Acting on bias is a step that comes with such cost that would and should only be done in an extreme circumstance.

Even more to the point, if the purpose of an organization is to sell a particular viewpoint in order to gain influence, it needs to guide the selection and presentation processes which bring credible, marketable candidates advancing those viewpoints.

The Republican Party failed to do this, and America may yet pay the price as a result. The Democratic Party did do this, and they successfully managed to merge the message of the challenger with the experience of the “incumbent.”

Why people hate the Democratic Party for doing this, for having the most Progressive platform of any major political party of the past 50 years combined with one of the most qualified candidates in that period is beyond me.

[JohnT]

Done at office, going home for the night, will read replies in the morning. Maybe. Long day tomorrow, gotta be at work in 8 hours.

[CarnalK]

@DSeid

I read it as not stating “anti-democratic” but stating not completely democratic and as stating that organizations are not run by the least invested stakeholders alone, be that least invested stakeholder be the voter or the customer.

Again, not convinced either way yet myself.

I guess I’d ask if the purpose of any political party is to serve the party’s success (which members of the party believe serves the best interest of the country and of the world) or to serve as a neutral tool of a more arbitrary democratic process for the sake of the principle of the process rather than of the goal.

If the latter then the analogy fails; if the former it seems to be of some validity.

The Democratic party explicitly put an expectation of neutrality in their charter. It’s been clearly pointed to in this thread. So regardless of what you feel is best, the party decided the other way.

[JohnT]

By definition, the organization can’t be neutral about everything, else it could have neo-Nazis running alongside Marxists.

The organizations actions, once the candidates announced themselves had to be neutral, the employees emotions, not. And nobody in the Sanders camp is claiming that such actions occurred: quite the opposite, which is a bizarrely disregarded fact within this thread.

People are blaming the Democratic party for something that Hillary’s opponent says did not happen.

[DSeid]

@CarnalK

The Democratic party explicitly put an expectation of neutrality in their charter. It’s been clearly pointed to in this thread. So regardless of what you feel is best, the party decided the other way.

Yes, as already stated as clearly as possible: this is a hypothetical argument. This election appears to have completely free of bias being acting upon that impacted the result.

The party decided that the DNC should refrain from acting on any biases held by their staff and provide a neutral playing field. The hypothetical finger on the scale that is currently explicitly allowed is the hypothetical but never exercised ability of the superdelegates to swing a close one one way or the other over a popular vote or delegate count in another direction. (Which Sanders was arguing they should do for him in the case of his having had a strong finish, precisely on the basis of the self same argument that the party should not go with who wins the popular vote or the regular delegate count, but use the supers to pick the candidate who can best win, which he of course felt was himself.)

The discussion remains: is that party leadership finger on the scale, that bias, something that should be rooted out and prevented as completely as possible as “anti-democratic” because “democracy is good”, or does the party leadership as the most invested stakeholders of the organization have a right or even an obligation to attempt to impact the process in service of having the process select a candidate who is capable of winning the general election and who represents the views of the majority of the party. Again a circumstance that applies most in a crowded races where a majority perspective can have their vote split between several candidates and an outsider demagogue can bring in non-party voters to trump the process even without a majority of the vote and certainly without a majority of those who strongly identify as party members.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Lance_Turbo

I’ll answer your questions, but I’m starting to think that you’re not really open to changing your mind about this.

I’m probably about as open to changing my mind on this issue as you are. I’ll probably still vote for her but I have been telling everyone calling me for money that I can barely give her my vote, I can’t give her my money. She has other people for that.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@JohnT

I keep on seeing the following, or similar, in this thread:

“ We literally have people in this thread saying that if the DNC DID act on a bias in favor of Hillary and against Bernie, that would be a feature not a bug.”

Since this is my position, and there seems to be surprise that this position should actually exist in this world, let me explain it, please.

Thank you for saying this. We have spent several pages with people saying “WTF, Damuri??? You’re imagining things. No one said that EVAH!!!”

As a general rule, every organization has three stakeholders: Workers, Investors, Customers. You can rename these stakeholders:

… A “customer” to one organization is a “parishoner” to another, is a “voter” to a third.
… A “worker” in one organization is a “volunteer” in another, is a “staff member” to a third.
… A “investor” in one organization is a “Organizer” in another, is a “politician” to a third.

But they remain, essentially, the same three stakeholders.

And, of course, there is constant blurring of the lines. Voters might become politicians. Politicians might work on staff for a year or four. Politicians might quit or lose. Voters might not vote, or vote for the other guy. But the organization remains, regardless of purpose. (If it’s successful that is, of course.)

But what is being debated here really is the purpose of political parties, and I come from the position that like any other organization, political parties can and need to be self-directed in order to survive and thrive.

So is the political party the cutomer, the staff or the investor?

Because in the context of a primary in a democracy, the political party seems most analogous to a market regulator. Their job isn’t to be involved in picking winners and loser, or even have a preference for one market participant over another. Their job is to ensure that the markets function correctly.

I, myself, think the idea that selecting the entire leadership of any organization in accordance to the whims of the least invested stakeholder (the customer) without any counter-balance to their populist whims is fucking insane. Period. And when you ignore this, you end up with Donald Trump. Or John Sculley. Or Gil Amelio.

The Republican party picked Donald Trump because the Republican party drove itself into a ditch. If and when the Democratic party engages in Carl Rovian tactics and starts to sell its long term future to win a single election (riling up the crazies and letting them back into the tent, because your message is no longer appealing to enough rational people to win elections), then we can expect to see someone like Donald Trump winning our primary.

And I think the Democratic Party realizes this, which is why Super delegates are a worthy idea – to counterbalance populist impulses.

The day the Democrats override the popular vote to appoint their nominee is the day I vote for whoever is on the other ticket. But judging from all the responses on this thread, it seems like most people agree with you.

In short: the organization doesn’t exist for the voters, the workers, or the investors, it exists for the organization. It becomes a self-perpetuating entity because that is the purpose of organizing it in the first place.

However, as with your typical “scandal” involving Hillary Clinton, there’s no fire here. Given the importance of this race, the overwhelming influence the Clintons have over the Democratic Party, and the complete “newness” of Bernie Sanders, I find that the staff acted appropriately within the confines of their own rules - and so does Mr. Sanders and his staff. Yes, there was some complaining among influential people on the DNC staff – if you do not complain about what others in your organization do, you’re not experienced enough in organizational theory and practice to participate in this discussion, frankly – but there were no actions made to the detriment of Mr. Sanders.

There were no actions “that we know of” made to the detriment of senator Sanders. If you saw racist emails being passed back and forth between the chief of police and the captains of the various precincts, you would correctly point to the mere fact that these people felt comfortable making those racist comments within that group as evidence that the police are racist and that racism might be affecting how they police black communities.

This sort of bias (even without any overt action) in our public institutions are crippling to the black community but that sort of bias in the DNC really has no effect on the Bernie campaign?

And what is Sanders going to do at this point? Blow up the Hillary campaign and coronate Donald Trump?

TL;DR: Organizations have the right to select their leaders any damn way they want. I, personally, think that throwing the decision of leadership to the least invested stakeholder (the voter) is insane without any checks to populist impulses, and have no problem with political parties putting in checks to make sure that qualified candidates come to the fore. However, in regards to the mission and language currently in the DNC charter, the Democratic National Committee staff worked as honestly and diligently for all candidates as they could, despite their understandable and very human biases towards the Clintons.

You assume they did. We have emails that indicate that there was a desire to hurt the Bernie campaign. Emails between top staff at the DNC.

The leader of the DNC steps down as a result and the Hillary campaign hires her.