Early Friday afternoon, after the DNC had blocked Sanders campaign access to its data, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook called the incident "totally unacceptable", "This was a very egregious breach and our data was stolen.”
This was a clear signal that the Clinton campaign was going to go to war over the issue.
At about the same time, petitions from the Sanders campaign, MoveOn and Robert Reich, to name a few began gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures in record time. The Sanders campaign also announced that it was going to court asking for $600,000 a day in damages for loss of access to its fund-raising tool.
NGP-VAN CEO, Stu Trevelyan, explained on his blog that the type of breach that Mook claimed, could not occur, despite a non-functioning firewall.
Then, in an about face, Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon, attempted to things calm down by assuring listeners that the two campaigns should be able to sort matters out.
The Sanders campaign had plans to go to court at 11 PM to present its case against the DNC, but never got to court. In complete capitulation, the DNC promised late last night to drop its blockade on Sanders’ data.
What do we learn from all this:
1) The Clinton campaign went off half-cocked, without looking a few moves ahead to see how the adversary would respond to their attack.
2) Sanders created an immediate pincers movement to repel the attack. On the one hand, the mass of supporters was mobilized to arouse public opposition to the DNC’s action against the campaign. On the other, the campaign launched what would have been a devastating legal attack on the DNC, which was prima facie in breach of their contract, which stipulates 10 days’ notice for any change in the conditions of access to data.
3) Sanders clearly demonstrated that
a. He could beat Clinton at this game in real time. He played 11-dimensional chess while she was still looking for the board.
b. He has said that he would arouse the people to force a recalcitrant Congress to pass his legislative initiatives. Yesterday’s skirmish demonstrated his ability to do that even before his inauguration.
4) Clinton demonstrated that
a. Her campaign is in trouble. She is feeling the pressure of recent Sanders fund raising and endorsement victories, and knows that her chance to win is slipping away.
b. She is no more capable of foreseeing the outcome of her actions than when she voted for Bush’s Iraq war.
c. She cannot mobilize her supporters to rally to her in a fight. Did anybody see any pro-DNC/Clinton petitions?
Executive Summary:
Friday’s skirmish showed that Clinton is not a leader, but Sanders is. Clinton cannot think strategically, but Sanders can. Clinton’s supporters are passive and may or may not bother to vote for her. Sanders has a good start on building a mass movement to back up his presidency.