There’s a diary on the Rec List of all places — color me shocked — that trumpets the millions of dollars that Secy. Clinton has reported raising this past quarter for the ‘party.’ That would be, should be praiseworthy. Unfortunately, the same diary calls out Sen. Sanders and his campaign for not having raised any money on behalf of the Party. That is so misleading that it makes my blood boil.
There’s one reason — and ONLY one reason why Bernie Sanders hasn’t reported great sums of funds raised for the party. The DNC hasn’t asked him to — they deliberately have not involved him in any big-ticket fundraisers.
The rec list diary to which I referred above gets its numbers — and supposedly its theme — from an article in the Washington Post on the fundraising numbers. However, the diary doesn’t include the important information in the article about why Sanders doesn’t have party fundraising money to report:
"We remain happy to work with them," Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs said Saturday, when asked about joint fundraising efforts. "The party hasn't given us any dates for events.”
The DNC hasn’t given him any dates. Not one fundraiser. They’d rather raise less money than work with the Sanders campaign to stage a fundraiser for the party. Think about what this means.
If there’s something that is getting my blood boiling more than the bullshit accusation that Sanders isn’t interested in raising money for the party, it’s what this really says about the DNC’s role in this election campaign.
The DNC is working hand-in-glove with Secy. Clinton to place her at big-money, high-priced ticket event. The Party gets the money, and Clinton gets the personal exposure and connection with these wealthy donors.
Sanders — gets bupkis from the DNC. Zilch. Nada. Nothing except maybe the back of the Party’s hand, or a door slamming in his face. Maybe, the DNC ought to light up some bags of poop on the doorstep of the Sanders’ campaign offices. That would convey just about the same message.
I can’t believe that the Clinton partisans on this site are so deluded that they are applauding this diary which tries to use this information as an attack on Sanders, when it really is a DAMNING INDICTMENT of the role the DNC has chosen to play in this campaign. Whichever candidate you favor, you should deplore what the DNC is doing in this campaign. The national party is rigging the primary with every thing they can think of, including helping one candidate raise money from the big-ticket donors. This is dirty pool, and smacks of even deeper corruption below it.
Tammany Hall in NY, the Daley Machine in Chicago. We aren’t surprised when we read about this kind of crap at the local level. Party machinery is often employed to favor a party candidate that is in the bag for the local machine. One hand greases the other. Maybe, even wipes each others’ …….rear ends. It’s happened...for forever.
However, I don’t think that I have ever seen the national Democratic Party organization act in such an utterly undemocratic, elitist, reprehensible manner, to blatantly rig a PRESIDENTIAL primary election. It’s not enough that they have made their preference well-known, not enough that they have staged the debates in a way to protect Clinton and maintain the relative anonymity of her challengers, it’s not enough, that the super-delegates are lining up for her. The DNC is actually going out of its way to help one candidate raise gobs of money and actively denying the same kind of access to the other candidates.
I don’t know if this non-cooperation with Sanders is due to a directive from the Clinton campaign, or whether the DNC deserves sole blame for this grotesque manipulation of the political process. But, someone has learned the old school Chicago way to manage the party machine.
Whatever comes of this primary — and I still believe in the People’s Revolution that Sanders calls for — we need an uprising aginst the DNC. It’s not enough to take back the country from the billionaires. We need to take back our Party from a now shamelessly corrupt DNC.