(Written after the data tangle, just publishing now)
After a lot of debate here at DK, and a LOT of overconfident Hillary Clinton supporters thought that Hillary/the DNC/Debbie Wasserman-Shultz would finally destroy Bernie Sanders’ candidacy for good, something funny happened:
This is where the Bernie campaign’s honesty and integrity, yes, even in the face of a data access breach by his own employee, defeats the smarminess, shadiness, and greasiness of DWS and her Hillary-favored DNC. Bernie first owned the issue, quickly removed the person involved, and met all the requirements that the DNC laid out to prove there was no retention of data.
At that point, by being transparent and honest, Bernie then had the advantage over a group his campaign managers KNEW had skeletons in their closets: the DNC. By threatening suit, and the inevitable discovery that went along with it, the DNC made it painfully obvious that they were holding a terrible hand, and FOLDED, like a cheap suit.
And the Hillary/DWS crew learned a valuable lesson in politics: honesty and integrity doesn’t mean weakness. And the Bern they are feeling today will probably force them to remember that.
The guffaws from the Hillary gallery here at DK that faced all the Bernie supporters here made the justice very, very sweet. You could have listened to Howard Dean:
“It does not pay to poke Bernie and beat up on him because he’s very good at pointing out what’s going on.”
Howard Dean
And for those inside the DK bubble, you have NO idea what this entire incident has done to the Bernie campaign. Massive money was raised, tenaciousness was lit, tempers were flared. What a bad, bad, BAD move for a campaign that looked like it had it practically locked up if they just quietly and calmly stayed the course.
Is this event THIS YEAR’s 2008 South Carolina? We’ll see, but we know that the Hillary campaign is capable of doing these mind-boggling things to lose. This one might even be worse than 2008. Hillary could have just said,”Bernie should have his data, right now.” and she could have been a hero, too. But the Clintons don’t politic like that, and it may have cost them in this case.
What a beautiful day, where David beats Goliath, and integrity trumps corruption!