Brian4Liberty
10-16-2015, 02:13 PM
Insurrection Erupts at the Democratic National Committee (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-16/insurrection-erupts-at-the-democratic-national-committee)
By John Heilemann - October 15, 2015
Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz's autocratic ways in limiting the number of primary debates, insiders say, alienated many of her colleagues. And the problem may get worse.
Before things went awry, Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii had been planning to be in Las Vegas for her party’s first presidential debate. Gabbard is one of five vice chairs of the Democratic National Committee; of course she would be there. But instead of talking up her party’s prospects on the Strip earlier this week, Gabbard was in Honolulu. Her presence in Sin City was strictly virtual, and anything but boosterish: She spent debate day giving cable-news interviews via satellite, claiming that, as retribution for loudly calling for more Democratic debates than the DNC currently envisions, she was deemed unwelcome in Vegas by the committee’s chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz—who Gabbard suggested is an enemy of free speech, as well as a liar.
For most debate viewers and Democratic voters, the Gabbard flap, if it registered at all, was little more than a sideshow. But among Democratic officials and strategists, the dust-up was an embarrassing public spectacle—a boiling-over of long-simmering frustrations and resentments within the party hierarchy at a highly inopportune moment.
Of two dozen Democratic insiders with whom I spoke this week, including several DNC vice chairs, not one defended Wasserman Schultz’s treatment of Gabbard. Most called it ridiculous, outrageous, or worse. Many argued, further, that the debate plan enacted by the chairwoman is badly flawed—an assessment shared by many party activists, left-bent supporters of Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, and those candidates themselves, all of whom see it as a naked effort to aid and comfort Hillary Clinton. And they maintained that the plan was a clear reflection of Wasserman Schultz’s management style, which many of them see as endangering Democratic prospects in 2016 and beyond.
...
Then, in August, the DNC released the debate schedule, with only four debates scheduled to take place before the nomination contest begins in earnest in Iowa on Feb. 1—and with that, all hell broke loose.
Whatever debate plan the DNC pursued was always bound to be controversial. But the manner in which Wasserman Schultz crafted the scheme all but guaranteed an eventual blowup. According to several people with front-row seats for the hatching of the plan, the chairwoman made her decision unilaterally, without consulting or even telling the rest of the committee’s high command, including her vice chairs, in advance.
“She presented this to us as a fait accompli as she was about to go out and announce it to the whole committee,” Rybak told me. “I said to her, ‘Well, at least there's some way you can explain why you came to that decision.’ She didn't even do that. She gaveled people out of order without any explanation.”
...
The result was predictable—and, in fact, predicted by some Wasserman Schultz advisers. Many state party officials, who prize debates as organizing opportunities, were furious at both the plan and the chairwoman’s refusal even to consider a change of course. (“We’re going to have six debates—period,” she declared to reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington.) In mid-September, Massachusetts Democratic Party Vice Chair Deb Kozikowski accused her of “establishing a full-fledged dictatorship at the DNC.” A few days later, at a speech before the New Hampshire Democratic Party convention, Wasserman Schultz was greeted with raucous chants of “We want debates!”
At the same time, her motives were called into question, most aggressively by O’Malley, who accused the DNC of “rigging the process and stacking the deck” in Clinton’s favor. Given the desire of the other candidates for more debates, the insistence of the Clinton team on fewer, and Wasserman Schultz’s status as a long-time Clinton ally (she was a co-chair of Hillary’s 2008 campaign), the accusations carried a distinct whiff of plausibility.
...
On Sept. 9, Gabbard and Rybak went public with their dissent, issuing a joint statement calling for additional debates and an end to the exclusivity rule. But it was Gabbard who became the public face of internal opposition to Wasserman Schultz’s plan. After an MSNBC interview last week in which she reiterated her stance, her chief of staff received a call from DWS’s congressional chief of staff, Tracy Pough, who conveyed the message, according to Gabbard, “that if I’m going to continue talking about that that I shouldn’t go to the debate.”
...
I asked Rybak if he agreed with those who cast Wasserman Schultz as dictatorial. He said that he did. Calling her decisions “arbitrary” and “reckless,” ...
...
With the Democrat-on-Democrat conflict ratcheting up, people close to the DNC predict a full-on assault on Rybak by Wasserman Schultz and her allies. If it happens, the internecine battle is likely to widen and get uglier—and quickly.
...
More: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-16/insurrection-erupts-at-the-democratic-national-committee
By John Heilemann - October 15, 2015
Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz's autocratic ways in limiting the number of primary debates, insiders say, alienated many of her colleagues. And the problem may get worse.
Before things went awry, Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii had been planning to be in Las Vegas for her party’s first presidential debate. Gabbard is one of five vice chairs of the Democratic National Committee; of course she would be there. But instead of talking up her party’s prospects on the Strip earlier this week, Gabbard was in Honolulu. Her presence in Sin City was strictly virtual, and anything but boosterish: She spent debate day giving cable-news interviews via satellite, claiming that, as retribution for loudly calling for more Democratic debates than the DNC currently envisions, she was deemed unwelcome in Vegas by the committee’s chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz—who Gabbard suggested is an enemy of free speech, as well as a liar.
For most debate viewers and Democratic voters, the Gabbard flap, if it registered at all, was little more than a sideshow. But among Democratic officials and strategists, the dust-up was an embarrassing public spectacle—a boiling-over of long-simmering frustrations and resentments within the party hierarchy at a highly inopportune moment.
Of two dozen Democratic insiders with whom I spoke this week, including several DNC vice chairs, not one defended Wasserman Schultz’s treatment of Gabbard. Most called it ridiculous, outrageous, or worse. Many argued, further, that the debate plan enacted by the chairwoman is badly flawed—an assessment shared by many party activists, left-bent supporters of Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, and those candidates themselves, all of whom see it as a naked effort to aid and comfort Hillary Clinton. And they maintained that the plan was a clear reflection of Wasserman Schultz’s management style, which many of them see as endangering Democratic prospects in 2016 and beyond.
...
Then, in August, the DNC released the debate schedule, with only four debates scheduled to take place before the nomination contest begins in earnest in Iowa on Feb. 1—and with that, all hell broke loose.
Whatever debate plan the DNC pursued was always bound to be controversial. But the manner in which Wasserman Schultz crafted the scheme all but guaranteed an eventual blowup. According to several people with front-row seats for the hatching of the plan, the chairwoman made her decision unilaterally, without consulting or even telling the rest of the committee’s high command, including her vice chairs, in advance.
“She presented this to us as a fait accompli as she was about to go out and announce it to the whole committee,” Rybak told me. “I said to her, ‘Well, at least there's some way you can explain why you came to that decision.’ She didn't even do that. She gaveled people out of order without any explanation.”
...
The result was predictable—and, in fact, predicted by some Wasserman Schultz advisers. Many state party officials, who prize debates as organizing opportunities, were furious at both the plan and the chairwoman’s refusal even to consider a change of course. (“We’re going to have six debates—period,” she declared to reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington.) In mid-September, Massachusetts Democratic Party Vice Chair Deb Kozikowski accused her of “establishing a full-fledged dictatorship at the DNC.” A few days later, at a speech before the New Hampshire Democratic Party convention, Wasserman Schultz was greeted with raucous chants of “We want debates!”
At the same time, her motives were called into question, most aggressively by O’Malley, who accused the DNC of “rigging the process and stacking the deck” in Clinton’s favor. Given the desire of the other candidates for more debates, the insistence of the Clinton team on fewer, and Wasserman Schultz’s status as a long-time Clinton ally (she was a co-chair of Hillary’s 2008 campaign), the accusations carried a distinct whiff of plausibility.
...
On Sept. 9, Gabbard and Rybak went public with their dissent, issuing a joint statement calling for additional debates and an end to the exclusivity rule. But it was Gabbard who became the public face of internal opposition to Wasserman Schultz’s plan. After an MSNBC interview last week in which she reiterated her stance, her chief of staff received a call from DWS’s congressional chief of staff, Tracy Pough, who conveyed the message, according to Gabbard, “that if I’m going to continue talking about that that I shouldn’t go to the debate.”
...
I asked Rybak if he agreed with those who cast Wasserman Schultz as dictatorial. He said that he did. Calling her decisions “arbitrary” and “reckless,” ...
...
With the Democrat-on-Democrat conflict ratcheting up, people close to the DNC predict a full-on assault on Rybak by Wasserman Schultz and her allies. If it happens, the internecine battle is likely to widen and get uglier—and quickly.
...
More: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-16/insurrection-erupts-at-the-democratic-national-committee