Screw the Dem establishment. The candidates should boycott the DNC debates.
You know, maybe it'd be a good idea for for all four of Hillary's primary opponents to band together and boycott the DNC debates. The four candidates (Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley, Jim Webb, and Lincoln Chafee) could schedule their own debate this month and invite Hillary Clinton. She can either decline or accept. If she accepts (which she might under such pressure from all four rivals), it'll open the door to all sorts of debates. CNN, MSNBC, and a whole spate of media outlets would love to host some, as they did in 2007 and 2008. The DNC then can't enforce its nonsensical "no outside party debate" rule on all five candidates, so the penalty is moot and forgotten.
Now, if Hillary declines in the invitation, that means she'd stand alone on the stage in the DNC debates for two hours once a month, which she wouldn't want to to do: it'd embarrass her own campaign, and the networks wouldn't go for it. Or she could refuse to debate her primary opponents altogether, which would make her look bad.
The primary schedule set by the DNC this election cycle is bullshit. In the 2007-08 cycle, there were 26 Democratic primary debates with 17 of them happening in 2007, and beginning in late April of 2007. By comparison, there are just 6 debates planned this cycle with only 3 of them happening this year. The first one is scheduled for October 13th. And the DNC has a new rule that says candidates can't participate in debates outside the DNC-sanctioned process or they will be banned from future DNC debates.
(In 2007, 2008, there were also 6 official DNC debates, but there was no exclusivity clause, allowing the candidates to have 20 non-DNC sanctioned debates). It's not the 6 official debates that are the problem, it's the new rule by the DNC that if you participate in an outside debate (hosted by CNN, Youtube, the AFL-CIO, Univision, NPR, etc.), then you'll be sanctioned and can't participate in the official DNC debates.
All of this is clearly done to benefit Hillary Clinton, since she is the establishment's favorite candidate: her campaign waned even fewer debates than six (O'Malley and Sanders wanted more), and the few debates plus the ban limits the media exposure and publicity her primary challengers could receive from earlier and more debates.
It's funny, because the Democratic Party implored us to tune into the GOP debate happening tonight, yet they announced that the first Democratic Party debate is happening over two months from today. This sends a really bad message. What they're saying is, "the Republican debates are more important than the Democratic debates, and they're so exciting that even we recommend tuning in."
I think that this is bullshit, and fuck the Democratic Party establishment. DNC Chariwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a Hillary shill, having co-chaired Clinton's national campaign in 2007. And the DNC's finance chairman is supposed to be "impartial," but he's been raising money for Hillary Clinton. So clearly, the DNC is playing favoritism and trying to boost up Hillary while marginalizing her primary opponents, especially Bernie Sanders who has increasingly become threatening to her. And to add insult to injury, the first scheduled DNC debate is AFTER New York's deadline to register as a Democrat for the primaries. I can't imagine any other reason for this than to benefit Hillary.
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the debate scheme.
This indeed is getting traction and the blowback should be interesting...
That is good to hear.
newscast.
Here is to hoping!!!
Fine post.
