Insurrection ERUPTS At the Democratic National Committee

[Segami]

“..For someone who’s the head of a national party, you would think she’d be better at, you know, politics,” says a senior Democrat with close ties to the DNC. “How do you not line up your own folks? How do you not touch base and say, ‘This is what I need from you guys’? At best, you consult; at least, you notify. But her default is to see her vice chairs as nuisances, not partners—not even close. The word partner would never cross her lips...”

Get rid of her!!..............





~snip~

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.


One top Democrat who feels precisely this way is DNC vice chair R.T. Rybak, a former mayor of Minneapolis who along with Gabbard has publicly called for more debates. But Rybak’s indictment of Wasserman Schultz is more sweeping—and pointed—than that. “In the days before and after the debate I kept my mouth shut,” Rybak told me by phone on Thursday. “But I’ve begun to deeply question whether she has the leadership skills to get us through the election. This is not just about how many debates we have. This is one of a series of long-running events in which the chair has not shown the political judgment that is needed.” I asked Rybak if he was calling for Wasserman Schultz to resign.

“I'm coming really close,” he replied. “I'm not quite doing that yet, but unless I see some significant shift in the way she's going to operate and see that she has some ability to reach out and include people who disagree with her, then I seriously question whether she's the right person to lead us.”

~snip~

Rybak and other Democratic critics of Wasserman Schultz have been holding their tongues about what they see as her deficiencies for years. But the dispute over debates has proven sufficiently contentious that it is suddenly causing those tongues to loosen. The road to this place began in May, when the DNC announced that there would be just six sanctioned debates, and that candidates who took part in forums not green-lit by the committee would be excluded from the approved ones. Clinton’s camp, which had lobbied against an early DNC proposal for eight debates, was well pleased. Sanders, O’Malley, and their people were less so. But the wider Democratic world mostly yawned. 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 February 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.”

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,” he went on, “As a Democrat, you have to be able to bring people you don't agree with into the tent. You can't gavel them down out of order when they have a different opinion. You can't go on national TV and say things about them that aren't true. And this is something that frankly a lot of people have kept their mouth shut about for a long time. I have too. But I think the time has come for all those people who come up to me and say this is a problem to stop hiding behind their political expediency … We have the candidates. We have the issues. There's only one single thing that I see standing between us and a great election coming up and that's the fact that the person who is supposed to leading us is not leading us.” As Rybak suggested, he is far from alone in casting broader doubt on Wasserman Schultz’s stewardship of the DNC. Her critics level an assortment of charges against her: that, in the age of super-PACs, the Koch Brothers, and an array of other Republican billionaires prepared to devote vast sums to the causes of recapturing the White House and retaining the GOP’s hold on Congress, she is ill-equipped to steer the party as it navigates the forbidding electoral terrain ahead; that she is insufficiently tech savvy; that she is neither attuned to the party’s grassroots nor focused on the methodical expansion of the Obama coalition; that she and her staff are not unlike Selina Myer and hers on “Veep.” Says the Democrat with close ties to the committee: “The next chair is going to have to burn the place down and rebuild it.”



cont'


http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-16/insurrection-erupts-at-the-democratic-national-committee

[Segami]

1. “..The chairwoman said publicly..

..that she had communicated and consulted with vice chairs and officers of the DNC prior to making her decision,” Gabbard told Mitchell. “The fact is, there was no communication. There was no consultation with the vice chairs and officers, of which I am one. So it’s unfortunate that she continues to say things that aren’t true.”

Asked later by Wolf Blitzer on CNN about Gabbard’s charge that she dissembling, Wasserman Schultz bobbed and weaved, implying that it was Gabbard who was lying. “She’s unfortunately spending a lot of time on process,” the chairwoman said. “There were many people consulted, including officers, about our process.”

“She says she was never consulted,” Blitzer pressed.

[Sherman A1]

2. She needs to go!

and every time the DNC sends me one of those nice Survey/Donation letters it goes back to them with just that written across it..

"DWS needs to go!" "And no money until she does."

[SleeplessinSoCal]

3. This is the lede on Huffpost. n/t

[emsimon33]

4. Another Obama appointment that disappoints and endangers

[barbtries]

5. the DNC keeps sending me emails asking for donations

i write back and tell them that until she's gone, my donations will go to my chosen candidates and not to the DNC.

[ybbor]

9. I asked them to stop emailing me

I said I no longer wanted correspondence from them until she was gone. I believe I said it in a very snarky tone.

DWS sucks and must be tossed now so we can get the house in order prior to the election next year. We cannot afford a repeat of last November.

[Fearless]

6. Can the fraud.

By which I mean her obviously.

[roaminronin]

7. Unfortunately, what is posing as democracy these days.

Is a coven of craven capitulants with tons of dirty PAC money and nice hair.

BERN it down!

[Le Taz Hot]

16. "coven of craven capitulants"

Nice alliteration.

[UCmeNdc]

8. She is a distraction. Get rid of her.

Why is that so hard to do? Bring Howard Dean back.

[Truprogressive85]

10. Time to cleanse the Dem. Party of corporate venom that has poisoned the party

Now I see why HRC supporters want Sen. Sanders supporters to shut up and fall in line

The DNC has a choice replace DWS and add more debates or watch this sh** burn

[Scuba]

12. +1

[Enthusiast]

11. Kicked and recommended!

[Autumn]

13. They need to do something about her. It's time to shit or get off the post.

Complaining about her dirty tricks but taking no action makes them look silly and ineffective.

[FlatBaroque]

14. I guess Barack is working on his legacy. nt

[WillyT]

15. K & R !!!

[WillyT]

17. "... not one defended Wasserman Schultz’s treatment of Gabbard."

[Spitfire of ATJ]

18. She's trying to be Hillary's Carl Rove.....

One of the complaints the Republicans had was that Carl Rove wouldn't use his "talents" for anyone but Dubya.

[yurbud]

19. this is the standard MO of DLC/New Dems: they aren't even small "D" democrats

Wasserman-Schultz strikes me as someone like Rahm Emanuel: a politician only a corporate donor could love.

Here skills are probably in rounding up the fat cats donations and ensuring they get a return on their investment.