Clinton Volunteers Encouraged To Vote for MOM To PREVENT His Voters From Shifting To Bernie Sanders

[Segami]

"Clinton volunteers are being encouraged to vote for Martin O’Malley in cases where making him viable would prevent his voters from shifting to Bernie Sanders."

This scares me so much. What can we do about this? This feels so dirty, so cynical.
We are spending our time making videos to help our caucus goers convince people that Bernie would be a great candidate for them, and then I see the Clinton camp doing something like this... What can we do?

https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/433avs/clinton_volunteers_are_being_encouraged_to_vote/

Joan Amos, a sweet, outspoken 73-year-old chair of the Democratic Party in Lucas County, attended one campaign caucus briefing a few months ago and told me Clinton volunteers are being encouraged to vote for Martin O’Malley in cases where making him viable would prevent his voters from shifting to Bernie Sanders.

Amos says that, at least in her county, food can also be a strategic consideration. A neighbor once gave her an expensive bottle of wine and asked her to switch her vote to a rival campaign (she didn't). In 2008, she said the Clinton supporters in Lucas County separated their home-cooked dishes from the main community potluck table on caucus night in order to make their corner of the room look more inviting. When I asked if the Clinton campaign intended to bring food this year, one local volunteer, Susan Cohen, clarified: “It’s not bribery, it’s all about hospitality and making it a good experience for everybody.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-01-25/the-secret-science-of-winning-the-iowa-caucuses

[Segami]

1. Surprised?.....not the least.

[roguevalley]

38. there is no bottom to her tactics and desperation.

[Autumn]

2. Wow, that tactic seems familiar.

[Agnosticsherbet]

3. Organization is critical in a Caucus

If this is true, and it works, it appears that the Clinton Campaign has out organized both Sanders and O'Malley.

IF the Revolution is real, we will see a million Youth and it will be unnecessary.

[cali]

13. The revolution is real. Whether that means Bernie will

win Iowa is another story.

[Agnosticsherbet]

16. If the fails to win in Iowa, his revolution

will be shown to be anemic.

I suspect he will do better in some other states.

Again, I look forward to the counting of the votes.

[cali]

20. No. Revolutions in their infancy are often difficult

to assess. The test will be whether the people involved, will stay energized and invoved, working to elect more progressives, for example.

[Agnosticsherbet]

34. The linked post shows that, at least in the short term, the Sanders Revoltuion has not

done the necessary work.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1082609

[cali]

39. I suggest checking this out

They're working on more than just getting Bernie elected.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/

[Agnosticsherbet]

42. Sanders' Campaign, is not helping other Democrats get elected.

Read the article I posted.
It explains a lot.
Reddit does not show his campaign developing the relationships.

[workinclasszero]

32. There you go

I totally agree. Bernie's operation looks like a bunch of crybaby amateurs with stuff like this.

I am waiting four more days to learn the truth about Bernie's massive internet army marching down to the caucus sites in Iowa.

It should be interesting to see what happens but his campaign whining about Politics 101 stuff makes me think they are full of it.

[Betty Karlson]

4. Cynical and desperate.

And this is the woman who hopes to win the GE? This is right on par with Mondale expectations.

[aidbo]

5. I know Iowans at proud of their caucuses..

..but I wish more states had a vote by mail system like Oregon's.

[KingFlorez]

6. That is called strategy

It is not dirty or cynical, it's merely part of the process.

[HerbChestnut]

7. Whatever it takes!!

[Kentonio]

11. It's dirty, cynical and part of the process. They are not mutually exclusive.

[cali]

15. Of course it's cynical. It may not be dirty but it's deeply cynical

[frylock]

30. It's weaselly and completely expected of her.

And it's going to fail in spectacular fashion, and I'm going to be front and center laughing my ass off.

[MADem]

8. Gee, didn't they do that on the GOOD WIFE a couple of weeks ago....?

But hey, REDDIT and some lady named JOAN said so~! That makes it true!!! It's a Grand Conspiracy, I tell ya!!

And given that "food" can make people change their vote, if this is true, all the Trump people need to do is show up with some good wings and booze and he'll walk away with the RNC votes.

The "White States First" primary/cacus will eventually go the way of the dodo. These two states don't have enough electoral votes to matter, big picture. Of course, they fight to keep their Number One status because they NEED that influx of cash every four years.

[NCTraveler]

10. Joan is actually easily accesible. Very easily.

I believe she has endorsed Clinton.

[NCTraveler]

9. Awesome. I believe Joan Amos, the "sweet, outspoken 73-year-old chair of the DP in Lucas County,"

Has endorsed Clinton and will be one of Clintons backers on caucus night. Great to have people with such knowledge on our team.

[artislife]

12. If she wins the battle (primaries) she will still lose the war (GE). nt

[CajunBlazer]

19. What does your crystal ball say about the stock market?

If it says buy, I am going to sell.

[artislife]

24. I don't play in that game

I was hoping you would keep your word about staying out if the GDP. But I guess you were just blowing bubbles.

[SwampG8r]

36. I am impressed at your ability to extend the benefit of the doubt

Regarding such promises when history is such a strong case against it being fulfilled.

[artislife]

44. I forgot that they belong to the NO We can't division of the party.

My bad.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

14. So O'Malley gets his 3-4%, and Hillary wants to drain off 11-12% of her voters

So that Bernie can get 50% to her 35% and O'Malley's 15%, instead of it being maybe 52-48?

[questionseverything]

17. seems like she has not thought this thru

she has that habit tho

[hack89]

21. Bernie's support is very concentrated in a few cities

I would imagine that this strategy would only apply to a handful of caucuses at best.

[Tarc]

40. Not really, no. It's complicated

Say Precinct A has a fixed # of 20 delegates. After the initial round of pledging, Sanders has 10, Clinton 8, O'Malley 2, leaving MOM at 10%, thus non-viable (you have to hit 15%).

The Clinton caucus would need to woo around half of those undecideds over to her camp in order to bump her upto 9 and O'Malley down to 2. Well, what if they can't, but they could afford to peel off 1 delegate's worth of people and send them to MOM's camp? Rather than potentially all of MOM's delegates going to Sanders (he wins the precinct 12-10), Sanders still wins but at 10-7-3.

Hillary "spent" 1 to cost Sanders 2.

[bunnies]

18. Seems counter-productive to give votes away.

No?

[highprincipleswork]

22. Keeping it classy!!!!

[jillan]

23. Hoping the Bernie campaign is aware of this and will have caucus watchers set up.

[Jim Lane]

45. What could caucus watchers do?

People are entitled to move from one candidate to another. If O'Malley is at 12%, his supporters will be lobbying to try to get a few more people. If someone walks from the Clinton corner to the O'Malley corner, no caucus watcher would have a basis for disallowing the vote just because of suspicions -- or even open admissions -- about the voter's motive.

[sabrina 1]

25. 'This feels so dirty'. It feels dirty because it is. Limbaugh used to urge right wingers to

do this. I guess on the good side, it shows they don't expect Hillary to win if the process is fair, so dirty tricks are the only way in their minds.

I have a feeling, like everything else that comes out of the minds of dirty tricksters like David Brock, it will backfire.

The presumption is that ordinary people are as easily manipulated as those in power. MOM supporters support him for the samre reasons Bernie supporters support Bernie, so being approached by any campaign to play such a game with our election process is likely to only make decent serious voters, angry.

[frylock]

31. Right-wingers gonna right-wing.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

26. Wouldn't you know!

[HassleCat]

27. Grain of salt

This makes no sense. Clinton volunteers would encourage people to vote for Clinton, not for O'Malley. I consider this less than a rumor.

[Segami]

28. Steven Yaccino who wrote the Bloomberg story...

is claiming that Lucas County Democratic Party Chair Joan Amos told him this little nugget.

"..Joan Amos, a sweet, outspoken 73-year-old chair of the Democratic Party in Lucas County, attended one campaign caucus briefing a few months ago and told me Clinton volunteers are being encouraged to vote for Martin O’Malley in cases where making him viable would prevent his voters from shifting to Bernie Sanders..."

Either he's lying about or distorting this claim or he's telling the truth.

[HassleCat]

33. Waaaaaayy too vague

Which volunteers? Encouraged by whom? Under what circumstances? You know what this looks like to me? Bernie's musings about generating some primary opposition to Obama. I think this is some thought that occurred to one person, nothing like a Clinton campaign strategy. And it still makes no sense. The way to hurt Sanders is to encourage people to vote for Clinton, not for O'Malley.

[Jim Lane]

46. You contend that this makes no sense, but it could make a lot of sense.

Suppose (for simplicity) 100 caucusgoers. Initial breakdown is Clinton 48, Sanders 40, O'Malley 12. O'Malley isn't viable under the 15% rule. The Clinton precinct captain knows the O'Malley people and knows that they all prefer Sanders to Clinton.

Alternative 1: Clinton captain does nothing. The O'Malley people, unable to recruit three more supporters, have to give up. They all go to Sanders. Sanders wins the precinct, 52-48.

Alternative 2: Clinton captain orders three Clinton supporters to go over and caucus with O'Malley. O'Malley is now viable (barely). Clinton drops from 48 to 45 but still has the plurality. Clinton wins the precinct, 45-40-15.

Clinton could well decide that winning (albeit with only 45) is better than losing (even if with 48).

[frylock]

29. Weasels gonna weasel.

[amborin]

35. and a Clinton campaign manager accused Bernie's campaign of using Rove tactics.....Orwellian nt

[Faux pas]

37. If you can't

beat 'em, cheat 'em.

[Tarc]

41. You really have no idea what you're talking about

This is how the caucus system works. Every campaign in every election year knows this, and strategizes accordingly. The Edwards and Obama camps did this in 2008 to drain Clinton's delegates down to 3rd place.

[DefenseLawyer]

43. "Jesus, bad waves of paranoia, madness, fear and loathing"

"- intolerable vibrations in this place. Get out. The weasels were closing in. I could smell the ugly brutes." - H.S.Thompson