WaPo: DNC going to offer convention concession to Sanders

[Sparkly]

DNC to offer Sanders a convention concession

In an attempt to head off an ugly conflict at its convention this summer, the Democratic National Committee plans to offer a concession to Sen. Bernie Sanders — seats on a key convention platform committee — but it may not be enough to stop Sanders from picking a fight over the party’s policy positions.

Allies of both Clinton and Sanders have urged Democratic leaders to meet some of Sanders’s more mundane demands for greater inclusion at the Philadelphia convention. Their decision to do so is expected to be finalized by the end of the week, according to two people familiar with the discussions. But growing mistrust between Sanders supporters and party leaders have threatened to undermine that effort.

Even with the committee assignments, Sanders plans an aggressive effort to extract platform concessions on key policies that could prompt divisive battles at a moment when front-runner Hillary Clinton will be trying to unify the party. Among other issues, he plans to push for a $15 national minimum wage and argue that the party needs a more balanced position regarding Israel and Palestinians, according to a Sanders campaign aide who requested anonymity to speak candidly.

Much like their view that the economy has been “rigged” to benefit the wealthy more than the middle and working classes, Sanders supporters have become increasingly convinced that national Democrats have stacked the political deck with rules that have made it difficult for Sanders to win enough delegates to threaten Clinton’s nomination.

More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dnc-to-offer-sanders-a-convention-concession/2016/05/19/99706b54-1df4-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html

[restorefreedom]

1. bernie really needs to tell the corrupt dnc where to place their concession. nt

[nc4bo]

3. Ding-Ding-Ding! nt

[Sparkly]

5. Or the DNC "really needs" to tell bernie where to place his threats.

Just sayin'.

[restorefreedom]

9. bernie threats? uh, nope. more manufactured poutrage

from an imploding and terrified campaign.

"we came, we saw, he died."--hrc

[Trajan]

81. Always enjoyed your posts over the years

But that was then...

No more ...

[anotherproletariat]

16. I SO hope he does. Then he gets no say on the platform, and loses! What a perfect ending

that would be!

[Sparkly]

21. I'm thinking it might have to come to that.

Why negotiate with people who don't respect democracy, or social contracts, yet calls himself a democratic socialist?

[Punkingal]

65. You are confused about which candidate doesn't respect democracy.

[seabeyond]

37. DNC really needs to tell Sanders where to put his demands.

[CorporatistNation]

53. AGREED! WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE! NOT ABOUT TRADE FOR CRUMBS, ESPECIALLY GIVEN THE

CORRUPT MANNER ON A BROAD SCALE HOW THE PRIMARY ON THE DEMOCRATIC SIDE WAS "ORCHESTRATED" AS AN ENTERPRISE!

[Sparkly]

2. Because he made threats.

Separately, the composition of three convention committees — platform, rules and credentials — has become key. Earlier this month, in a letter to DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Sanders threatened to bring the fight to the floor of the convention if she did not appoint more of his loyalists to the each of the three committees.

(snip)One of Sanders’s demands was the composition of the 15-person drafting committee, whose members are appointed at Wasserman Schultz’s discretion and write the party’s platform.

(snip)Sanders is seeking a more “even-handed” U.S. approach to Israeli occupation of land Palestinians claim for a future state. The current platform does not address the nearly five-decade occupation directly, but it endorses “a just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian accord, producing two states for two peoples.”

Imagine if Clinton had done this to Obama.

[Barack_America]

7. He's earned the right to demand respect.

And the votes of literally millions of his supporters hinge on how he, and their votes, are respected at the convention.

[Sparkly]

14. This is no way to get respect.

What Clinton did in 2008 was worthy of respect.

Holding the party hostage with demands is not going to do anything for respect, party unity, or victory over Trump in November.

[Barack_America]

19. Obama never treated Hillary the way she has treated Bernie...

...even though she treated Obama just as she has treated Sanders.

Bernie has nothing to lose at this point. She is vindictive by nature and will seek to destroy his career regardless. Trump doesn't need Sanders's support to defeat Hillary in November, she will give, and has given, him more than enough to accomplish that.

[Sparkly]

25. Baloney.

This isn't about Clinton. It's about the Democratic party.

Sanders is running against the party.

[Jackilope]

68. Except he is more of a Democrat than Hillary is.

He stands for labor, he marches with us. He wants to expand Social Security and Medicare. He opposes fracking, opposes horrific trade deals ....

Third Way has hijacked the Democratic Party.

[puffy socks]

30. " the way she has treated Bernie.."

What are you talking about?

[LuvLoogie]

71. She keeps getting votes and delegates. It's cruel and unfair.

[puffy socks]

72. Oh gosh

poor Bernie

[seabeyond]

40. Just tgd opposite. He has earned our disrespect.

[hellofromreddit]

15. Yeah, that's not a threat. That's called haggling. It's how real politics works.

People accustomed to backroom and gladhand politics are understandably confused when they first encounter actual politics. But don't worry; you'll quickly learn to appreciate it.

[Sparkly]

27. No it isn't.

[Luminous Animal]

49. Hahaha. No link. Typical.

[Sparkly]

58. see OP

[Cheese Sandwich]

56. What "threats" did he make? Threatening to show up at the convention with a bunch of delegates

and ... participate ?

[Warren DeMontague]

70. What specific policy differences were there between Clinton and Obama?

It was about who should be the nominee, but there was very little actual policy distance between the two candidates.

Sanders has actual issues- a national livable minimum wage, a single payer health care proposal, descheduling of marijuana, ending the drug war, ending blanket surveillance, etc. on which there is real disagreement with the beltway conventional widsom brigade.

[lumberjack_jeff]

76. Sanders IS a threat to the Oligarchy. n/t

[Ed Suspicious]

4. We need to make clean elections the biggest priority. Without that everything else is crap.

[Sparkly]

6. I agree.

This isn't that. Even Al Gore conceded to Shrub.

[nc4bo]

8. It's the simplest solution but 1 neither party seems interested about fixing, especially Democrats!

Makes you wonder why that is.

In my eyes, complacency = agreement.

ETA: on second thought, "serious" wasn't the word I was looking for. "INTERESTED" is much more accurate and appropriate.

[Sparkly]

11. Both sides agreed to the rules.

Now it's about doing what's best for the country.

[nc4bo]

13. I had to change "serious" to "interested" - because there seems to be NO interest

in restoring our confidence in our electoral process (by the typical Republicans) by Democrats.

I guess they have better, more interesting things to do.

[Sparkly]

17. Election reform is a valid issue.

Damaging the Democratic party is a great way to make sure it never happens.

Not to mention fair wages, universal healthcare, debt-free college tuition, protecting women's reproductive rights, etc. etc. etc.....

[Fast Walker 52]

29. Amen, but it is a national project, not just for the Dems

but I guess they should clean house first

[lumberjack_jeff]

77. No, it's clear that our house is in greater need of cleaning.

Trump is the nominee despite the most fervent wishes of their establishment, and in part because they don't have superdelegates.

Trump sucks, but he didn't get nominated because of shady backroom deals. He got nominated despite them.

[LonePirate]

10. This is obviously a conspiracy to silence Sanders' internet supporters by meeting their demands.

DWS is diabolical!

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

12. Not good enough...

He will have at least 45% of the pledged delegates going into the convention. We want proportional representation on all committees or we will protest!

(He already has 45.8% of them)

[Sparkly]

18. And should this be a precedent?

Should Clinton have made such demands in 2008?

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

20. I could not care less what Clinton did or didn't do in 2008 in this regard...

This is what we the people of the Birdie movement want, if the DNC wants our support in November they better get with the program.

[Sparkly]

22. You must be kidding.

I'll just assume you are.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

31. I'm not kidding....

....Maddi



*PS* Thanks for the setup

[Sparkly]

36. Like I said.

[puffy socks]

47. What's with the orders?

Shooting yourself in the face doesn't seem like a wise thing to do . Hillary has the nomination...I know grrr , that's just the facts unless she dies.
I have the assets to survive any Trump presidency, do you?

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

50. The only message coming from yall about November is...

Think of the Trump Presidency!!!! OH NOES!!!!! You must vote CLINTON! (Does she have an actual message about why we should vote for her otherwise?)

She has to earn people's votes and the first step to doing that is giving Sanders fair treatment at the convention... If she has won, then what is the issue with allowing him proportional representation on the committees. His influence will bring in lots of new voters to the party.

[creeksneakers2]

59. If she lets Bernie get representation on the committees

will you vote for her? From what I'm reading from Sanders supporters here they wouldn't vote for her at gunpoint.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

61. She has to reverse course in a number of ways...

Fair representation at the convention is a big first step... She and her campaign and surrogates also need to stop being condescending to us and accusing us of not being Democrats or being naive or being stupid (ie not understanding delegate math, etc.)

[COLGATE4]

69. You've got a pretty extensive list of demands

in return for what? That, after all that. you'll consider supporting Hillary?.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

73. I only see two demands in my previous post....

-Fair representation at the convention
-Stop belittling us especially since you already won, no need to disparage a swath of voters for no reason other than self-gratification.

Can you enliven me as to how 2 simple requests are considered extensive?

[barrow-wight]

79. I don't understand.

According to most Bernie supporters that post here, Bernie is winning.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

82. My 2nd point was from Clinton Campaign perspective...

If they believe they have already won then why do they need to continue to disparage those of us who are standing behind Bernie... In my case I am standing behind him specifically to try and ensure progressive positions are built into the Democratic party platform. It would be the impetus for me to change my party registration from unaffiliated to Democrat finally after 12 years of being unaffiliated, not voting, and caring little about politics.

[barrow-wight]

83. It's not about disparaging his supporters.

It's about trying to get you all to realize that she has won so you stop trying to batter Hillary from one side as Trump is battering her from the other. Notice he's not saying anything about Bernie. He knows Bernie isn't a contender. What many of us who support Hillary are disparaging is this attempt to weaken Hillary so much that she cannot defeat Trump. This isn't rocket science.

[COLGATE4]

86. You begin saying "She has to reverse course in a number of ways..."

It's not usual to talk about 2 things as being 'a number of ways'.
Then you refer to a big first step...
Sounded as if these were only the first two things in a laundry list of demands that you seem to believe Hillary must meet in order to get your support.

[puffy socks]

62. Because if Trump becomes president

it really is a serious matter. If Sander's supporters can't understand that , they're simply lost and too ignorant to bother with , move onto discussing that with people who can grasp the issue.

Seems most of Sanders supporters couldn't care less about her message or they would have looked it up by now instead of just posting old right wing lies and hoping for an indictment in the email witch hunt.

He doesn't deserve equal representation. He lost. Voters do not come to the party when candidates behave like babies after losing fair and square and back the vile actions of their supporters.

If the DNC cow tows to Bernie and his supporters I believe the party will split. Perhaps some will be ok with maybe a small concession but past that, allowing an Independent who has bashed the party built by Democrats over decades, using them to help get spotlight for his campaign, and then attempting a hostile take over isn't going to be looked kindly upon by members. they will leave.


feel the Bern when Trump and the GOP eliminate all the social programs they can.

[sadoldgirl]

28. Why do you think that she became SoS, we are

not naive enough to believe that the POTUS
really wanted her in that position.

[Sparkly]

33. Then you go behind closed doors and hash that out.

You don't stand up and threaten to cause a ruckus at the convention and keep the party in chaos until you get YOUR way. That's just BS, no pun intended.

This is bad for the party, and bad for our candidate come November.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

35. Bullshit...

Unlike Clinton, Sanders cares about us and will fight hard for us at the convention. Clinton cared more about securing a lucrative position she could use to pad her resume for another run at the presidency. Everything is about her and her turn.

[Sparkly]

41. "Sanders cares about us"

Apparently Sanders cares about Sanders, and you can suffer under a Trump presidency unless he is appeased.

And even if he is appeased, it's an albatross -- "She couldn't even stand up to a Democratic Socialist! She caved!" etc. etc.

And skip the ad hominem. The primary is done.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

48. It isn't an ad hominem if it is true...

You pointed out she didn't make such demands in 2008.... It is obvious why considering Obama appointed her to Secretary of State after all the nastiness that came out of her Campaign's mouth during that primary against Obama slandering him... Do we not forget she had the audacity to praise McCain over Obama in regards to foreign policy... Keep living in lala world.

[Luminous Animal]

51. Closed doors. How democratic. Indeed let the power brokers work it out. Fuck the people.

[aikoaiko]

63. HRC version 2008 needed Obama to commit to reducing her sizable debt in order to play nice.

Bernie won't be in debt.

[Demsrule86]

26. Bernie lost

And I for one never want to see his face again politically...he has behaved horribly.

[Ed Suspicious]

42. Liar Liar Pants On Fire.

Rot.

[barrow-wight]

80. He's one of the most divisive candidates in years.

How did we get two of them (Bernie and Frump) in the same election?

[Jim Lane]

85. What's new isn't having divisive candidates. What's new is that so many voters are so fed up.

Obviously, Sanders and Trump are miles apart ideologically. Nevertheless, there are some similarities in how voters respond to them.

Sanders, in challenging so much of what passes for the Democratic Party orthodoxy, is no more divisive in his platform than Kucinich was in 2004 and 2008. The difference is that Sanders is averaging around 40% instead of 4%. Nobody called Kucinich divisive -- he didn't significantly divide the party because he attracted only a tiny segment of it.

This year, Clinton was the establishment candidate. There's never been a nonincumbent Democrat (not even Al Gore in 2000) who began the primary season with such a big lead in the polls and in support from the party pooh-bahs. Against her is this old guy (strike one), Jewish (strike two), from a small state (strike three), who hasn't even been a Democrat (strike four), and who in fact called himself and still calls himself a socialist (strike five). How did he do so well against an overwhelming favorite? He spoke his mind, he was willing to be highly critical of the party establishment, and he discovered that millions of people were hostile to that establishment.

That's roughly what happened on the Republican side. Trump was, in his way, as unconventional a candidate as Sanders. He was like Sanders in that the party establishment despised him. (If the party national committees had picked the nominees from the initial field, Sanders would have finished fifth out of five and Trump would have finished somewhere around sixteenth out of seventeenth, maybe one spot higher or lower.) He was also like Sanders in that he was willing to say things that the party establishment didn't want to hear. Like Sanders, he had various strikes against him; the party of social conservatism wasn't the obvious place for a twice-divorced casino mogul who'd never held elective office and who'd often supported Democrats. Nevertheless, like Sanders, he discovered that a lot of the voters in the primaries and caucuses had had it with the party establishment.

To call these candidates "divisive" implies that they caused divisions. I disagree. The divisions were there. Sanders and Trump each far surpassed the expectations for him by speaking to a big segment of the electorate.

[barrow-wight]

87. You make great points.

However, I don't think that Trump and Bernie are simply speaking to those divisions. I think they are exacerbating them as well. I think they're both populists. They're both tapping into undercurrents of rage and resentment. But by giving voice to the darker elements of that rage, I see both candidates stoking the fires and making things worse. Both candidates are tapping into an us/them mentality, whether it be Mexicans and Muslims, or corporations. There just has to be a better way.

[Andy823]

45. Wow

Who the hell are you to "demand" more and make threats of protesting? I think Sanders can make his own choices without input from the "peanut gallery"! I also notice this isn't the first time you have been promoting "protesting" at the convention. Are you just trying to cause more problems?

[EndElectoral]

23. Wow, a "chance" for a concession speech. That DNC. They keep surprising.

[Demsrule86]

24. Give him nothing

unless he concedes and endorses.

[sadoldgirl]

32. You really want to see a repeat or even worse of 68?

That truly helped the party, right???

[Sparkly]

34. That's like Republicans saying Obama shut down the government.

HE is the one making demands and threatening to disrupt to convention unless he gets his way.

[seabeyond]

44. I agree. Nt

[grasswire]

38. Bring it on.

This is bigger than Bernie. The full weight of the (so far) ten million votes for Bernie (many more to come) will come with unprecedented power.

Besides......she has a little problem.

[Dont call me Shirley]

39. The cake crumbs.

[Todays_Illusion]

43. That is pathetic. Bernie Sanders isn't who they are worried about, itis all of us who who support

Bernie Sanders they are worried about.
The DNC and Hillary intend to silence us. They do have plans and those plans don't include strengthening the social services.

Those plans include pragmatic cuts to the social services.

[CentralMass]

46. Well, I've been a registered dem for 46 years and I say that the DNC can stick it.

[Thinkingabout]

52. I like Hillary's agenda, not so much with Sanders unrealistic agenda. Hillary needs to hold

Her agenda positions.

[ucrdem]

54. If they put him in front of a camera he's going to get booed.

He hasn't made a lot of DNC friends this year.

[mgcgulfcoast]

55. If Sanders supporters buy this they werent really supporters.

Party platforms are designed to be ignored. Been that way since beginning of time.

[morningfog]

57. Welcome to the table DNC. Keep talking.

[Peace Patriot]

60. They're going to let all those "violent" people into their Corporate Convention?

This is puzzling news coming, as it does, fast upon the "swift-boating" of Sanders' supporters and Sanders himself as "violent," which occurred just in time for KY and OR voters to hear this tripe spoken on all the Corrupt Media's 'news' shows, while they voted. It's satisfying that Sanders beat Clinton handily (by a 12 pt. margin) in Oregon and tied her in Kentucky, after that Rovian bullshit.

Now they're offering what is only fair, as if it were some great gift. And what do they want in exchange for being fair?

That's not mentioned in this Washington Psst piece. But it's clear that the Clinton machine is trying to force Sanders out before the California primary, which he is very likely going to win and may win big.

The other pressure on our Democratic Party moguls is the FBI investigation. If the FBi report comes out and if it's bad for Clinton, they are clearly thinking of slipping Biden into the nomination, and want no complications from Bernie Sanders and all his primary and caucus wins and all his many delegates. They want him out of the way now. By "slip," I mean that the Biden maneuver needs to be done with as little fuss as possible, to cover these moguls' very bad judgement in backing Clinton. They don't want New Deal riffraff complicating things.

This Psst article is wondrous in never mentioning Sanders' big win in Oregon. It's mentioned on the page in tiny print IDing a vid, but not in the article. We must be VERY CAREFUL in reading Psst articles. They really are whispers from back alleys. So pay attention. Here's a psst:

Much like their view that the economy has been “rigged” to benefit the wealthy more than the middle and working classes, Sanders supporters have become increasingly convinced that national Democrats have stacked the political deck with rules that have made it difficult for Sanders to win enough delegates to threaten Clinton’s nomination.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dnc-to-offer-sanders-a-convention-concession/2016/05/19/99706b54-1df4-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html

So: Ignore all facts, dummies. It is merely "their view" that the rich have been royally fucking over the poor in this country for, oh, three decades, with the egregious help of the Corrupt Media. And "their view" of this fuckover is just as paranoid as "their view" that the DNC has royally fucked over the Sanders campaign.

This is just "their" opinion. Psst.

About half the article is devoted to Sanders position on Israel-Palestine, which is to treat the Palestinians like human beings (as he said in one debate or speech--can't recall which). Israel-Palestine, of course, is a key issue for the "military-industrial complex" and for the Neo-Cons, whom Clinton has allied with. That's why it's given so much space in this article. I don't know if they're signaling somebody within the MIC or what, but our war machine really doesn't want the Palestinians treated like human beings. Their status as human beings, in Sanders' mind, is not mentioned in the article. It's more muffled than that, couched in language about a two-state solution. But it's nevertheless quite a balloon. That's the only part of the Democratic platform that the Psst cares about.

[Warren DeMontague]

64. Debbie will let sanders help her deliver her speech promoting prison for pot smokers?

Yay unity!

[pmorlan1]

66. DNC & Hillary Campaign Don't Like Even-handedness

But Sanders had sought to split the committee evenly between his and Clinton’s allies — plus one “neutral” appointment from Wasserman Schultz.

“On one hand there is not an enormous amount of difference between them. They are both pro-Israel, they are both pro-peace,” said one longtime Clinton supporter. “But in the context of the campaign terms like ‘even-handed’ can come to mean that the United States is signaling a shift” — and Clinton would oppose that.

The DNC & Hillary campaign evidently aren't real big on the idea of even-handedness. They don't want Bernie to have much representation on the Committee's even though he's bringing in millions of new voters. He currently has 3 of his people assigned to a committee and Hillary has the rest. They also have 2 Hillary people assigned as chairs of two important committees who have been hyper-critical of Bernie. That's not even-handedness.

They are even afraid of using the word "even-handed" when it comes to the Palestinians because they are afraid it would signal a shift in their non even-handed policy.

Why do the DNC & Hillary have such a problem with being even-handed? How can you bring UNITY without being even-handed? What's wrong with FAIRNESS?

When I marched in Louisville's LGBT Fairness campaign marches we were asking for fairness. We were opposed by homophobic right wingers who objected to fairness. We weren't asking for special privileges, as they claimed, just fairness. We won the fairness amendment in Louisville so why is it so hard for the DNC & the Hillary campaign to understand that fairness is not an unreasonable thing to ask for?

[Warren DeMontague]

67. The platform should reflect the position of the majority of Americans who SUPPORT LEGAL CANNABIS

Too fucking bad if DWS and her pharma, liquour, and private prison donors dont like it.

[oldandhappy]

74. When I read the title I thought they were going to let him sell coffee or something.

to me 'concession' has the idea of selling hats or banners

[lumberjack_jeff]

75. Clinton will have none of it. That's not how she rolls.

Clinton won't allow anything meaningful, Sanders won't accept anything symbolic.

It's a trainwreck. Can I sell popcorn?

[jberryhill]

78. No, you can't sell popcorn

The popcorn concession is one of the concessions being considered.

[Hekate]

84. KnR Sparkly