An Explanation of What Bernie Sanders Staffers Actually Did and Why It Matters

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The brouhaha over this little fiasco has been intense, and made worse by the fact that only a few thousand people in the United States understand anything about the voter tools involved. Few journalists—to say nothing of armchair activists—have enough campaign and field management experience to truly understand what happened. That ignorance has led to wild accusations and silly reporting from all sides, whether from conspiratorially-minded Sanders supporters or schadenfreude-filled Republicans.

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Even without being to export, however, merely seeing the topline numbers of, say, how many voters the Clinton campaign had managed to bank as “strong yes” votes would be a valuable piece of oppo. While it’s not the dramatic problem that a data export would have been, it’s undeniable that the Sanders campaign gleaned valuable information from the toplines alone. It’s also quite clear that most of the statements the Sanders campaign made as the story progressed—from the claim that the staffers only did it to prove the security breach, or that only one staffer had access—were simply not true. It’s just not clear at this point whether the campaign’s comms people knew the truth and lied, or whether they were not being told the whole truth by the people on the data team who were still making up stories and excuses to cover their tracks. I suspect the latter.

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This doesn’t mean that Wasserman-Schultz hasn’t, in David Axelrod’s words, been putting her thumb on the scale on behalf of the Clinton campaign. She clearly has been, judging from the intentionally obfuscated debate schedule and from her demeanor and reaction to this recent controversy. The Democratic Party would have been wiser to bring the campaigns together privately and resolve the matter internally. Instead, Wasserman-Schultz chose to take it public to attempt to embarrass the Sanders campaign, and merely managed to embarrass herself and the Party’s data security vulnerabilities in the process.

Still, the Sanders camp’s reactions have been laughable. It was their team that unethically breached Clinton’s data. It was their comms people who spoke falsely about what happened. The Sanders campaign wasn’t honeypotted into doing it—their people did it of their own accord. NGPVAN isn’t set up to benefit Clinton at Sanders’ expense—and if the violation by the campaigns had been reversed, Sanders supporters would have been claiming a conspiracy from sunrise to sundown. What’s very clear is that the Clinton camp did nothing wrong in any of this. Sanders campaign operatives did, and then Wasserman-Schultz compounded it by overreacting. And in the end, the right thing ended up happening: the lead staffer in question was fired, and the campaign got its data access back.

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http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_12/an_explanation_of_what_bernie059035.php

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Pretty decent analysis, worth reading in it's entirety before passing judgement.

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41 replies	Author	Time	Post
An Explanation of What Bernie Sanders Staffers Actually Did and Why It Matters (Original post)	Dem2	Dec 2015	OP
Ever More FUD Promoted By Team HRC	cantbeserious	Dec 2015	#1
You forgot to say "This Citizen"	Blue_Adept	Dec 2015	#25
ROFL!	Dr Hobbitstein	Dec 2015	#39
Message auto-removed	Name removed	Dec 2015	#2
This is bordering on spam	Matariki	Dec 2015	#10
How does one alert MIRT? nt	artislife	Dec 2015	#21
...	Hepburn	Dec 2015	#3
The article is pretty harsh on DWS	Dem2	Dec 2015	#4
I thought that top looked like DWS!	Hepburn	Dec 2015	#5
Lol	Dem2	Dec 2015	#6
She just spins and spins to me...I cannot trust a word out of her mouth!	Hepburn	Dec 2015	#7
I've decided to rid my feed of mealy mouthed apologia	Trajan	Dec 2015	#8
Huh	Dem2	Dec 2015	#11
Could not figure out if the poster meant you, me or both of us!	Hepburn	Dec 2015	#15
No response to my query	Dem2	Dec 2015	#24
I don't recall the poster either!	Hepburn	Dec 2015	#26
+1. And the first hints that DWS may be meeting the underside of a large vehicle. n/t	winter is coming	Dec 2015	#12
Prior episodes without a firewall are an important part of this, I believe.	Gregorian	Dec 2015	#9
This	ismnotwasm	Dec 2015	#13
"What’s very clear is that the Clinton camp did nothing wrong in any of this"	Jarqui	Dec 2015	#14
What has been established?	Dem2	Dec 2015	#16
"It would be absurd to litigate prior issues, that would show bias on the part of the writer."	Jarqui	Dec 2015	#17
This ^^^^^^^^^	Phlem	Dec 2015	#27
Taking anything like this to court would be a terrible idea	Dem2	Dec 2015	#29
Agreed.	Phlem	Dec 2015	#30
+1. n/t	1StrongBlackMan	Dec 2015	#34
Because a lawsuit would drain valuable time and financial resources	NuclearDem	Dec 2015	#31
Seems this is the response to this article?	Dem2	Dec 2015	#18
This is pretty much what I figured they were after:	Starry Messenger	Dec 2015	#19
Like Hillary's camp in 2008?	artislife	Dec 2015	#20
Hillary's campaign staffers stole topline data on voters from a campaign report in 2008?	Starry Messenger	Dec 2015	#22
"(Believe as you will whether it was the same glitch or not)"	Dem2	Dec 2015	#23
I just didn't want to put words in your mouth. nt	artislife	Dec 2015	#40
I don't understand why a campaign staff worker would do this unless it was to embarrass	Thinkingabout	Dec 2015	#28
"What’s very clear is that the Clinton camp did nothing wrong in any of this."	Number23	Dec 2015	#32
Good and balanced piece ...	1StrongBlackMan	Dec 2015	#33
Bah, who needs love and attention!	Dem2	Dec 2015	#35
LOL ...	1StrongBlackMan	Dec 2015	#36
Seems...	Dem2	Dec 2015	#37
Ouch. Notice the rec count. n/t	1StrongBlackMan	Dec 2015	#38
I did indeed.	Dem2	Dec 2015	#41