Does anyone think the DNC rigged the primaries?

[Baltimike]

Back in '16 or now? I ask this because I seem to encounter a LOT of people who will swear that '16 was rigged, and they're doing it again right now.

I feel like this is Russian deza at work. I think it is another way they are trying to divide and conquer.

[lapucelle]

2. No and No. N/T

[Baltimike]

3. I am not trying to re fight the '16 primaries...I am trying

to understand why so many people insist it was rigged, but the general was not

[MichMan]

6. There are tons of posts here all the time about how the general election was stolen

[Baltimike]

49. That's because the general election *was* stolen

but my personal uptick has been with those saying the primaries were rigged...it's bullshit...and after a few years, there is a surge in it lately.

[PatrickforO]

19. The general election was 'rigged' by Republicans with the help of Russia. n/t

[Baltimike]

50. this. nt

[calimary]

52. Yep.

[ehrnst]

71. "Possible answer" to what? (nt)

[Go Vols]

75. The question posted by the person I responded to.

[ehrnst]

78. What answer to the question "Does anyone think the DNC rigged the primaries?"

does your post posit?

Particularly since the article you shared does not have full information on what was actually finally determined to have happened and not happened.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. No. "Rigged" implies something dishonest.

I think they are trying to manage a crowded primary field fairly. Some people won't think it's fair unless it benefits them.

[mcar]

5. No

Nothing but sour grapes. But yes, some do believe it.

[Mz Pip]

7. No

But it’s a disingenuous and easy way to explain a loss.

[RandySF]

8. No

[Gothmog]

9. No

The candidate with most votes won. sanders is wrong about this lie

[George II]

10. There are only two campaigns that I've seen ever claim that any primaries/elections were "rigged".

[LongtimeAZDem]

12. +∞

[Baltimike]

42. I keep hearing it now...it's crazy. nt

[Lord Wilmore]

11. I say no, but...

My mind might be changed if the rules are changed regarding superdelegates prior to the first vote of the national convention.

If a candidate starts to make headway and the rules are changed suddenly you might have a point.

[George II]

15. That's not going to happen. The rumors that the "DNC" is thinking of changing the rules...

...turned out to be a half dozen members of the DNC (out of about 450) musing about it.

[ehrnst]

65. You mean, so that a candidate who didn't get the votes from Democratic voters wouldn't feel

emboldened to pressure Superdelegates to take the nomination away from the person who actually won it, and bestow it on them instead?

You really think that a Democrat would do that?

[ehrnst]

68. So you think that having superdelegates promotes "an argument that the primaries are

rigged one way or another?"

And you "like to think that Democrats choose the candidate."

What causes you to might not think that?

[ehrnst]

70. You "don't think" that is going to happen? You have reason to think that it might?

What do you think would be "relived" from 2016?

[ehrnst]

76. Superdelegates that declare are simply endorsements.

You think that superdelegates take marching orders from the DNC on who to endorse?

[ehrnst]

84. Your statements are contradicting each other.

No I don't think they take marching orders...but "back room deals..."

It's almost like you are trying to have it both ways.

Which is it? Do you think the DNC tells Superdelegates who to endorse? Or not?

[ehrnst]

88. I'm with the Black Congressional Caucus on Superdelegates

And your numerous "back room deals" references stand on their own.

It is not difficult to imagine one superdelegate approaching another offering support on some project or local candidate if she/he declares for a certain presidential candidate.

That's evading the question. I asked if you thought that Superdelegates got orders from the DNC on who to endorse, as you seem to fret would be a 'repeat of 2016.'

I think it should be clear to both of us that in these sorts of scenarios transparency serves the public better than back room deals, no?

You keep dropping the term "back room deals" into your posts, as if they are an issue with superdelegates.

But you seem to be unwilling to come out and say what you're implying in a way other than in a round about hint.. while accusing others of being some sort of "inquisition" when they point that out.

[Cha]

91. Good grief.. what loser insulting talk.

Thank your for this, ehrnst

[ehrnst]

93. Indeed. Wilmore, we hardly knew ye...

[Cha]

94. Oh.. enough

[LisaM]

13. No.

There was more "rigging", if you want to call it that, in 2008 when the DNC wouldn't let Michigan and Florida move up their primary nates and then wouldn't count their votes. But as far as 2016, no.

[lapucelle]

56. I was at the DNC RBC meeting when that decision was made.

Harold Ickes Jr. was a sight to behold that day.

In 2017 a "unity commission" faction protested Ickes' placement on the DNC Executive and Rules committees because he was a "lobbyist".

All those brand new "FDR democrats" had no idea about his or his father's roles in the Democratic Party history.

[StevieM]

14. The DNC is an impotent, toothless organization that couldn't rig a primary to save their lives.

[ehrnst]

89. Are you sure you're logged in to the right discussion board?

[Horizens]

16. NO N/T

[relayerbob]

17. No

They (the Reds - whether GOP or Russia) are trying to divide and conquer, however

[greatauntoftriplets]

18. Nope.

[stopdiggin]

20. NOPE

and again .. NO!!
There were people in the party (of course) that were much more happy to see a Clinton candidate than a Sanders one. As it turns out, that sentiment was largely shared and borne out by rank and file primary voters and voting as well. Did the party "rig" the primaries in favor of one candidate over the other? THEY DID NOT.

Please do not allow the "conspiracy theorists" on the left to set the narrative here.

[betsuni]

21. The Myth of the All-Powerful DNC. Read this:

http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

[LAS14]

22. Nope. nt

[videohead5]

23. I always see these people on Twitter

Saying the 2016 primaries were rigged for Hillary. I always ask them how in detail did the DNC rig the primaries? They hardly ever give an answer or come back with some kind of conspiracy theory. For the DNC to have helped Hillary get votes they would've had to run ad's for her. The problem is the DNC was broke and had no money or influence.

[W_HAMILTON]

24. You don't have to rig an election you win by four million votes.

[wyldwolf]

31. but... but...

... because scheduling the debates at off times was enough to move four million votes out of the Bernie camp to the Clinton camp!

[redstatebluegirl]

25. No, more BS nonsense.

[MontanaMama]

81. +1

In every sense of the acronym

[highplainsdem]

26. No.

[Hoyt]

27. Losers always claim it was rigged in some way.

[wyldwolf]

28. Nope. The DNC did their jobs.

[Butterflylady]

29. No, it's called integrity. That's who we are.

[stonecutter357]

30. lol Bernie is not a victim !

[YOHABLO]

32. Establishment DNC does not want Bernie Sanders as their candidate.

So it's easy to just blame it on the Russians. I don't know how, who,what, they presume the Russians are doing, but they aren't the ones making the rules over at the DNC. I do find it odd that if they're so set on not having Bernie Sanders as their candidate, why on earth did they allow him to run as a Democrat? I also find it odd that they changed the rules to allow Bloomberg to buy his way into the primary.

[Quixote1818]

33. I think rigged is too strong a word. I think Hillary would have won anyways but I do think it's

pretty clear they put their finger on the scale.

Snip: The 2016 Democratic primary wasn’t rigged by the DNC, and it certainly wasn’t rigged against Sanders. But Democratic elites did try to make Clinton’s nomination as inevitable, as preordained, as possible. And the party is still managing the resentment that engendered in voters. “Once somebody doesn’t trust you,” sighs Buckley, the New Hampshire Democratic chair, “it’s very hard to get that trust back.”

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/14/16640082/donna-brazile-warren-bernie-sanders-democratic-primary-rigged

[Gothmog]

37. I strongly disagree, sanders was treated with kid gloves and was treated very fairly

Last edited Mon Feb 3, 2020, 01:58 AM - Edit history (1)

Sanders was a very weak candidate who was never vetted. The Clinton campaign treated Sanders with kid gloves because sanders had no chance in the real world of being the nominee. The press did not vet sanders because sanders was such a weak candidate and it would have been a waste of their time Sanders was not vetted and was in fact treated with kid gloves by the Clinton campaign VOX had a good article on the potential lines of attack that Sanders would be exposed to if Sanders was the nominee. http://www.vox.com/2016/2/3/10903404/gop-campaign-against-sanders One of the more interesting observations in the VOX analysis is the fact that Sanders have been treated with kids gloves compared to what Sanders would face if he was the Democratic nominee. I strongly agree with the VOX's position that the so-called negative attacks against Sander have been mild. Form the article:

I have no interest in litigating any of these attacks here. Like any Democrat elected president in 2016, Sanders wouldn't be able to get much done, but he would block attempts to roll back Obama's accomplishments and have a chance to fill a few Supreme Court vacancies.

When Sanders supporters discuss these attacks, though, they do so in tones of barely contained outrage, as though it is simply disgusting what they have to put up with. Questioning the practical achievability of single-payer health care. Impugning the broad electoral appeal of socialism. Is nothing sacred?

But c'mon. This stuff is patty-cakes compared with the brutalization he would face at the hands of the right in a general election.

His supporters would need to recalibrate their umbrage-o-meters in a serious way.

Sanders was treated with kid gloves by the Clinton campaign because of the amusing over-reactions of the Sanders supporters in the primary process. It appears that you are upset that Hillary Clinton did not use all of the oppo research that was available. Sanders was a weak candidate and would have been destroyed if the oppo research was used.

The contest was not fixed and if anything sanders should have NOT have been treated so gently

[OBrien]

35. Absolutely not

[DonaldsRump]

36. I know two people who claim it was rigged in advance of the election

and one who actually was the victim of the rigging.

Your choices are Donald Trump, Bernie "the Bern" Sanders, and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Your selection as to who fits into these two categories.

[IADEMO2004]

38. BS's BS

[apcalc]

39. Russian bullshit. Count on it.

So far as I’m concerned, those who propagate it here are goddam trolls.

[pandr32]

40. No!

[cry baby]

43. F. F. S. nt

[Algernon Moncrieff]

44. It's party politics, so I think the thumb is on the scale for the candidate favored by the leaders

...but it is equally true that some candidates connect and gain momentum in unexpected ways.

So was '16 rigged? No. Was it set up in a way that made it difficult for anyone other than Hillary Clinton to win? Yes - that was the essential effect of the superdelegates.

[betsuni]

48. No about the superdelegates.

"Next, the infamous hack of the DNC emails that 'proved' the organization had its thumb on the scale for Clinton. Perhaps nothing has been more frustrating for people in the politics business to address, because the conspiracy is based on ignorance. Almost every email that set off the rigged accusations was from May 2016. Even in the most ridiculous of dream worlds, Sanders could not have possibly won the nomination after May 3 -- at that point, he needed 984 more pledged delegates but there were only 933 available ... .

"Sanders voters proclaimed the superdelegates, elected officials and party regulars who controlled thousands of votes, could flip their support and instead vote for the candidate with the fewest votes. In other words, they wanted the party to overthrow the will of the majority of voters. ... (One side note: Sanders supporters also made a big deal out of the fact that many superdelegates had expressed support of Clinton early in the campaign. They did the same thing in 2008, then switched to Obama when he won the most pledged delegates. Same thing would have happened with Sanders if he had persuaded more people to vote for him.) This is important because it shows that Sanders supporters were tricked into believing a false narrative. Once only one candidate can win the nomination, of course the DNC gets to work on that person's behalf."

http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-election-521044

[redqueen]

45. Oh so we're doing this part now. Joy.

Just gonna leave this here.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/11/03/donna-brazile-elizabeth-warren-rigged-2016-primary/

[Zolorp]

46. Nobody rigged the primaries.

Sanders use it as an excuse because his campaign was too STUPID to actually read the rules.

An obscure first term Senator named Barack Obama won these "rigged primaries" in 2008.

There are not rigged primaries.

[Dem4Life1102]

47. No

[Dream Girl]

51. Seems to me this post is a shit stirrer. Why are you bringing this up?

Your mention of “Russia” is quite clever

[Baltimike]

63. seems if you were worried about that, KICKING it to the top would be silly

I explained my reasoning in post #59

[C_U_L8R]

53. Pfffft. F.U.D.

[MineralMan]

54. Nope. Can't be done.

[Submariner]

57. I'm mystified at how a 79 year old heart attack victim,

awaiting his next heart attack, has collected such high cash amounts of political contributions and high poll numbers.

I smell republicans in the background contributing to his coffers and poll numbers so we make fools of ourselves, and vote in a heart attack candidate who will be labeled a commie socialist by the entire Trump machine.

[LanternWaste]

58. I think throwing unsupported allegations at the DNC "is Russian deza at work" too.

"it is another way they are trying to divide and conquer" as well. Could be why a lot of "I'm concerned about the Third Way" posts have been popping up over the last eight days.

[Baltimike]

59. I agree.

Last edited Mon Feb 3, 2020, 07:01 PM - Edit history (1)

Since election night 2016...I don't watch the news. They are false narrative driven, and skew conservative all the time. But recently...like in the past few weeks, there has been a HUGE uptick in friends of mine making this claim "as though it's a given".

I thought maybe something reared its head again. THAT is why I asked it here.

Really.

[Dream Girl]

64. Whatever you say.

Nice try anyway. And your English is very good.

[krissey]

60. No.

[democrattotheend]

61. Rigged? No (from someone who supported Bernie in 2016)

I think it's fair to say that they didn't expect Bernie to do as well as he did, and were expecting (and maybe even hoping) Hillary would wrap up the nomination easily and that's what they were planning for. I also believe that while the DNC itself stayed officially neutral, it was no secret that the party establishment favored Hillary, at least behind the scenes. Whether that is because they genuinely preferred her or just did not expect Bernie to pose a serious challenge, we don't know.

All that said, even if the DNC and the establishment did favor Hillary, and even if the rules were structured in such a way that made it harder for an outsider like Bernie, that in no way makes it rigged. Hillary got more delegates and more votes in 2016 - plain and simple. Bernie had a fair chance to compete, and he did better than anyone expected and I was proud of that, and proud to be a part of it. But I was really disappointed in him and his campaign for not conceding after the vote was over and for saying (and not saying) things that undeservedly caused people to question the legitimacy of Hillary's nomination, such as complaining so much about the fact that superdelegates could theoretically give the nomination to a candidate with fewer elected delegates, even though that's not what actually happened.

[Hortensis]

62. No. There was a slant, but "rigging"? Only in Sanders FAVOR,

BIG TIME IN SANDERS FAVOR.

Because he was exciting some Democrats, our party properly let him run as a Democrat as a party choice. BUT, they CLEARED 9 other candidates from the field, some serious DEMOCRATS, leaving I-Sanders on the stage with 4 others as the far-left choice. They gave Sanders ALL the Democratic Party support that the Democratic candidates got. But not the person cleared to make way for him.

I resented and resent that last big time. We're Democratic donors, and we never intended OUR money to go to a man who characterizes my husband and I as really just more corrupt Republicans. when his voting record averages MORE mainstream than ours. A man who's never been sorry that he helped elect Trump (Hillary/Dems v Trump/Repubs, no big difference -- WFT!!!!!!!), and who is willing to gamble all our futures to give it another try.

I respected and respect our leadership's decisions in an imperfect situation, but! No excuses for him, I don't care about what he is capable of understanding. I do care that voters aren't insisting on knowing.

[ehrnst]

72. Your concern is noted...

[sheshe2]

73. No.

[CanonRay]

77. No

I think they tried in 2016, got burned and won't try it again

[Bradical79]

79. No. Some favortism and bias.

Not to the extent of "rigged". If anything, I think it backfired a bit and worked in Bernie's favor.

[Kurt V.]

80. i think this latest move was meant appease only Bloomberg. so that ain't right.

[aikoaiko]

83. I think DWS was fired for a reason.

And not to appease Bernie or else HRC wouldn't have brought her on as honorary chairwoman of her campaign.

[Tweedy]

85. No

Folks who believe such a "fictional Russian narrative*" need to explain how Barack Obama won the primaries in 2008

Some DNC staffers were annoyed is not evidence of rigging. Some people are annoyed somewhere everyday. That proves squat.

Some Ukrainian politicians were ticked this President said Russia deserved a piece of Ukrainian territory, Crimea. They said so in print.

Those op-eds do nothing to prove Ukraine interfered in 2016. They prove squat.

They are both fictional republican narratives.

Divided we fall

E pluribus unum

* Fiona Hill referring to the Russian propaganda that Ukraine, not Putin, interfered in 2016.

[Retrograde]

87. No rigging, but a lot of ignorance about how primaries work

and that they don't work the same in all states.

California sent out its mail-in ballots today, so I expect that in a week or so we'll be seeing a repeat of the 2016 confusion. California has a semi-closed primary in that voters registered with a party can only vote in that party's primary: however, each party can choose whether of not it will let No Party Preference voters (aka Independents) to vote in its primary. This year, as in 2016, the Democratic, American Independent, and Libertarian parties are allowing this while the other three are not. The kicker, though, is that an Independent voter has to ask for the ballot for the party they want: if they don't, they get the non-partisan ballot with all the other races and issues but not the president. My county was proactive and sent out a reminder back in November with a postage-paid reply card to ensure Independent voters get the ballot they want: based on 2016, though, I expect a lot of whining about how this has been done especially to discourage Bernie voters. California has been running primaries this way since 2000.

New York has improved its voting requirements for primaries since 2016: non-affiliated voters now can change their party to Democratic as late as mid-February for the end of April primary - this is better than the previous requirement to change party affiliation according to some arcane formula that turned out to be 10/2015. Or was it earlier - it was arcane. AFAIK, though, New York still has the weird process whereby polls in counties around New York City and Buffalo are open longer than those in rural counties, which was supposed to have been a way to discourage voters in areas where Sanders had more support. The weird hours went back to the early 1900s.

The other accusations I expect to see include "someone switched my party". There were a lot of these back in 2016, and the only one I know of came from a DUer who was reminded that she had posted the previous year that she herself had changed parties for what seemed like a good reason and then forgot to change back.

[Amishman]

90. Rigged is a strong word. Played favorites, absolutely

And given the fallout of it, I like to think they learned their lesson

[musicblind]

92. No. n/t

[totodeinhere]

95. I gave my honest answer to a similar question in another thread and got alerted on for being

divisive. So I guess I had better keep my mouth shut.