Inside Hillary Clintons Secret Takeover of the DNC (By DONNA BRAZILE November 02, 2017)

[Jim Lane]

282. Here's a question I keep asking without getting a good answer

You write that "the money drained from the party that went to an Independent candidate running as a Democrat ought to be the thing that unites Dems around never allowing that to happen again."

Putting aside the "money drained" language, which I personally consider grossly misleading, let's focus on that "allowing" business. There seems to be a subtext in your post and many others that, sometime in 2015, the DNC passed a resolution that magnanimously allowed Bernie to run -- or at least that the DNC foolishly failed to pass a resolution barring him from running.

That's just not true.

Whether Bernie can appear on a primary ballot depends on that state's law (petition signatures or whatever). The DNC doesn't control it.

If you want this "never allowing that to happen again" outcome, what specifically do you recommend?

One answer I've gotten is that the DNC could expand its exclusivity rule (introduced for the first time in the 2016 cycle) to try to keep disfavored candidates out of the debates. Such a candidate could still appear on the ballot, could still campaign, and could still raise money. Trying to stifle his or her voice would make the DNC look autocratic and would make post-convention unification behind the nominee far more difficult. It would hurt the party's chances in November.

The DNC could try really playing hardball and say that no convention delegates would be seated if they had been elected on a pledge to support a disfavored candidate. The Republicans would have a field day with that. "The corrupt Democrat Party [that's what they'd call us] wouldn't even let the good people of our state have their fair say in the nomination process!" Do you want to be a downticket Democrat running in a state like that?

I think both the bar-from-debates and bar-from-convention ideas are terrible. Are you endorsing either one? Do you have some other recommendation for the 2020 cycle?