7 ms·

As tptacek indicates, it isn't remarkable that the DNC was hacked or that this hack is legit. What is interesting is the content; Parts 1 & 2 suggest, but do no

• chrischen 10y ago
  This probably isn't surprising, since Bernie was openly considered the outsider, but it definitely doesn't mean it's right. But because it was basically understood this probably won't change anything.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• eli 10y ago
  Why is it remarkable that the DNC is an ally of one of the most prominent Democrats in the country?
  • tanderson92 10y ago
    It's remarkable that the documents show the DNC positioning themselves as an ally of a prominent Democrat in May of 2015 (and October, re: Biden) who was not the nominee and who hadn't been voted on by any American. In other words: favoritism in a party primary by the party infrastructure is supposed to be verboten.
    • csallen 10y ago
      It seems like Guccifer2 could easily craft whatever narrative he wants by selectively releasing documents. For example, he could release pro-Hillary material and withhold similar material for other candidates. Or, even without any malcontent on his part, the documents he nabbed may not be fairly representative.
      • rahkiin 10y ago
        All media can do this
      • mordocai 10y ago
        If that was the case, the DNC could easily release materials showing that his releases are not representative. They can even make them up.
        • tptacek 10y ago
          Yes. That makes a lot of sense. One of the two largest political parties in the US should definitely engage publicly in a debate with "Guccifer2". Why didn't anyone else think of that?
          • blackbagboys 10y ago
            If there's credible evidence that the party apparatus had decided that the fix was in from the start, they owe an explanation to their millions of supporters and rank and file members, no matter how silly the hacker's nom de guerre.
            • tptacek 10y ago
              Sorry. I didn't mean to say directly that "Guccifer2" might not be a credible source. More, sort of slyly imply it.
          • shard972 10y ago
            Or they can just keep doing what their doing, just keep denying that anything else than the trump files were hacked and everything is fine. They can do whatever they want, but then people can look at this shitshow of a story and draw their own conclusions.
        • giaour 10y ago
          So, you're suggesting that the DNC release oppo research on its own presumptive candidate for president.
    • abritinthebay 10y ago
      It's quite the opposite of remarkable - Clinton was not only the clear front-runner, she was ahead in all polls by a sizable margin (that Sanders caught up as much as he did is a credit to him). Frame it as "DNC positions themselves as an ally of the predicted nominee given no strong challengers at that time" and it sounds pretty... normal.
      • newman314 10y ago
        “The Democratic National Committee remains neutral in this primary, based on our rules,” Wasserman Schultz said. http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/dnc_chair_democratic_national_committee_remains_neutral_20160518 http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/dnc_chair_democratic_na... Obviously, what the DNC says publicly and what the DNC does does not line up.
        • eli 10y ago
          Are there leaked documents that contradict this statement? When they're not administering primaries, the DNC spends most of their resources trying to get nominees elected in general elections. Of course they've been working on strategy for Clinton.
        • mejari 10y ago
          Did any of the documents release suggest that they were helping HRC _against Sanders_? Or just that they did work that would help her against a GOP candidate?
          • sjwright 10y ago
            And for all we know there are also documents prepared in support of Bernie Sanders which, if leaked, would paint the parallel picture of DNC supporting him. And that's assuming these documents are complete and unmodified. Nothing stopped this hacker from selectively editing and selectively leaking to support their agenda. It seems relatively obvious that the DNC would have had teams preparing for both scenarios. The only difference is that Sanders has been a viable candidate for a shorter period of time.
    • cromwellian 10y ago
      Political parties use to choose the nominees in smoke filled rooms. I don't find this at all surprising. Sanders spent a long term as an 'independent', so why should people whom he never supported or campaigned for, and never helped out, want to support him, and not the most popular candidate in their network, who has spent a political career building alliances? Political parties exist for a reason, and that reason is not to run complete unbiased open primaries so that anyone may call themselves a party member and get unbiased support of the party. Parties are biased, there's nothing surprising about that. Both Sanders and Trump are in effect, third party candidates, running campaigns trying to usurp the existing two parties into pouring support into their campaign, because third party runs don't work.
      • tanderson92 10y ago
        No doubt. Parties are allowed whatever method they choose to select their nominee, including the party elites backing a popular insider. However, we shouldn't confuse that with a democratic process. We should also recognize that such actions by the DNC would contradict their public statements to the contrary, that they intend to remain completely neutral in the primary process. If the situation were as you claim, then the parties would not have much of an argument against stronger, populist 3rd parties, because the 2 candidates served to the voters in the General Election would no longer reflect a representative choice of American voters.
    • eli 10y ago
      I honestly don't understand why this is surprising or problematic. Working to get Democrats elected is the purpose of the DNC. They aren't some disinterested third party. Of course they have memos on how to help Hillary Clinton run for office. And I'm sure they go further back than 2015 too. I'd hope they'd do that for many Democrats, but I'd be shocked if they didn't do tons of work to help someone as prominent as HRC. > favoritism in a party primary Do the documents show that or are you inferring it based on what hasn't been leaked? Even if we grant that the DNC leadership thinks Hillary is the best... so what? It's a political party that takes public input from voters as one factor in deciding a nominee. The DNC shouldn't stuff ballot boxes and should try it's best to make the primaries as fair as possible, but to pretend they don't have like some candidates more than others strikes me as unrealistic.
      • tanderson92 10y ago
        Working to get Democrats elected: okay Party preferences in a Democrats-against-Democrat competition while publicly declaring the party infrastructure neutral: not okay That is, the DNC is supposed to be about promoting the chosen candidate to the American people, not actively picking one. Nobody doubts that official favoritism isn't theoretically _allowed_ in a party primary, it just goes against the theory that it is a truly wide-open contest where the American people decide the direction of their government.
        • eli 10y ago
          Remember superdelegates? The system is explicitly designed to not be a 100% democratic process. (It used to be wholly decided by party elders in secret. I'm glad we mostly use primaries now, but I can see the merit of that approach. I bet the Republican leadership wishes that's still how it worked right now. )
          • tanderson92 10y ago
            1) superdelegates are not the DNC. 2) The Democratic party's official position is not that superdelegates are a complement to a 100% democratic process but instead that they exist _solely_ to ensure that party leaders are properly seated at the convention and do not have to compete with grassroots activists for participation at the national convention. I don't personally believe that (2) is a good-faith defense of what superdelegates are, but that is the DNC's position. And it's worth mentioning that there are valid reasons for superdelegates: how do you deal with a potential nominee like John Edwards, what if the convention is truly contested (with 3+ candidates and no 1st-ballot victory?). The Republican primary went largely as it should have been, and arguably Trump should have received an even larger share of the final delegates. Voters expressed their preference and that person became the nominee (whatever I think of their preference is irrelevant).
    • imjustsaying 10y ago
      > favoritism in a party primary by the party infrastructure is supposed to be verboten. According to what?
    • awesomerobot 10y ago
      >favoritism in a party primary by the party infrastructure is supposed to be verboten Since when? says who? I doubt there has ever been a time where that statement has been true.
  • mtgx 10y ago
    Because for better or for worse, the DNC pretends to hold "fair elections" in its primary. Yet at the same time it's been favoring Hillary all along. Because of the elections thing, the DNC is supposed to be fair to all candidates and not try to promote one candidate over another, set-up more people to applause for a particulate candidate in the debates, send more flyers that promote one candidate over another, and so on. If the DNC would just "appoint" its favorite candidate, that would be fine. It's kind of a normal thing to do in Europe, actually. But then, just like in Europe, the Dem and Rep parties would have to allow other parties in the general election as well, and set up a system that works for third parties, because chances are more often than not people wouldn't be happy with the main parties' "appointed candidates". Both the DNC and the RNC want to maintain the pretense of "fair elections" within their parties, so that people think their voices are heard, so they don't need to join another party and form a competitive grassroots movement.
    • dragonwriter 10y ago
      > Because for better or for worse, the DNC pretends to hold "fair elections" in its primary. There is no such thing as the DNC's primary. The only Presidential nominating election run by the DNC is at the convention, when they delegates vote on the nominee. State parties in some states hold elections in the nominating process in the form of caucuses. Primaries, where they are used, are run by state governments, not the DNC or state Democratic parties. > If the DNC would just "appoint" its favorite candidate, that would be fine. That's actually what the convention is: its where the DNC appoints its favorite candidate. > It's kind of a normal thing to do in Europe, actually. But then, just like in Europe, the Dem and Rep parties would have to allow other parties in the general election as well, and set up a system that works for third parties, because chances are more often than not people wouldn't be happy with the main parties' "appointed candidates". No, they wouldn't, and even when there was no pretense that the nominating conventions were anything other than insider-driven affairs (which only ended fairly recently with reforms in both parties to rest more heavily on either state-run primaries or relatively-open -- compared to how they used to be -- party caucuses to select delegates, or at least inform delegate selection) the electoral system did not support third parties any better than it does now.
    • 10y ago
  • duaneb 10y ago
    they actively deny favoritism, lying to their voters.
• maxerickson 10y ago
  If I were in charge of a large political organization I'd do adversarial research on all my potential candidates.
  • nix0n 10y ago
    Clinton and Biden are both Democrats.
    • ayuvar 10y ago
      It's common for campaigns to run oppo on their own candidates. If you can find something before an actual opponent does, you can pre-emptively deal with it.
      • manquer 10y ago
        campaigns yes.. party no, certainly not before the nomination or even before announcing to run
        • sjwright 10y ago
          Citation?
  • tanderson92 10y ago
    If this were the case we'd expect similar documents on HRC. So far, all we have are talking points meant to counter various negative stories and narratives about her. There is an asymmetry here in the docs on each candidate and potential candidate. That isn't exactly a balanced approach to adversarial research (which, I agree, is not a poor idea in and of itself).
    • giaour 10y ago
      It's also possible that the DNC prioritized its research based on who was most likely to win the primary. Hillary has been the overwhelming favorite for a long time now, so I don't think it's all that surprising that most of their work has been undertaken with the assumption that she would be the nominee. I bet they have similar files on Lincoln Chafee and Martin O'Malley, but it would have been foolish to invest as many resources in developing those as they did in the HRC file.
• cmdrfred 10y ago
  I thought that was a given. The DNC basically laundered money for Clinton to get around campaign finance laws[0]. [0] http://www.npr.org/2015/12/23/460762853/how-hillary-clinton-could-ask-a-single-donor-for-over-700-000 http://www.npr.org/2015/12/23/460762853/how-hillary-clinton-...
• tptacek 10y ago
  Just by framing a comment like this you're taking the person who claims to have broken into the DNC at their word, that they're not releasing selectively to build a narrative.
  • tanderson92 10y ago
    You know, you are right. This is the framing of the narrative I have long suspected (and there is plenty of other evidence not related to this hack supporting the theory). It is possible that the DNC had similar oppo research on HRC that is unreleased. I regret the wording of my post because the reality is simply more complex (though I did mention that it was only suggestive evidence, not conclusive proof by any means). Of course, my bias in accepting a narrative too easily isn't real evidence that the DNC did not act as allies: there is too much existing (confirmed) evidence corroborating that. And, as mentioned downthread, the DNC could release documents showing that they did oppo research on HRC as well.
    • btown 10y ago
      Releasing additional documents, though, brings more media attention to this hack, which might otherwise pass under the radar.
    • rand1012 10y ago
      But, absent evidence, there's no reason to suggest anything is unreleased.
    • pfisch 10y ago
      I mean it would be crazy for them not to do oppo research on HRC either way. How could they have HRC defense docs unless they also have oppo research...