So, it is now beyond question that the DNC was quite literally working for Clinton during the primaries. The party was 24 million dollars in debt, thanks to Obama, and Clinton paid off those debts in exchange for control of the DNC.
Brazile discovered that an explicit written agreement had been made between the Clinton campaign and the DNC, which:
“…specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.”
But the part that many people aren’t highlighting is that Obama is responsible for this. He was a terrible party leader. He could easily have raised 24 million and chose not to do so. Under his watch the party lost 1,000 state level seats and is in danger of losing control of so many states that Republicans could pass constitutional amendments.
Obama just didn’t care. He wanted to be President and left a wasteland behind him.
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Rich
Another reason why ineffectual, feckless, narcissists like Obama should never be placed, appointed or elected to any position anywhere. “He got along well with others.” That’s worked out really well. Give me someone who grates on everyone.
Bill H
Wasn’t it the case at one point that election campaigns could not legally operate on borrowed money?
Bill H
After looking it up, whether they could in the past or not, FEC regulations allow them to do so now provided that the loan in writing and meets certain criteria, among them the loan being a) “subject to a due date or amortization schedule,” and b) “made on a basis which assures repayment.” I would love to see the written instrument(s) for the DNC loans in question.
Loans also have to be secured, but since they can be secured by anticipated future contributions that requirement is pretty much meaningless. It would seem to me, though, that anyone accepting “anticipated future contributions” as security for $24 million in loans is pretty damned stupid.
nihil obstet
“anyone accepting “anticipated future contributions” as security for $24 million in loans is pretty damned stupid.”
I think those who have elected officials in significant debt to them have shown how financially smart it is.
Ten Bears
“anyone accepting “anticipated future contributions” as security for $24 million in loans is pretty damned well expecting something in return.
Rich
I bought coffee, lattes and confections for my entire eye clinic staff three times a week and was fired.
Why? Because a tech worker complained my coffee and latte purchases were simply bribes to influence better performance and refrain from gossiping, tattletaling and backbiting their co-workers.
Now $24million, nothing is ever expected in return for that kinda coin.
Willy
Rich, it’s likely that somebody in power was threatened. My boss who I’d helped get promoted later turned his back on me when a rival of mine was able to persuade him that it was too risky to have me on his crew. There was no explanation or attempt at “attitude adjustment”.
The cultural paranoia in that business was a direct result of the outsourcing craze which had become vogue there.
Like Obama, that boss also left a wasteland behind him but played the game well enough to secure his own employment elsewhere.
different clue
@Rich,
Do you think the bosses fired you because they were too stupid to understand the value of better performance and the absence of gossiping, tattletaling and inter-coworker backbiting?
Or do you think they fired you because they based their worker-management model on worse performance and the presence of gossiping, tattletaling and inter-coworker backbiting? Were you sabotaging your bosses’ management and bussiness model?
Did the little tech twerp simply revel in tattletaling and backbiting for its own sweet sake? Or did the little tech twerp think it could advance itself up the office ladder by fostering an environment of worse performance and a presence of gossiping, tattletaling and inter-coworker backbiting?
NR
I think Obama actually wanted a Republican Congress. With Democrats in control, he had no excuse not to pass progressive legislation (though lord knows, he and other Democrats tried to make excuses). With the GOP in control of Congress, Obama was able to govern the way he’d always wanted to govern–as a moderate Republican. Hell, Obama would have been a moderate Republican in the 1980s–the only reason he ran as a Democrat is because the Republican party was too insane to accept someone even as conservative as he was, and too racist to accept a black man at the top of the ticket.
Silent Velcro
Obama’s only objective was to get re-elected. After that had no desire or incentive to build up the Democratic Party just to turn it over to Hillary Clinton who he and his wife both despise. He (with the help of Donna Brazile) has finally put the last nail in Clinton’s coffin. Bill and Hillary are completely out of power, done. Now others will start to turn on them as well with a vengeance. DWS should be the next to rat out Clinton to try and save her own neck. Should be fun to watch.
Rich
Willy and different clue,
Yes, yes, yes and yes. Being a better example had no effect on performance of techs wanting to curry favor with a non-physician manager who had hiring and firing authority over them, patient care be damned.
I share the anecdote simply because the Obama feckless style of leadership while in many ways more despicable than Bush and Trump continues to be “admired” and reproduced in remote, yet, unexpected corners of society such as healthcare, UW Medicine specifically.
On my way out the door, I remarked to the techs expressing regret at my dismissal, “I’m impressed by your ethical fortitude at indefatigably resisting better performance in the face of the temptation caused by my bribes and inducements.”
Che Pasta (er dam spellchecker)
Bombshell Brazile had to throw a spanner in the works didn’t she? Well well well. Who’d a thunk?
Dem politics will never recover. Right? This will be the final nail. The end is nigh and Gillespie will take Virginia and righteousness will be restored throughout the land.
We’ll see won’t we?
Blissex
I think our blogger has already mentioned this, but the Democrat decay goes back decades:
https://theintercept.com/2017/06/25/ralph-nader-the-democrats-are-unable-to-defend-the-u-s-from-the-most-vicious-republican-party-in-history/
«RALPH NADER: Do you want me to go through the history of the decline and decadence of the Democratic Party? I’m going to give you millstones around the Democratic Party neck that are milestones.
The first big one was in 1979. Tony Coelho, who was a congressman from California, and who ran the House Democratic Campaign treasure chest, convinced the Democrats that they should bid for corporate money, corporate PACs, that they could raise a lot of money.
Why leave it up to Republicans and simply rely on the dwindling labor union base for money, when you had a huge honeypot in the corporate area? And they did.»
They switched, like Labour in the UK, from contributions from members and trade unions workers, to a shower of riches from business owners and finance speculators.
A large part of the fault however rests with the members and trade union workers who seem to forget that USA politics is even more “pay-per-play” than in other countries, and are reluctant to fund politicians to do their interests.
StewartM
What Rich said. Obama *did care*, but he wanted Republicans to win.
Remember, when Obama was President of the Harvard Law Review his best buddies were the Federalist Society Righties? And right after he was elected in January 2009, one of the first things he did was to go to have a warm dinner discussion with a group of right-wing columnists to assure them he was no liberal and indeed shared many of their views, including (ahem) ‘entitlement reform’?
Obama tried to gut Social Security, first by trying to set up a ConservaDem/Republican panel in Congress to look into it, then setting up his own (the “Catfood Commission”) when that failed. Then when Congress balked to act upon the Catfood Commission’s cacophony (it came to no agreement, despite media misreporting), in the debt ceiling crises Obama offered the Republicans in 2011 everything on the table in exchange for a mere *promise* of some future tax increase (not on the rich, either). Obama desperately wanted his budgetary “grand bargain” which would prove to Republicans he was really one of them and would eagerly join them in a SS-gutting lovefest; he kept putting SS on the chopping block even when Mitch McConnell offered him a clean debt ceiling bill. Just like SS was saved from Clinton/Gingrich by Monica Lewinsky, it was likewise saved not by so-called ‘bold progressives’ but by Tea Party conservatives, who has so bought into Faux news rhetoric they imagined Obama to be the Great Satan and you don’t cut deals with Satan.
And yes, it is not hyperbole to say that Obama’s proposal to apply chained CPI to SS would eventually destroy it, because by tying SS’s increases to an index which deliberately *does not* keep up with inflation you reduce the payments over time to irrelevance, and thus erode its popular support.
Obama, I think, really thought he could repeat what he achieved at Harvard. As evidence of this, I recall that FDL had a story in the 2010 mid-terms how the White House was pursuing a messaging strategy for the Democratic Party that *its own polling* indicated was pissing voters off and making them less likely to vote Democratic. Think that was an accident?
Che Pasta (er dam spellchecker)
As if any of this makes much difference now. It’s great I suppose to have confirmation of what we knew or suspected all along but how does it change anything now?
Fact– it doesn’t. We’re still stuck with a murderous kleptocracy in charge with little ability to do much more than rant about it and denounce the Clintoons and Obombacrats for putting us into this pot of boiling excrement.
Guess what? They don’t care what we think any more than the current power players do.
But at least we’re right about something, right? “
Hugh
I don’t understand the hubbub. We knew like forever that Obama did nothing for the Democratic party and actively did in Dean’s 50 State strategy. We knew that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was a Hillary flunkey, the primary process was rigged, and state party funds were being funneled back to the Clinton campaign. Heck, we even knew that Brazile was in on the con on the Hillary side. All of this was out there. I think that Brazile came out with this for no noble or selfless reason but to sell books. It’s clear she really, really dislikes Wasserman-Schultz, but seriously that’s not hard to do with such a sleazy operator.
So yes, it’s true that Obama and Hillary basically dismantled the Democratic party, but even so, this would not be an irreparable harm if the Democratic party actually stood for something worth fighting for. Organizations can be rebuilt, even rather quickly using the internet. But the party doesn’t stand for anything, at least anything that most Americans want. It rather continues to define itself negatively as not Trump and not the Republicans.
Che Pasta (er dam spellchecker)
When actually- -if you look, as the Bushies would say- -the Dems ARE Republicans in every way but name, at least as Rs were c1960 or so. Fundamentally conservative but showing occasional signs of interest in the public good even if it doesn’t lead to action.
Rs are simply radical reactionaries with a death wish.
Neither party has a future vision. Which is interesting. ..
Willy
Clintonistas are calling it Russian fueled propaganda. What the Clintons really think about all this I’m sure they’ll be taking to their graves. Would you expect players like them, or Trump, to be any different?
And of course the establishment right is trying to whip their pitiful minions into yet another frenzy. Sports politics is getting old.
I get that most people are either born lemmings or are too busy to get more informed. Still, that so many corporations donate to both parties should be a glaring clue to anybody. Corporations are not wasting profits trying to be fair. They are trying to get access to politicians, any politician, who might help them mandate some kind of law beneficial for their profits. If the results come at the expense of a functioning capitalism or some greater social justice good, it’s of little concern to them.
There has to be better ways to get voters to pull their heads out of their tribal asses to see how they’re being screwed.