A long-time Canadian political strategist is aghast that some Democrats are furious with former DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile’s expose of how the Hillary Clinton campaign took over the 2016 primaries.
Robin Sears, who was a key backroom figure in the quasi-socialist New Democratic Party of Canada for two decades, says to detractors: “give your head a shake.”
Sears wrote in Sunday’s Toronto Star: “So to all the Democratic Donna Brazile dumpers, one can only say, ‘Give your head a shake. Learn from the painful lessons she has graced you with in revealing at great personal risk — and do better in this upcoming campaign.’”
He adds: “Brazile has done the party a favour by blasting this hypocrisy, and hopefully ensuring it is never repeated.”
Referring to Brazile’s book, “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House,” Sears wrote that Brazile described “breathtakingly stupid and unethical behavior” where the “Clinton campaign effectively rented the party apparatus” because the Democrats were desperate “for much needed cash.”
Sears described that arrangement as “unlike any I have ever seen in any real parity democracy. It literally places the party — its finances, its staffing, its operations and its messaging — in the hands of a single candidate…”
He wondered what Canadians would say if the party of current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau allowed something similar to transpire.
“Imagine if the Liberal Party of Canada, desperately broke when the contest that lead to the Trudeau leadership was launched, had made a similar pledge to his campaign? Imagine the agreement was kept secret, that its terms were kept hidden from other candidates and even from an incoming party chair. Would the Canadian political world not have gasped and seen the new party chair as a hero for her disclosure and angry denunciation of it?”
Calling the Democratic deal “almost Orwellian,” Sears said the “Clintonites have insulted our intelligence in pleading that Bernie Sanders” could have “rented” the party just as easily. “Could Sanders expect to win a battle over spending, debate timing, or convention organization at the DNC, with the Clinton team on the other side?”