Whatever debate plan the DNC pursued was always bound to be controversial. But the manner in which Wasserman Schultz crafted the scheme all but guaranteed an eventual blowup. According to several people with front-row seats for the hatching of the plan, the chairwoman made her decision unilaterally, without consulting or even telling the rest of the committees high command, including her vice chairs, in advance. She presented this to us as a fait accompli as she was about to go out and announce it to the whole committee, Rybak told me. I said to her, Well, at least there's some way you can explain why you came to that decision. She didn't even do that. She gaveled people out of order without any explanation.
For someone whos the head of a national party, you would think shed be better at, you know, politics, says a senior Democrat with close ties to the DNC. How do you not line up your own folks? How do you not touch base and say, This is what I need from you guys? At best, you consult; at least, you notify. But her default is to see her vice chairs as nuisances, not partnersnot even close. The word partner would never cross her lips.
The result was predictableand, in fact, predicted by some Wasserman Schultz advisers. Many state party officials, who prize debates as organizing opportunities, were furious at both the plan and the chairwomans refusal even to consider a change of course. (Were going to have six debatesperiod, she declared to reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington.) In mid-September, Massachusetts Democratic Party Vice Chair Deb Kozikowski accused her of establishing a full-fledged dictatorship at the DNC. A few days later, at a speech before the New Hampshire Democratic Party convention, Wasserman Schultz was greeted with raucous chants of We want debates!
At the same time, her motives were called into question, most aggressively by OMalley, who accused the DNC of rigging the process and stacking the deck in Clintons favor. Given the desire of the other candidates for more debates, the insistence of the Clinton team on fewer, and Wasserman Schultzs status as a long-time Clinton ally (she was a co-chair of Hillarys 2008 campaign), the accusations carried a distinct whiff of plausibility.
. My first banning though!
