Monday’s start of the Democratic convention in Philadelphia has already been marred by an email scandal (I know – when will people STOP writing embarrassing things in emails?) that has claimed the job of Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
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Jeff Weaver said he is “100%” on the same team with Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, despite a dump of emails leaked on the internet over the weekend that showed DNC officials working against the Vermont senator during the presidential primary season.
Amid lingering angst over the primary process, Bernie Sanders has a chance to encourage his supporters to embrace party unity. But she told the crowd in Philadelphia – and a national television audience – that she plans to vote for Clinton. And I think, because I have said a long time ago, that the time is now for Debbie Wasserman Schultz to step aside, not only for these issues.
But Sanders also was heckled and booed when he said voting for Clinton is key to defeating Donald Trump. And then, with the November election in mind, she said: “We will all have a big party at the other end, no matter what happens”.
While Mrs. Obama has often avoided overt politics during her almost eight years in the White House, her frustration with Trump’s rise was evident.
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will both be on hand to make their case for Clinton – potentially overshadowing the rest of the evening’s roster.
The theme of the day, though, will be driven by the “Mothers of the Movement” – a group of speakers that includes the mothers of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland and more, all men and women who died in police custody or as a result of police actions. “It is so important that she has made a decision to step down”.
Discussions between the two camps prompted Sanders to send emails and text messages to supporters asking them not to protest. Sanders had demanded earlier in the day that Wasserman Schultz resign. Sanders’ loyalists heckled her at a Florida delegation breakfast and many expressed dismay that Clinton had given the Florida congresswoman the position of honorary chair of the campaign’s “50-state program”.
Released emails showing that the DNC did everything in their power to keep Sanders from getting the nomination.
Her stewardship of the DNC has been under fire through most of the presidential primary process, but her removal from the convention stage comes following the release of almost 20,000 emails. One of the abortive proposals included a suggestion by the DNC finance chief, Brad Marshall, that surrogates depict Sanders as an atheist who strayed from his Jewish roots.
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Obama, who named her to the post in 2011, lavished praise on her on Sunday. “She has shown time and time again her resilience and she is not scared to stand up to the right and defend our platform and defend our values”, said Ana Cruz, a delegate from Tampa. “I don’t think she’s qualified to be the chair of the DNC not only for these bad emails, which revealed the prejudice of the DNC, but because we need a party that reaches out to working people and young people”, he told the network.
