A progressive advocacy group is pressuring the Democratic National Committee to remove Debbie Wasserman Schultz as the current Chairwoman over charges she is showing favoritism toward Hillary Clinton. The group, which is also being joined with similar criticism from current Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley, believes the 2016 debate schedule was orchestrated in Clinton’s favor.
Report from the Washington Times:
Amid charges that she is blatantly tipping the presidential primary scales in favor of Hillary Clinton, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is coming under fresh fire from progressives who want her removed from her post immediately.
The progressive advocacy group RootsAction said Tuesday that a 4-day-old petition calling for Ms. Wasserman Schultz’s ouster had received 23,000 signatures. Ms. Wasserman Schultz’s detractors argue that she has wounded the Democratic Party’s credibility by essentially rigging the presidential primary process in favor of Mrs. Clinton.
“The head of one of the two big political parties in the United States is trying to manipulate the presidential election process by limiting direct debate and tilting the national party apparatus in favor of one candidate. This is unacceptable,” RootsAction.org co-founder Norman Solomon said in a statement.
For months, the DNC — and Ms. Wasserman Schultz in particular — has faced charges that it wants to make the primary process as smooth as possible for Mrs. Clinton while limiting opportunities for other candidates such as Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont, a liberal favorite.
RootsAction and other critics say specifically that Ms. Wasserman Schultz has used the party’s primary debate schedule to reduce media exposure for Mr. Sanders and the party’s other presidential candidate, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.
Martin O’Malley is currently trying to turn a New Hampshire event into an additional debate, though he has not gotten much vocal support from Bernie Sanders or the DNC, report on that from The Blaze:
Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz has made a “huge mistake” by limiting debate among the 2016 Democratic presidential hopefuls, according to one of the three remaining candidates.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) has consistently vocalized his criticism of how Shultz has handled the 2016 Democratic primary — particularly the lackluster and limited debates. With the NH1 News forum less than a month a way, an event the O’Malley camp is attempting to turn into a debate, the campaign is attempting to rope fellow Democratic candidate Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders into the fight.
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Sheaff said that O’Malley’s campaign has sent emails to the Sanders camp to ask for help in bringing about more debates — but to no avail.
“Sen. Sanders won’t commit to changing the forum into a debate. He says there should be more debates, but we’re continuing to push because we think it’s the right thing to do,” Sheaff told TheBlaze.
While the campaign tries to force Sanders’ hand, it’s the DNC chairwoman who is on the receiving end of most of the criticism, since, according to O’Malley’s campaign, her unwavering stance against more debates isn’t in response to what the party’s voters wants — it’s to protect Clinton.
“In my opinion, and in O’Malley’s, too, I believe that she thought it was in the best interest of the Democratic Party to try to help Secretary Clinton and limit debate and limit the opportunities for national exposure for the other candidates,” Sheaff said.
There’s no doubt the deck is stacked in favor of Hillary Clinton, she has been the inevitable front runner for a couple years now. On the other hand, even with additional debates, do any of the current crop of Democratic candidates stand a chance at defeating her for the nomination? Bernie Sanders is giving her a run, and quite possibly could end up winning in New Hampshire. Whether he could continue the streak and go further into the primaries remains to be seen.
