The insurgent candidacy of Bernie Sanders has been almost polite, in a Vermont kind of way. And that has been more than okay for the DNC and the Clinton campaign. A deep, scarring split among Democrats is the last thing either wanted. But this press conference by Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver just now was anything but polite.
Weaver angrily denounced the DNC and accused it basically of being in cahoots with the Clinton campaign and threatened a federal lawsuit later today if the DNC doesn’t restore his campaign’s access to the shared voter data that gave rise to this whole dispute. Reading our reader emails and Twitter, this incident seems to have galvanized Sanders supporters, who were predisposed to seeing the deck stacked against them and their candidate. Now all the suppressed anger that has animated the Sanders campaign is on full view. The cork has been popped.
Lots of angry things get said in campaigns and then are quickly forgotten. But this campaign season has already been notable for how placid things are on the Democratic side compared to the GOP. Not that it’s surprising; in Hillary Clinton you have perhaps the most dominant frontrunner coming into the race of any non-incumbent in US presidential history. While the race isn’t settled, her presence has had a settling effect. And the Clinton camp has wanted to keep it that way.
Looks like those days are now over.
