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DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigns
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July 24, 2016
By Jim Barnes
Philadelphia— The resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee the day before the party’s national convention opens in Philadelphia, reminds us that party chairs are highly expendable when it comes to the needs of presidential nominees. Wasserman Schultz’s exit followed the leak of thousands of internal DNC emails by hackers, possibly in Russia, suggesting that DNC staffers had favored the frontrunner for the party’s presidential nomination, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, over her chief rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The embarrassing leak only reinforced the feelings of Sanders and his supporters that the DNC had tilted towards Clinton during the primaries and caucuses. On Sunday, the Vermont Senator reiterated on CNN’s State of the Union his demand that Wasserman Schultz resign, saying that the leaked emails “revealed the prejudice of the DNC.”[1] At the same time, Democratic leaders and the Clinton camp wanted Wasserman Schultz out because her continued presence at the helm of the DNC threatened to become a major distraction in Philadelphia where the Democratic nominee and her allies were hoping to present the image of a unified party in contrast to Republican in-fighting at their convention in Cleveland last week.
And in the hothouse environment of a convention, where Sanders delegates are streaming into Philadelphia with reporters seeking their reaction to the email story, it’s understandable that the Clinton team would want to move quickly and decisively to tamp down the controversy that threatened to dominate headlines for another day. As it was, Sanders supporters rallying in Philadelphia Sunday afternoon cheered the news that Wasserman Schultz was stepping down. [2]
Indeed, Wasserman Schultz was generally viewed as aligning herself with the interests of the Democratic standard-bearer, when she was the frontrunner for the party’s presidential nomination. For instance, critics noted that Wasserman Schultz limited the number of Democratic presidential debates and scheduled two of them on Saturdays when television viewership is traditionally low. Notwithstanding the fact that Clinton was a very capable debater, limiting debates tends to help frontrunners by denying exposure to trailing candidates. Likewise, after a raucous state party convention in Nevada, Wasserman Schultz blasted Sanders and his supporters.[3]
Being a lightning rod is seldom a safe place for a politician and Wasserman Schultz’s occasional peremptory manner had not endeared her to Clinton loyalists. In May, Clinton backer Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill told CNN: "The role of the DNC chair is always a supportive role, not a starring role, and I think that, because of what has occurred, it's hard for her to avoid a starring role."[4] As I wrote at the time, “If sacrificing Wasserman Schultz would help promote party unity when Democrats gather at their national convention in Philadelphia this July, well, ‘So long, Debbie!’” (See: Furniture removal: party chairs and presidential nominees)
It’s not the first time a DNC chair has found job security problematic at a convention. In 1972, at his convention in Miami, Democratic presidential nominee Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota ditched DNC chairman Larry O’Brien, a veteran Democratic pol from Massachusetts who had been a key political adviser to President John F. Kennedy.
The Miami convention was a chaotic affair: 1972 was the first Democratic presidential contest governed by reformed nominating rules and the gathering in Miami marked a transition of power from New Deal era political machines to youthful liberal insurgents propelled by the Vietnam anti-war movement. While O’Brien had not been a McGovern sympathizer, he ran the 1972 convention in a scrupulously fair manner that enabled the South Dakotan to prevail in key floor fights and beat back challenges from the party establishment.
At a Friday lunch with O’Brien after McGovern had delivered his acceptance speech starting at 2:48 that morning, the Democratic nominee beseeched an ambivalent O’Brien to stay on the job. O’Brien agreed. Shortly thereafter, McGovern informed his staff of his decision and they balked claiming O’Brien was a symbol of the party’s old guard. McGovern backtracked and agreed to push campaign adviser Jean Westwood to become the first woman to chair the party. Right before entering a DNC meeting just a few hours later, McGovern informed O’Brien he had changed his mind. The Democratic nominee praised O’Brien’s tenure and said he respected, regretfully, O’Brien’s decision to step down. That tale, wrote Theodore White, the great chronicler of presidential politics, “raised for the first time, publicly, the root matter of McGovern’s credibility.”
In 1984, Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale tapped Rep. Geraldine Ferraro of New York to be his vice presidential nominee. Having opted for a northern running mate, Mondale and his senior advisers felt they needed to do something to show southern Democrats that he was not writing off the South in the general election. So the Mondale team coaxed Georgia Democratic Party state chairman Bert Lance—an ally and friend from Lance’s days as Office of Management and Budget Director in Jimmy Carter’s administration—to head the DNC.
The only hang-up was, to make room for Lance, the Mondale folks had to push aside the sitting DNC chairman, Chuck Manatt who was from California. Manatt had toiled to get the convention in San Francisco and as Democratic delegates were arriving in town for the party confab word got out that Manatt was going to be replaced by Lance. While Manatt was hardly a beloved party figure, many Democrats thought it was graceless for Mondale to toss him overboard on the eve of the convention in his home state.
But perhaps more importantly, Lance had been forced to resign as OMB Director in September 1977 after he became ensnarled in probes of his personal finances and questionable practices as a banker in Georgia. Lance was ultimately indicted for bank fraud but acquitted on several counts leading the Department of Justice to drop remaining charges. Still, many Democrats felt the scandal hung over Lance and that he would be a liability in the fall campaign. Powerful Democrats like AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland let Mondale know they disapproved to the Lance-for-Manatt switch. And some Democratic delegates indicated they might abandon Mondale, possibly endangering his nomination. Ultimately, Mondale backed down, but the episode embarrassed both Manatt and Lance and raised questions about the nominee’s acumen. As veteran political reporters Jack W. Germond and Jules Witcover recounted in their book, Wake Us When It’s Over: Presidential Politics of 1984, Mondale “came into San Francisco bloodied by his own poor political judgment and evidence that he was a pushover, to boot. He couldn’t even depose the party chairman.”
Clinton and her allies had no such problem in Philadelphia.
James A. Barnes is a senior writer at Ballotpedia who has covered every Democratic and Republican national convention since 1984. He is in Cleveland and Philadelphia for Ballotpedia in July. Contact media@ballotpedia.org with interview inquiries.
See also
- Debbie Wasserman Schultz
- Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2016
- Democratic National Convention, 2016
- ↑ Newsweeks, "#DNCLEAKS: SANDERS CALLS FOR WASSERMAN SCHULTZ TO RESIGN,co" July 24, 2016
- ↑ LA Times, "'No more Debbie!' A reporter's journal from the Democratic National Convention," July 24, 2016
- ↑ CNN, "DNC chair rips Sanders response to Nevada chaos," May 18, 2016
- ↑ CNN, "DNC chair on thin ice," May 25, 2016
