Discussion for article #243957
Nothing about this reflects well on the Sanders campaign, from trying to capitalize on crappy software security to then whining after being caught.
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Good. Now let it go and move on. We should be concentrating our efforts on fighting the GOP and not each other.
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And really. This is the best drama generated about the Democratic party?
Was no one else watching the lie-fest Republican debates? That crap could fill scads of news cycles.
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I donât have a key with 1,000,000 likes. Iâll just have to do the best I can. 
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Firewalls are put in place to prevent campaigns from looking at data maintained by their rivals. But the vendor that runs the system, NGP VAN, said it ran a software patch Wednesday that allowed all users to access data belonging to other campaigns.
My very first question is: Why? Why did VAN run such a âpatch?â
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NGP VAN said the Sanders staff involved were able to "search by and view (but not export or save or act on) some attributes that came from another campaign.
Huh. Not sure how that fits with other reporting, including other parts of this same article, that seem to indicate that the Sanders staffers had actually saved a bunch of the data. For example:
Some of these voter lists were saved into a folder named âTargets,â according to the logs. Uretskyâs deputy appeared to focus on pulling data on South Carolina and Iowa voters based on turnout and support â or lack of support â for Clinton.
That latter part seems to contradict the fired Sanders staffers claim that
nothing I did was done in a way that it would give the Sanders campaign a competitive advantage
Iâd like to believe that the staffer was just innocently exploring and documenting the data breach, as he claims. But, câmon, he just happened to select data sets that (according to various news reports) identified voters in key early states that were leaning toward Clinton but hadnât fully made up their minds yet? Exactly the kind of voters the Sanders campaign would have a strategic interest in targeting?
If it looked like the staffer had been just poking around at random, I might be more inclined to at least withhold judgement. But unless the reporting has been wrong on what kind of data was targeted, the explanation given by the fired staffer just doesnât seem plausible at all.
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So says a Hillary troll. Hillaryâs BFF DWS skews all DNC decisions in her favor; both HRC and DWS are congenital liars.
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âHillary Clintonâs campaign accused Sanders of stealing millions of dollars worth of voter information.â
Letâs see the evidence. This whole thing smacks of typical Clinton campaign dirty pool. The good thing is it exposes the Clinton/DNC nexus so that voters can understand how deep the corruption is in the Party.
OK, with this all settled letâs get on with the debate which is scheduled at 3AM in the morning so that the Democratic Party can show off its great preselected candidate. The confidence is awesome. And, Maybe Putin will endorse Hillary too?
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Can we fire DWS now?
This entire episode could have been handled quietly. Instead, a great number of Sanders supporters will be soured on the process and will be less enthusiastic or maybe not show up for the general.
Is that a mature reaction? No. Iâm not talking about mature voters but the youth, who arenât exactly coming out in droves for Clinton. RedState was already crowing about Clintonâs lack of support among the youth a few days ago: http://www.redstate.com/2015/12/15/democrats-youth-vote/
As Josh rightly points out, Clinton needs Sanders more than Sanders needs Clinton.
Whatever the intentions of the Sanders staffers, this was horribly handled by the DNC, and itâs difficult to imagine that DWSâs motivation for making this into a shitstorm were honorable.
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Presumably that wasnât the purpose of the patch, just a glitch.
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Sanders looks really bad on this. As for claiming the DNC is âfavoringâ Hillary, it seems logical to support someone who may be able to win the national. But he doesnât specify what in any way except not scheduling more debates, at which he seems to assume he would shine. Well, he didnât shine at the first two, and his sthick is pretty predictable and his rhetoric is pretty stale.
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I guess the idea is that the DNC was âfavoringâ the Clinton campaign by cutting off the Sanderâs campaignâs access to the database. But I donât think this was really beneficial to the Clinton campaign â they donât need any help in the primary, and a messy, unnecessary intra-party fight is pretty much the opposite of what she needs to win the general.
So I expect the Clinton campaign was probably just as relieved as the Sanders campaign and the DNC that they were able to get this resolved last night. The longer this dragged on, the worse it would have been for both campaigns, and for the DNC.
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Everyone is seeing this affair through the lens of their support for either candidate.
On the other hand, your alternative to a democratic process is quite attractive!
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Her campaign didnât do anything wrong. Not a thing.
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Based on your username, my username is redoubling security measures.
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Even if the DNC did the right thing this time, itâs in an awkward position due to DWS and her past (and present?) allegiance to HRC. DWS has often done/said things that clearly show her bias for HRC, so sheâs already suspect when this sort of event looks like it was done precisely to aid Clinton. DWS needs to go.
PS: Why donât campaigns keep mirror servers of all the data they store in the DNC database?
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The Clinton campaign was victimized twice by this. First, by the Sanders staffers snooping around their data. Second â and much more damaging â by the DNCâs overreaction, which threatened to alienate Sanders supporters who the Clinton campaign will need in the general, assuming (as I think most of us are) that Hillary wins the nomination.
Some of the Clinton campaignâs statements were a bit snarky and unhelpful, but upon reflection, for the most part I think they were pretty restrained given the circumstance⌠I tend to agree with those who have opined that if the roles were reversed, and the Clinton campaign had been caught snooping Sandersâ data, the Sanders campaign would have gone ballistic, and Sanders supporters would have been screaming bloody murder. As a Sanders supporters, I have to admit I probably would have been livid.
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I was hoping that the Dems could be the grownups in the room in stark contrast to the GOP childish behaviors. It is unfortunate that this ugly in-fighting has surfaced, including going so far as a lawsuit. I agree with other commenters⌠letâs move forward and concentrate on winning an election and leave the drama to the other side!
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Youâre not doing a very good job of disguising the fact you are a troll yourself.
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