Sanders Campaign Is Wrong In Claiming DNC Bias

(This photo of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders is from CNN.)

When Bernie Sanders announced his bid for the Democratic nomination, he almost instantly got between 25% and 30% support from Democrats (mostly progressives). But the campaign has not been able to improve on that for several months now. Why? If you listen to the Sanders campaign and Sanders supporters, it is because the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is biased in favor of Hillary Clinton -- and has rigged the primary election race to favor her.

They base this belief in bias on three factors. First, they say there haven't been enough debates scheduled for the Democratic candidates. I would have to disagree. There are six debates scheduled, and that should be plenty to allow Democrats to decide who they want to vote for. In fact, I doubt that most Democrats will watch more than two or three of the debates, knowing they will just hear a repeat of those arguments in the other debates.

Second, they say the debates have been scheduled at times when viewers will be busy with other things (such as last night's debate being scheduled on a Saturday). This is also a spurious claim. Those who are interested will watch the debate -- if not on Saturday night, then a rerun on TV or a replay of it on their computer. With today's technology, scheduling is not nearly as important as it has been in the past.

This belief by Sanders' staff and supporters seems to be because they believe he is a superior debater, and more debates scheduled at better times will bring Democrats flocking to his campaign. He is a good debater, but so is Hillary Clinton (a fact they refuse to accept). In fact, most Democrats who watched the first two debates have declared Clinton to be the winner of those debates. There is no rational reason to believe that more debates or scheduling debates at a different time will change that.

The other thing they point to is the DNC blocking the Sanders campaign from accessing the DNC computer for a couple of days this last week. What they won't admit is that it was a necessary action by the DNC in light of the data theft by the Sanders campaign. The Sanders campaign brought that on themselves with their unethical behavior in accessing information they had promised not to access. And that access to the DNC database has now been restored.

The DNC has been scrupulous in staying out of this primary race, and done their best to be fair to all the Democratic campaigns. Any claim to the contrary is simply not supported by the facts.

The DNC is not responsible for the failures of the Sanders campaign. Whether the Sanders campaign and supporters like it or not, the Democrats have just decided they do not want Bernie Sanders to be their candidate in the general election. The Democrats know who the candidates are (and what their beliefs are), and a clear majority has chosen to support the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.