Why Are the Knives Out for the Democratic Party Chair?
Almost simultaneously, BuzzFeed and Politico published extensive stories Wednesday on what they described as the troubled leadership of Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
The Politico story in particular was full of anecdotes from Democratic insiders wielding shivs: She’s tone deaf and tried to use party money to pay for her own clothes. She’s grasping and more concerned with her own personal ambitions than the fate of the party. She’s so relentlessly self-promotional that even President Barack Obama has grown tired of her — and he lets it show.
Some folks within the Democratic Party are clearly dissatisfied with her leadership. But who exactly has their knives out for Wasserman Schultz? And what’s their angle? That’s a little more opaque.
What we do know, though, is that some kind of change could be coming to the DNC very soon. The party is expected to have a presidential frontrunner after the new year — when presumed nominee Hillary Clinton has said she’ll make her decision about whether to run — and presidential candidates tend to want their own people at the top of the party. It might not be normal for a not-yet-nominated candidate to get their pick of party chair (and publicly, she surely won’t), but nothing is normal about the potential Clinton 2016 bid. And combined with the attacks on Wasserman Schultz, it certainly seems that a new chair is not to be ruled out.
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