Convention kicks off under cloud
Committee head resigns over leaks; Russian hackers blamed in scandal
Democrats arrived at their nominating convention on Sunday under a cloud of discord as Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, abruptly said she was resigning after a trove of leaked emails showed party officials conspiring to sabotage the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
The revelation, along with sizable pro-Sanders protests in the streets to greet arriving delegates in Philadelphia, threatened to undermine the delicate healing process that followed the contentious fight between Sanders and Hillary Clinton. And they raised the prospect that a convention that was intended to showcase the Democratic Party’s optimism and unity, in contrast to the Republicans, could be marred by dissension and disorder.
The day also veered extraordinarily into allegations, not easily dismissed, that Russia had a hand in the leaks that helped bring down the head of a U.S. political party.
Despite those concerns, Democrats are hoping that focusing on Donald Trump,
the Republican nominee, will galvanize the party to rally around Clinton, and on Sunday those efforts received a major boost when Michael Bloomberg, the former Republican and independent mayor of New York, said he would endorse her.
In her resignation statement, Wasserman Schultz, a representative from Florida, said she would continue to fight for Clinton from the sidelines.
“I know that electing Hillary Clinton as our next president is critical for America’s future,” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement. “I look forward to serving as a surrogate for her campaign in Florida and across the country to ensure her victory.”
She added: “Going forward, the best way for me to accomplish those goals is to step down as party chair at the end of this convention.”
Donna Brazile, a vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, will be the interim chairwoman through the election, the committee said.
‘Fall on your sword’
Wasserman Schultz has faced a flurry of negative stories during her five-year tenure as the committee’s chairwoman, with critics charging that she was more focused on promoting her career than on the party, but she had resisted calls for her to quit.
Wasserman Schultz announced her resignation after a private meeting with advisers and senior aides to Clinton at a hotel here a day before the party’s convention was set to begin. She had faced growing calls for her resignation over the weekend.
“In politics, you need to not only know when to draw your sword but also when to fall on it,” said James Carville, a longtime friend and adviser to the Clintons.
The breach of the Democratic committee’s emails, made public on Friday by WikiLeaks, offered undeniable evidence of what Sanders’ supporters had complained about for much of the senator’s contentious primary contest with Clinton: that the party was effectively an arm of Clinton’s campaign. The messages showed members of the committee’s communications team musing about pushing the narrative that the Sanders campaign was inept and trying to raise questions publicly about whether he was an atheist.
Sanders said the situation was an “outrage” on Sunday before the resignation was announced and called for Wasserman Schultz to step down. Afterward, he said it was the right decision.
“The party leadership must also always remain impartial in the presidential nominating process, something which did not occur in the 2016 race,” he said in a statement.
The Clinton campaign suggested Sunday that Russia had been responsible for the leak as part of an effort to help Trump, who has made flattering comments about President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
The convention will feature a host of prominent attendees, and Monday will be headlined by speeches by Sanders and Michelle Obama, the first lady. President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton will address the delegates later in the week, bringing the kind of presidential firepower that the Republican convention could not muster because of opposition to Trump.
Protests grow
Sanders’ supporters were elated by Wasserman Schultz’s decision, which they said had been long overdue.
“Thank God for WikiLeaks,” said Dan O’Neal, a delegate from Arizona who was wearing a “Bernie for President” T-shirt. “The party was stacked from the beginning with Debbie in charge.”
Ben Jealous, a frequent surrogate for Sanders and a former president of the NAACP, said Sunday in Philadelphia that the move “allows us to heal and move on.”
But many of Sanders’ backers were still not ready to let go, and their frustration could be seen on the streets of Philadelphia. A large, boisterous crowd of his supporters, chanting “Hell, no, DNC, we won’t vote for Hillary,” marched toward the site of the Democratic convention on Sunday afternoon.
The crowd of more than 1,000 people from as far as Seattle and Florida was much larger than any of the protest marches last week in Cleveland during the Republican convention.
Further angering some members of the party’s left was Clinton’s selection of Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia as her running mate, a move that was widely heralded by establishment Democrats but that provoked some backlash on Sunday from members of the party who felt he was not sufficiently liberal.
Sanders was conspicuously quiet after the pick was announced before breaking his silence on Sunday in the CNN interview. While he spoke highly of Kaine, he made clear that they had big policy differences.
“Are his political views different than mine? Yes, they are,” Sanders said. “He is more conservative than I am.”
Wasserman Schultz’s decision to resign could help tamp down open dissent by Sanders delegates at the convention. Immediately after her announcement, top party leaders praised her work in an effort to show solidarity on the eve of the four-day event.
“I am grateful to Debbie for getting the Democratic Party to this year’s historic convention in Philadelphia, and I know that this week’s events will be a success thanks to her hard work and leadership,” Clinton said.
Trump: ‘Overrated’
As Democrats digested the news, Republicans gloated.The Republican National Committee sent out headlines that depicted the Democratic Party in disarray.
Trump, who spent much of the day egging on supporters of Sanders to revolt after the selection of Kaine, bragged on Twitter that Wasserman Schultz was “overrated.”
“The Dems Convention is cracking up, and Bernie is exhausted, no energy left!” Trump wrote.
The fallout from the resignation could jeopardize Wasserman Schultz’s seat in Congress, as she faces Tim Canova, a law professor who supports Sanders, in a primary next month.