And yet, those are still legitimate actions for media. As a general rule, if Fox News can do it, so can Wikileaks - and it was precisely traditional media that made the dump politically damaging as opposed to Wikileaks itself, which is an obscure web repository the wast majority of the public will never access.

Would you support it if the DNC had run a similar campaign supporting Clinton against Obama in 08?

The purpose of the DNC, as with the RNC, is to choose a candidate they feel is most likely to win. I don't believe choosing Obama over Clinton would have been any less political than choosing Clinton over Obama, or Clinton over Bernie. I don't believe that political calculus or meddling or special privileges granted to high-ranking party officials is actually atypical for either party.

Of course, Wikileaks never released any data dumps from the Republicans, so we can't really know, I guess. Maybe the Republican Party is just a paragon of virtue and their opsec is perfect.

I know it's unfashionable, but shouldn't the parties choose a candidate they feel is most likely to do good and communicate why?

I feel the constant triangulation is a big reason why the democratic world is so messed up right now.

Maybe they should, but... come on.

Did the Republicans choose Trump because they felt he was the most likely to do good and communicate why?

Of course not.

I think we should talk more about it though. People can make a difference. Even if we can't keep this train from derailing, maybe we can slow it down a bit before impact.

And before they choose, they're supposed to determine who is more likely to win. And they admitted they didn't do that fairly as they were being run by Clinton campaign.