In 2016, prospective candidates were told by the party to sit this one out. It was Hillary's turn and if you run in the primary, you will not have a future in the DNC. This is why we only got Bernie (who isnt even a democrat) and a hand full of no name DNC candidates to vote for. She was chosen, and no big names ran against her.

Where is the evidence for this? Obama was also not a big name candidate in 2008. It's harder to be a bigger name than someone who was both a first lady and a senator.

one partisan event I found in a quick web search (can't vouch for anything):

from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2143741/fact-che...

    On Thursday, Brazile released a excerpt from her new book on Politico’s website. The excerpt explained how the Hillary Victory Fund, Hillary for America, and the Democratic National Committee signed a Joint Fund-Raising Agreement, which gave a significant advantage to Clinton’s campaign.

    “Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised,” Brazile wrote. “Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.”

     “The funding arrangement with HFA and the victory fund agreement was not illegal, but it sure looked unethical,” Brazile notes. “This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party’s integrity.”

_fs didn't say she wasn't a big name, only that "no big names ran against her."

No big names ran against her in 2008. No big names ran against Obama in 2012. No big names ran against Biden. Big name is a relative term.

Yes, the Democrats have a history of fighting against competitive primaries. 2016 wasn't the first time, but it was the first time some of mechanisms they use to suppress other candidates were exposed in their own words.

You keep saying that without providing any evidence. Once more, where is the evidence that the DNC ever told anybody that they wouldn't have a future in the DNC if they ran in a primary?

Wikileaks released DNC's internal emails, where they made plans to sabotage Bernie.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/politics/dnc-emails-sa...

Bernie supporters filed a lawsuit against the DNC for disenfranchising them. The DNC argued they operate as a private corporation and are free to pick whomever they want "over cigars in a back room".

> “There’s no right to not have your candidate disadvantaged or have another candidate advantaged. There’s no contractual obligation here . . . it’s not a situation where a promise has been made that is an enforceable promise,” Spiva said.

> The DNC is advancing the argument that any claims to be neutral and fair to all candidates were nothing but “political promises” and are unenforceable by law.

https://www.salon.com/2017/05/13/the-dncs-elephant-in-the-ro...

None of this is evidence for GGP's claims.

It is also not evidence for any interference above 2008. Workers for the DNC had their own preferences for party candidate. This was the case in 2008 as well, but without the emails, it's hard to construct a conspiracy theory. There was no evidence of "sabotage" in the emails.

> The DNC is advancing the argument that any claims to be neutral and fair to all candidates were nothing but “political promises” and are unenforceable by law.

This is a legal argument for throwing out a case (which was thrown out). It is not an admission of being unfair.

But she was very divisive on the R side. Democrats need someone who is popular enough with their core base to win primaries, but also likable enough to the other side to get some crossover votes.

When in doubt, always blame the Russians.

They released the emails that this conspiracy theory is based on.

But the DNC wrote them. Don't blame the messenger.

Did we get verification the emails were unaltered? To make an analogy the initial email release was smoke, it demands investigation, smoke often means fire after all, but not always.

Had a single email been altered, you can be sure that the DNC would have been shouting it from the rooftops. Being able to label the emails as 'altered' would have made for fantastic water-muddying, which is a classic defensive tactic in such a situation. Any political operative would be expected to do the same. The fact that you are (as I am) unaware of any such claim, in an episode which was at the top of the news cycle for months, would seem to be a pretty clear indicator that the emails were legit.

> Had a single email been altered, you can be sure that the DNC would have been shouting it from the rooftops.

Easy to imagine they would not in some cases. Often people do not comment on on going investigations. Or in international espionage I know it is common to hide what you know and what you do not know to keep your competitors/enemies in the dark to give your self an advantage. So the USA spy organizations may not want the DNC to show its hand.

I can not make the assumption that you are putting forth at least.

Neither of those concerns are relevant.

The DNC could have simply published one of their original emails for people to compare, without interfering in any investigation or revealing any spy techniques.

> The DNC could have simply published one of their original emails for people to compare, without interfering in any investigation or revealing any spy techniques.

Ok the DNC goes to their hard drive and opens up the email. It does not match what was in the leak. Is the email on the DNC's hard drive altered or not? After all if the email was accessed/leaked could it have been altered as well? With a simple security setup, yes it can.

Operational security is often about not tipping your hand to your adversary about what you know and what you do not know. Showing the original email in your scenario also tips your hand for what you think you know.

There was nothing incriminating in the emails. Some staffers preferred one candidate. This was spun into a fixing conspiracy theory. If you think this wasn't true in 2008 or that some RNC staffers don't prefer one candidate, you might be interested in a bridge I have for sale.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid admitted: “Bernie really had a movement out there, and it wasn’t right to treat him that way. I knew — everybody knew — that this was not a fair deal. So I’m sorry she had to resign, but it was the right thing to do. She just should’ve done it sooner.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/harry-reid-bernie-sanders-dnc...

Which is it? Did she schedule the debates on the weekend so nobody would watch, or did she ask unfair questions that painted Sanders in a bad light for many voters? It can't be both. The reality is that none of her actions caused Clinton to get more than 3 million more votes than Sanders.

Yes it can be both. Schedule the debates on the weekend so "nobody" would watch (thus people who didn't know about him wouldn't learn about him), and ask unfair questions that painted Sanders in a bad light (targeting people who already knew about him and did watch because they wanted to learn more).

She did more too, like convincing much of the media not to talk him. It was quite obvious when so many shows covered the polls, including people polling in single digits, but didn't mention Sanders.

> The reality is that none of her actions caused Clinton to get more than 3 million more votes than Sanders.

There's no way to know how many votes he would have gotten in a fair contest.

> She did more too, like convincing much of the media not to talk him.

Where is the evidence for this?

> Yes it can be both. Schedule the debates on the weekend so "nobody" would watch (thus people who didn't know about him wouldn't learn about him), and ask unfair questions that painted Sanders in a bad light (targeting people who already knew about him and did watch because they wanted to learn more).

Most of the debates were on weekdays, including 80% of the debates between only Clinton and Sanders. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presiden...

None of the questions she proposed asking Sanders about his religion were ever asked.

> There's no way to know how many votes he would have gotten in a fair contest.

Exactly the number of votes that he got.