Democrats in chaos as convention opens

By Burgesss Everett & Seung Min Kim, Politico–

Republicans aren’t the only ones with a unity problem.

The Democratic National Convention opens Monday marred by the sudden resignation of its unpopular chairwoman after a series of leaked emails suggested she might have used her office to help Hillary Clinton defeat the insurgent candidacy of Bernie Sanders.

With Republicans gloating after their own difficult convention and Sanders’ supporters claiming proof of the party’s dirty dealings, senior Democratic officials now face the difficult task of making their national gathering proceed apace toward Clinton’s coronation.

The first assessment of their success will come quickly; on Monday night Sen. Bernie Sanders will speak, just one day after seeing his repeated calls for the resignation of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz realized. And while party leaders were eager to insist they expected a show of unity thanks to that swift action against the chairwoman, there remained some worry that Sanders could offer a moment as dramatic as Republican Ted Cruz did when he refused to endorse GOP nominee Donald Trump on national television last week.

“There will be some amount of hand-wringing over the next day. Sen. Sanders will have a role to play in this as he talks to his delegates,” said one House Democrat attending the convention. “I don’t expect a Ted Cruz moment.”

Indeed, while the drama over emails indicating DNC favoritism toward Clinton were certain to cloud the Democratic convention, senior party officials say their quick disposal of Wasserman Schultz even before the convention opens in Philadelphia gives the party a chance to soothe any restlessness in its ranks, according to interviews with lawmakers, party strategists and aides on Sunday evening.

Now Democrats are trying to carefully choreograph the succession plan in order to avoid any comparison to Cruz’s daring performance. By sacking Wasserman Schultz before the convention, Democrats say they think the disunity on display Sunday will dissipate by the time Clinton takes the Philadelphia stage on Thursday.

“We can’t have this distraction at the convention,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia. The convention “is all about Hillary Clinton and I think Debbie understood that. I think the damage done by some of those emails in her efforts to achieve genuine unity were at some risk.”

Even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California acknowledged the obvious — that having Wasserman Schultz preside over the convention under a cloud of controversy was an unthinkable diversion at an event intended to bring feuding Democrats together.

“Now that the primary is over, Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz knows well the main purpose of the DNC is to elect a Democratic president. Party unity is essential to that effort and the Congresswoman has rightly decided to put party unity first,” Pelosi said in a statement.

“Given the need to bring party unity, I think she did the right thing,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who is close to Senate Democrats’ presumptive 2017 leader, Chuck Schumer of New York.

The ultimate irony is that Wasserman Schultz had predicted last week that her convention would go more smoothly than the Republican gathering in Cleveland, where delegates tried to unbind their loyalty to Trump, Melania Trump was caught plagiarizing and Trump called into Fox News while one of his more effective speakers was on stage delivering an emotion-filled indictment of Clinton. Instead Democrats go into a nominating ceremony with a disturbance on par with Walter Mondale’s unsuccessful attempt to oust party chair Charles Manatt in 1984.

Democrats insist that their convention will still be a sunny, unified affair and that the DNC fiasco is a temporary sideshow to Clinton’s historic nomination as the first female major party nominee.

“It removes a cloud over the convention. Takes the wind out of the controversy,” said one senior Democratic source. “It gets out of the way ahead of time. She’s out and that’s the end of it.”

Still, that cloud will linger for some time. Starting Monday Senate hopefuls, House candidates and long-time Democratic lawmakers will face at least a day of questions — and potentially many more — about the discord represented by Wasserman Schultz. Prep sessions are already underway as Democrats prepare to insist their party is unified and Republicans’ convention was far more damaging than the gathering in Philadelphia.

For instance, Katie McGinty, who is running for Senate in the convention host state, is holding a news conference Monday morning and will likely face questions on the Wasserman Schultz controversy.

“I don’t think it has that much impact for Senate candidates. They should be ready to field a question or two on it, but your average voter isn’t going to be so consumed by the inside baseball like this,” said one top party strategist.

Democrats said that the DNC leaks, which showed DNC officials seeding critical stories about Sanders’s faith and the Vermont senator’s “mess” of a campaign, was what broke a dam of support that had been propping up Wasserman-Schultz. But senior Democrats, including retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Schumer, declined to forcefully back her dating back several months, aware that she could fall as a means toward bringing Sanders-supporting progressives toward Hillary.

On Sunday, Reid declined to put out a supportive statement praising Wasserman Schultz, just as he refused to defend her this spring as Senate Democrats began looking to get rid of her as a nod to Sanders’s massive following. It was one of several clear signals that the DNC chairwoman’s leadership had become completely untenable with Democrats trying to cast Trump as dividing Republicans.

Reid of course, had seen the brightest canary in the coalmine: A raucous Nevada Democratic convention that was disrupted by people threatening Democratic officials and Sanders supporters shouting down California Sen. Barbara Boxer as she spoke.

“We needed to show the Bernie portion of the party, which is bigger than everyone thought, that we are listening to them,” said a person close to Reid. “It wasn’t enough to do platform changes or to have Bernie endorse” Clinton.

Indeed, Democrats were actively working to shore up liberal support on Sunday ahead of the convention even before Wasserman Schultz fell on her sword. Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and Clinton’s vice presidential pick, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, held a conference call with Democratic members of Congress and governors on Sunday, two participants said, with the goal of introducing the “progressive” Kaine.

With Kaine viewed skeptically by the party’s liberal wing for past stances on trade and social issues and Sanders supporters taking to the streets of Philly in outrage over the leaked DNC emails, quarantining Wasserman Schultz was viewed as the only play that could relieve the pressure while there was still time to salvage the convention’s atmosphere.

“Every little bit helps,” said one Democratic source close to progressive groups.