Amazingly, this is what it takes for Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, – the man who get’s a majority of grassroots, liberal voters – this is what it takes for him to get some discussion on the main stream media.
The DNC maintains a master voter file, which campaigns supplement with their own information. On Wednesday, a vendor error created a security breach that several Sanders staffers, including its top data official, exploited to access valuable Clinton campaign data. The DNC responded by barring the Sanders campaign from the database entirely, which includes data generated by the campaign itself.
Saying the national party violated its pledged neutrality with the punishment, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver threatened to sue the DNC in federal court and accused the national party of “trying to help the Clinton campaign” with “our data [that] has been stolen by the DNC.”
“Rather incredibly, the leadership of the DNC has used this incident to shutdown our access to our own information. This is the lifeblood of our campaign,” Weaver said at a press conference Friday in Washington. “By their action, the leadership of the DNC is now actively attempting to undermine our campaign. This is unacceptable.”
The lockout has had sweeping ramifications for the Sanders campaign, effectively bringing to a halt the their entire field operation. Sanders quickly fired his chief data official, and more punishments may come, but it’s unclear when the conflict will be resolved and when the campaign will be allowed back in to the database.
“This is taking our campaign hostage,” Weaver said.
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