At least two of the voters who supported Hillary Clinton over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary felt their party was “coddling” Sanders, leaked voicemails have revealed, and said the issue was pushing them away from the Democratic Party.
The messages, which were released by WikiLeaks Wednesday evening, appear to have been stolen as part of a broader breach of the Democratic National Committee’s network, and were part of a batch of 29 released by the website without explanation.
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“I’m furious about what you are doing for Bernie Sanders,” one woman said in her message for the party. “He’s getting way too much influence. I’m on a fixed income. I spent over $300, donated to Hillary, and what I see is the DNC bending over backwards for Bernie.”
She said the party should forget about trying to win over the Vermont senator’s supporters, because she didn’t expect them to support Clinton anyway and threatened to leave the party if it failed to comply with her advice. “Bernie is the worst person in the world even to be running in the Democratic Party because he’s not a Democrat. Please don’t give into him. I don’t care about Sanders supporters. Most of them aren’t going to vote for Hillary anyway.”
“Stop acquiescing to this person who likes to play the victim card, and who also has been attacking Hillary, which gives Trump all his talking points,” she added. “I will leave the Democratic Party if the Democratic Party continues to coddle Bernie Sanders.”
Another woman who left a voicemail complained about Cornel West, a black media personality and former Princeton professor who criticized President Obama but supported Sanders, joining the party’s platform committee, and accused the DNC of “allowing” it to happen.
The data come from attachments sent via “Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Unified Messaging”; so it’s just data from the DNC email archive.
— Pwn All The Things (@pwnallthethings) July 28, 2016
“What is the DNC doing by allowing Sanders to put Cornel West on the platform committee?” the woman asked. “He’s called President Obama a ‘negroid’ president and said he’s a Republican in blackface. Why does the DNC allow such trash to be on the platform committee? You guys are losing me.”
“I am getting fed up with the Democratic Party because I am so tired, especially in this campaign, of seeing the Democrats lay back and say, ‘Okay Bernie, whatever you want, we’ll give it to you … we promise,'” she added. “He may not even support Hillary. So I don’t know, I don’t understand, and I don’t know why you guys don’t have some courage to say no.”
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A cybersecurity expert on Twitter noted the voicemails came from attachments contained in messages from the DNC email archive, which means they were included in the initial hack of the party’s network, and called the release “gross” for consisting mostly of personal messages. “All of the calls are trivial or personal, such as taking kids to zoo. None are DNC business.”
The content of the messages and timing of their release, which came shortly before President Obama was scheduled to speak at the party’s convention Wednesday evening, suggested the hackers were trying to signal their ability to derail the Democratic Party before the November election, though it is unclear what will come next.
