PHILADELPHIA — The news that Debbie Wasserman Schultz is leaving her post as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee raises only one question.
What took so long?
Wasserman Schultz has been a polarizing figure in the Democratic Party for a long time. President Barack Obama has been urged to replace her at least since his 2012 re-election. Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta reportedly made similar requests last fall. “Dems turn on Wasserman Schultz” was a headline in 2014.
Bernie Sanders and his supporters never viewed Wasserman Schultz as an honest broker during the Democratic primary process, amid the scheduling of debates at times that seemed designed to discourage viewership. The DNC email hack confirms their suspicions.
Now Wasserman Schultz is stepping on the opening of the Democratic convention, announcing her resignation at the event’s conclusion, getting booed and otherwise sowing discord.
The conventional wisdom is that Obama had his own political operation to compensate for whatever weaknesses existed at the DNC and simply didn’t want to go through the trouble of replacing Wasserman Schultz.
There’s probably something to that. But Debbie Wasserman Schultz had her uses: She was a lightning rod for Democratic criticism of the party, directing fire away from Obama.
Obama clearly preferred Clinton to Sanders in the Democratic primaries. But he could remain on the sidelines and feign neutrality while Wasserman Schultz was accused of “rigging” the system against the Vermont socialist.
When people thought the party wasn’t progressive enough, they could blame Wasserman Schultz and the “corporate DNC” rather than the White House or other Democratic leaders.
DWS isn’t the first person to be a foil for more popular political figures with their base. Ronald Reagan had Michael Deaver. Even Ron Paul had Jesse Benton. If Sanders had won, there would have been someone in his inner circle who would have drawn the blame every time the revolution did not live up to expectations.
Clinton doesn’t have the same reservoir of goodwill among progressives that Obama has. Yes, she’s broadly popular with Democrats across the board, most of whom will be plenty motivated to beat Donald Trump in the fall.
But Obama won the nomination by marrying Howard Dean white liberals to the African-American vote, a progressive insurgency of sorts within the 2008 primaries. Clinton won the nomination by putting down such an insurgency in the form of Sanders’ campaign — and she was the establishment Democrat Obama beat eight years ago.
The Clinton camp is probably as happy as Sanders’ team to see Wasserman Schultz go. Yet she probably needs a lightning rod DNC chair more than Obama or Vice President Joe Biden ever did.
