Lessons From the Democratic Battle of Nevada: In the Campaign Home Stretch, Organize, Don't Agitate

But here’s the takeaway: We shouldn’t have lost the state Democratic convention by 33 delegates. We also shouldn’t have won it by 31, as the minority report is worded to suggest. We should have won it by at least 400, with as many as 2,124 Bernie delegates to Clinton’s 1,695. The lesson for Sanders supporters who will be at other state conventions and those who will represent him and our movement at the national convention in Philadelphia in July is this: If activist groups like Clark County NV for Bernie invested as much energy into making sure all of our delegates and alternates made it to the state convention as they did in mobilizing votes against the proposed rules and support for a last ditch recount, and if Sanders delegates had been more familiar with the rules of the convention, we could have had a very different outcome. Here in Washoe County, the second-most populous county in the state after Clark, our grass-roots organizers focused on informing our Sanders delegation about convention procedure and coordinating transportation and lodging in Las Vegas. We created our own spreadsheets that allowed us to keep track of people who needed a ride to Vegas or a place to stay, and to stay in contact with those people. I organized and hosted the only official phone-banking party anywhere in the state where volunteers helped make calls to delegates. We could have used more. I do not intend to put singular blame on the Clark County organizers for the final tallies at the state convention. Clearly the Nevada Democratic Party and Chairwoman Lange are guilty of improper conduct and possibly voter suppression, and should be held accountable. Some Sanders delegates arrived to find they had been registered as Clinton alternates, and had to go back through lines to receive their proper credentials. Others never received invitations from the state party to participate in the convention in the first place. And surely the official Sanders campaign should have made more of an effort and exercised greater oversight in mobilizing and educating delegates. When we attempted to recruit more volunteers for additional phone banks to turn out delegates, we were discouraged from doing so by a state campaign staffer. It turns out this staffer was also active in the Team Bernie group, though not in his official capacity as a representative of the Sanders campaign. In fact, there were two campaign staffers who advised and organized with Clark County NV for Bernie, although Team Bernie was not an official branch of the Sanders campaign. Perhaps their time could have been better spent focusing on delegate attendance by prioritizing the development and troubleshooting of our outreach tools, rather than advancing this particular group’s agenda. But I do mean to take issue with the tactics this grass-roots group employed. There are no clauses in the rules of the convention that discredit Bernie’s win at the county level or necessarily put him at a disadvantage. Focusing on an effort to vote down this document and incite protest without educating fellow delegates on procedure—rather than working to fill our well-earned delegate seats or encouraging our people to participate in the process leading up to the convention—contributed to confusion and frustration on the floor of the convention that was ultimately grossly unsuccessful. It also resulted in the striking of positions from the state party platform that are central to Sanders’ campaign. I can’t help but feel that the Nevada convention was hijacked by a group of activists with an agenda that I don’t wholly agree with who tapped into Bernie supporters’ dissatisfaction, even as it was being bulldozed by state party officials. I say this not only as a stalwart Sanders supporter and active campaign volunteer, but also as a pledged member of the “Bernie or Bust” voting bloc. What I’m outlining here might anger many of my fellow Sanders supporters, but we need to take a long, hard look at what happened in Nevada if we’re going to be effective in July, and for the sake of that I’m willing to risk their ire. The opening volleys from both sides set the tone for the rest of the convention, and from the first voice vote it was clear that both the Team Bernie organizers and Roberta Lange fumbled. Team Bernie and other Clark County organizers had primed Bernie delegates to vote down the chairwoman’s motions, and so they voted “no” at the first opportunity without a clear understanding of what they were protesting. In response, Lange failed to recognize the “no” vote and steamrolled the motion through without discussion or due process. I’m disappointed. And I’m outraged by the well-documented injustices against Sanders perpetrated not only by the Nevada Democratic Party, but also by the DNC. But I’m also convinced that we need to be well organized and well informed going into Philadelphia. We know the DNC and the mainstream media will try to discredit us, and we can’t give them any room to do so. We also can’t afford a snafu like the voting down of the Elections and Government section of the party platform in its entirety. If Nevada is a microcosm of what might be in store for Sanders and his delegation, we have much work to do. In many respects, Nevada was ours to lose. The national convention will be tougher, and we’ve got to be ready. Too many people have worked too hard to let poorly executed maneuvering destroy this movement from the inside. We will win by the strength of our numbers and the merits of our policy positions if we can stay organized and engaged. If we choose to focus on agitating an angry chorus and fail to enact real, prescriptive change, we threaten to drive away the voters that Sanders’ drew into this process, leaving them once again disillusioned, disenfranchised and disgusted by our political system. That’s the narrative that we’d remember as members of the progressive left. And that would be the most catastrophic loss of all. Kaitlin Crowley is a graduate of the liberal arts program at Sarah Lawrence College. She manages a sustainable urban farm in northern Nevada. Your support matters…

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