In a scathing article titled "How Hillary Clinton Bought the Loyalty of 33 State Democratic Parties," actress and Sanders supporter Margot Kidder -- who played Lois Lane to Christopher Reeve's Superman in the Eighties -- attacked Hillary Clinton for her campaign's collaboration with the Democratic establishment to basically buy off the loyalty of the so-called "super-delegates," claiming her state of Montana was one of those states which sold out for a mere sum of $64,100.
Kidder claims the Clinton camp is taking advantage of the Supreme Court's 2014 McCutcheon v. FEC ruling that "eliminated aggregate caps on individual campaign donations, which paved the way for the DNC and the Hillary Victory Fund to collaborate with 33 state-level Democratic parties to accept $10,000 donations from the millionaires and billionaires who back Clinton, kicking them back up to Hillary, allowing each couple to donate up to $1.32M to the Clinton campaign."
Although it seems suspect, it is legal, but still raises some rather significant questions about the "integrity" of Democratic nominations as they promote "campaign finance reform." Kidder wrote:
One could reasonably infer that the tacit agreement between the signatories was that the state parties and the Hillary Clinton Campaign would act in unity and mutual support. And that the super-delegates of these various partner states would either pledge loyalty to Clinton, or, at the least, not endorse Senator Sanders. Not only did Hillary's multi-millionaire and billionaire supporters get to bypass individual campaign donation limits to state parties by using several state parties apparatus, but the Clinton campaign got the added bonus of buying that state's super-delegates with the promise of contributions to that Democratic organization's re-election fund.
In essence, she complained money is buying super-delegates for Clinton -- "even if the voters of the states in which these delegates reside didn't support Clinton." Before Wisconsin voted, Clinton had a slight advantage over her opponent Bernie Sanders - 1,243 - 948, but among super-delegates, Clinton blows Sanders out of the water with 469 to his 31.
Kidder goes on to complain, "If a presidential campaign from either party can convince various state parties to partner with it in such a way as to route around any existing rules on personal donor limits and at the same time promise money to that state's potential candidates, then the deal can be sold as a way of making large monetary promises to candidates and Super-delegates respectable."
Kidder ends the article by acknowledging "we know the deck is stacked, that Hillary and the DNC get all the face cards and that you're dealing from the bottom of the deck. But just give us an ace from time to time, or maybe even a small straight. Don't rub our hopelessness in our faces as if we are too dumb to know. You will pay for your contempt. If not this year, then the next."
Looks like the Democratic Party also finds itself at odds with an "outsider" versus "establishment" candidate.
