Democrats’ drama takes financial toll

John Sexton writes for HotAir.com about an important aspect of recent Democratic Party turmoil.

As we’ve been chronicling here at Hot Air for weeks, things have not been running very smoothly behind the scenes at the DNC. First there was the blowup over David Hogg’s plan to primary some moderate Democrats. That eventually led to Hogg being unelected in a do-over vote (they claimed the initial vote violated the rules) but not before someone leaked an embarrassing tape of DNC Chair Ken Martin saying he was considering giving up on his job because of the conflict with Hogg.

Not long after all of that drama made news, we learned that two union bigwigs, Randi Weingarten and Lee Saunders, were leaving their positions over disagreements with the direction the DNC was headed. Those complaints may have been sincere or they may have been sour grapes over Martin’s decision to cut them from “plum assignments” that gave them a say in how the party nominated its candidates for president. …

… In any case, all of the negative news has donors clutching their wallets according to half a dozen unnamed sources who spoke to the NY Times.

The biggest challenge facing Mr. Martin may now be financial.

Six people briefed on the party’s fund-raising, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss its finances frankly, said big donors — who are an essential part of the party’s funding — had been very slow to give to the party this year as Mr. Martin solicits contributions. His commitment to state parties, which amounts to $1 million in monthly spending, has further strained the finances.

Senior D.N.C. officials have discussed the possibility of borrowing money in the coming months to keep the operations fully funded, according to two people with direct knowledge of the private discussions who insisted on anonymity.

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