Democratic presidential candidates blast ‘undemocratic’ debate timing

It’s no secret that Bernie Sanders and Debbie Wasserman Schultz are not best friends.

As Democrats gathered in South Carolina Sunday for the fourth Democratic debate, the party’s leader, Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), was on the defensive, trying to explain why there are a limited number of the structured events and why they have been scheduled, for the most part, on weekends.

Then there was the data breach; The DNC cut off the Sanders campaign’s access to crucial voter data after alleging that Sanders’ national data director, Josh Uretsky, and his team improperly accessed data meant only for the Clinton campaign. The debate will aired at 9 p.m. following an National Football League playoff game and during the long Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend. Was there even eye contact?

She argued that the Republican Party has scheduled more debates simply because it has more candidates.

Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley spent most of NBC News and YouTube’s Democratic debate fighting to be heard.

“Tonight our candidates focused on real solutions for expanding opportunity, growing the middle class and ensuring everyone in America has a fair shot”, she said in closing. Clinton has done quite well in the debates – both in subjective terms (what I or other people might think) in objective terms.

Wasserman Schultz said that more debates would “take away” opportunities for voters to meet candidates on the campaign trail.

Asked about his crime policies in light of the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore police custody, O’Malley says Sunday night that “we weren’t able to make our city immune from setbacks” but, “we were able to save a lot of lives”.

The DNC debate schedule has been the source of much internal dissent, with many accusing party leadership of deliberately creating a schedule that drives down viewership and tilts the nomination to Clinton, the establishment favorite.