… During and after the 2016 Democratic presidential campaign, there were complaints that the DNC had not played square, that it had a finger on the scale for Hillary Clinton. It is certainly true that the DNC didn’t go out of its way to do Bernie Sanders or Martin O’Malley any favors, or to do Clinton any harm. But to address those suspicions, complaints or misdeeds, current DNC Chairman Tom Perez went out of his way to be small “d” democratic, setting up at the outset an objective set of criteria for debate inclusion. …
A very good argument can be made that Perez and the DNC were overly inclusive, allowing a bewildering number of candidates to parade across voters’ television screens. Some voters said they wouldn’t even bother paying attention to the race until it was winnowed down to a more reasonable half dozen or so. Fifty years ago, Alvin Toffler’s book Future Shock introduced the term “over-choice,” in which a consumer has so many choices that it makes decisions more difficult. This was over-choice. CONT.
Charlie Cook