WTF Happened at the Nevada Democratic State Convention?
The Nevada State Democratic Convention was supposed to end at 7 p.m. Saturday. When backers for Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were still raging at each other at 10 p.m., the Paris Las Vegas hotel told organizers the event needed to end.
According to various reports, Sanders supporters yelled, threw chairs and booed Clinton surrogate Barbara Boxer, incensed by a process they saw as rigged in Clinton’s favor. Clinton backers responded by calling for the disruptive Sanders delegates’ arrests.
Jennifer Forkish, a spokeswoman for Caesars Las Vegas, which owns the hotel, said in a statement that the convention “ran four hours past its scheduled end time, forcing the security paid for by event operators to leave their posts as their shifts ended. Without adequate security personnel, and in consultation with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and event organizers, a decision was made that it was in the best interest of everyone in attendance to end the event.”
In a Medium post published Monday, the Nevada Democrats placed the blame for the mess squarely at the feet of the Sanders campaign, which they said was “deliberately sharing misinformation about how the convention operates to get people riled up” in advance of the convention “after starting this fire, they had no capacity — and no desire — to control their own supporters.”
In the event’s aftermath, party chair Roberta Lange’s phone number and email address were posted online — at times alongside images of dead animals — by incensed Sanders supporters. The state Democratic Party says Lange received thousands of death threats, threats of violence and insults. The party archived online a selection of the harassing texts and voicemails, in which Lange is called a “cunt,” “bitch” and “criminal;” the messages also include references to personal details like her home address and the location of her grandchildren’s school. The party’s headquarters was reportedly vandalized Sunday, with graffiti reading “Roberta Lange murdered democracy,” “You are scum,” and “Cheating is not winning.”