Sanders backers say party quashed VP challenge

Backers of Bernie Sanders are accusing the Democratic National Committee (DNC) of slow-walking — and ultimately stifling — an uphill challenge to Sen. Tim Kaine’s vice presidential nomination.

{mosads}Donna Smith, the executive director of Progressive Democrats of America, said on Tuesday that she visited a local Democratic Party office to get the forms necessary to submit a challenger to Kaine, but was given an email for general inquiries instead.

“I would best characterize it as being sent on a wild goose chase,” Smith said.

“We understand now that the window of time has passed, so we can’t formally nominate [someone],” she added.

Smith said delegates may still protest during the Kaine’s nomination or during his speech, however.

The Bernie Delegates Network — which includes more than 1,200 Sanders delegates — announced Monday it was actively exploring mounting an effort to replace the Virginia lawmaker on the Democratic ticket.

A first step would have been getting the party forms and collecting the signature of 300 delegates. 

Smith said Sanders supporters would have moved forward if they had been able to get the forms on Tuesday morning.

Norman Solomon, a Sanders delegate and the Bernie Delegates Network’s national coordinator, said the it had found an individual willing to challenge Kaine.

He declined to give the person’s name but said it wasn’t an elected official.    

The Bernie Delegates Network also rolled out a new survey Tuesday that, according to Solomon, found that more than 81 percent of the more than 300 Sanders delegates who responded to the poll would back a “progressive” challenge to Kaine.

Progressives lashed out against Kaine’s nomination, arguing he would move likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton — who they believe is already too moderate — even further to the center.

A top Sanders staffer pushed back against the effort, however. Jeff Weaver, Sanders’s campaign manager, called the move “divisive.”

Sanders also specifically called for supporters to back both Clinton and Kaine during a delegate meeting on Monday.