A sitting President is supposed to be the leader of his/her party, but that hasn’t really been the case since 2000. I don’t believe anyone in politics actually expected W Bush to run the country, much less the RNC also. The list of powerhouse people he placed in his cabinet was impressive, regardless of one’s affiliation, but the ruler of his administration and the Senate was obviously Cheney.
In the ’08 primaries, the DNC found it necessary to cede almost all of the party’s functional decision making to Hillary to gain her endorsement for Obama. Kaine was out and DWS was in, with Kaine promised the next VP slot for going quietly, completely bypassing Biden. Hillary was threatening to split the party with an independent run that would have guaranteed a loss to McCain and perhaps cause the demise of third-way establishment Democrats.
For the entire 8 yrs of Obama’s Presidency the pieces were being assembled to set her up as the anointed one, including the superdelegates. This is what motivated Tulsi to step down and back Bernie, not her ideology which is not nearly as progressive as Bernie’s. For her, it was all about the forever war that Hillary only promised to solidify and expand. By the time Hillary announced her run she had everything to assure her win, except the aptitude and ability to avoid corruption and chaos which swirls around her like the dust cloud that follows Pig Pen of the Peanuts cartoon series.
That corrupt nature ended up costing the party more than the Presidency, as she conned the DNC into moving funds from down-ballot support to her campaign. Considering that there was no love lost between her and Obama, the Sec of State job was probably part of the deal she forced on him and the DNC and motivated the ironclad contract Bernie had to sign promising to support the nominee to avoid any such blackmail in the future.
That a Clinton would have the total support of the much consolidated corporate media that her husband had enabled was a given and she came out of the gate with a 500 delegate lead on Bernie that the media gleefully reminded voters of at every opportunity. Trump reminded voters of this by pointing out the obvious bias of the media at every rally, and it was very effective because it was true.
Obama had little control over his party, and even his own foreign policy, perhaps ceding more to Hillary than Bush ceded to Cheney and his crew. That would explain the 180 reversal from his anti-war campaign promises and his conservative immigration policy. Hillary, behind the scenes, remained true to her Dixiecrat roots and her Goldwater inspired politics. One has to question how much of Bill’s Presidency she managed, and how much influence she still has in the goals of the DNC, but the one thing that is for sure is that the corruption she brought to the party is very much alive and well. The moral crisis you point out will be determined in the 2020 Dem primary as much as in a general election against Trump.
