Hillary Clinton’s Rivals Critical of Democratic Party Politics.

— Hillary Rodham Clinton staked her claim on Friday to lead Democrats in 2016 and beyond, delivering a fiery speech to hundreds of party officials in which she attacked Donald J. Trump and other Republicans for “hateful” remarks — “The party of Lincoln has become the party of Trump,” she said acidly — and pledged to rebuild the Democratic political machine to help candidates win races nationwide.

But if Mrs. Clinton was seeking to unify Democrats behind her, two of her rivals for the nomination — Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor, and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont — were hardly willing to go along, as they used their speeches at the Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting to aim unusual broadsides at the party overtly and Mrs. Clinton implicitly.

In the fiercest speech of his candidacy so far, Mr. O’Malley condemned his party’s leadership for curtailing the number of primary debates to six and scheduling them at times when few people would see them. (He went even further in a news conference afterward when asked if the party had “rigged” the debate calendar to benefit Mrs. Clinton and lower the visibility of her rivals. “Yes, I think so,” he replied. “Don’t you?”)

Mr. O’Malley’s repeated demand for more debates drew standing ovations from the audience and scowls from the party chairwoman, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, seated a few feet away. And if the cheering Democrats were a sign that party members were not ready to coalesce around Mrs. Clinton, the energetic reception for Mr. Sanders — and bursts of applause for his own criticisms of the party — confirmed that unity would have to wait.

Mr. Sanders challenged party regulars to embrace his candidacy, warning that the tens of thousands of followers he has attracted may not vote for Democratic candidates in 2016 unless he is at the top of the ticket. He said the party’s midterm losses in 2014, when Republicans won control of the Senate, had resulted from “abysmally, embarrassingly low” turnout among Democrats.

“In my view, Democrats will not retain the White House, will not regain the Senate or the U.S. House, will not be successful in dozens of governor races across the country, unless we generate excitement and momentum and produce a huge voter turnout,” he said. “With all due respect — and I do not mean to insult anyone here — that turnout, that enthusiasm, will not happen with politics as usual.”

The three candidates — as well as a fourth, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island — barely differed on policy, and all of them were withering in their remarks about Mr. Trump and the other Republican candidates. Where they differed was in their efforts to rally the Democratic faithful: Mrs. Clinton sought to keep the focus on berating and beating the Republicans, while Mr. O’Malley and Mr. Sanders tried to dissuade undecided Democrats from closing ranks behind her. . .

Mr. O’Malley’s raw speech, met by cheers, startled Democrats both inside the meeting and watching it on television.

Accusing the party of trying to keep its own ideas hidden as the Republican candidates spew “racist hate” from their debate lecterns, Mr. O’Malley questioned Democrats’ decision to hold “four debates and four debates only” before the first four states finish voting.

“This is totally unprecedented in our party’s history,” he said. “This sort of rigged process has never been attempted before. Whose decree is it exactly? Where did it come from? To what end? For what purpose? What national or party interest does this decree serve? How does this help us tell the story of the last eight years of Democratic progress?”

Mr. Sanders, a longtime independent who was attending his first Democratic National Committee meeting, was warmly complimentary at first, crediting party leaders for fighting on behalf of working people and low-income Americans. But he soon turned, suggesting that the Democrats’ 2014 losses could be repeated if the party nominated a traditional politician.

“My friends, the Republican Party did not win the midterm election in November: We lost that election,” Mr. Sanders said. “We lost because voter turnout was abysmally, embarrassingly low, and millions of working people, young people and people of color gave up on politics as usual, and they stayed home.”

“The people of our country understand,” he said, “that given the collapse of the American middle class and given the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality we are experiencing, we do not need more establishment politics or establishment economics.”

That pivot to the issue of income inequality appeared to enliven the audience. His call for “a political movement which is prepared to take on the billionaire class,” for instance, led a clutch of Democrats to begin cheering, “Bernie, Bernie!”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/29/us/politics/bernie-sanders-faces-skepticism-from-democratic-insiders.html?