Gubernatorial candidate Mike McCabe says he thinks the state's Democratic Party pulled a "Bernie Sanders" on him. A party spokesperson denies this is what happened.
Mike McCabe is running in the Democratic primary, though he says he has never formally joined any political party.
He says he established a campaign to run on the Democratic ticket....
"....we reached out to the party then and asked about buying the party member lists and also the statewide voter lists that the party keeps. For almost six weeks we weren't given an answer. Finally the answer came back and it was 'no'. They refused to let us purchase the lists even though I'm formally registered as candidate as a Democrat...."
McCabe says they moved on and sought voter lists from other sources. McCabe says he's not losing sleep over it, but he thinks it was similar to what independent Bernie Sanders felt during last year's presidential campaign...
"...the national party went to great lengths behind the scenes to favor Hillary Clinton and have her win the nomination. They sought to disadvantage Bernie Sanders' candidacy. What the state party has said all along is that they're not going to repeat that mistake. They're going to treat all the candidates fairly and have an open primary and not try to put their thumb on the scale..."
Democratic Party of Wisconsin spokesperson Melanie Conklin told the Capital Times in Madison that McCabe is not a member of the Democratic party. She told the Capital Times that the party provided the same services to all Democratic primary candidates for governor who are members of the party. McCabe also confirmed he is not a Democrat.
