After a member of Sanders’s staff viewed voter data from Clinton’s campaign, moderators asked whether Sanders felt his staff was essentially stealing part of Clinton’s playbook.
Sanders was ready for the question, and he answered
in several parts. First, he calmly explained how the breach happened and admitted
his staff had been wrong. “There was a breach because the DNC vendor screwed
up, information came to our campaign. With this information, our staff did the
wrong thing. They looked at that information.” Then, he humbly apologized to
Clinton and his supporters, and explained how he had been hurt. “It bothers me
that rather than working on this issue to resolve it, it has become many press
releases from the Clinton campaign.” The frontrunner accepted the apology, eager to move on. “I don’t think people are interested in this,” Clinton said.
The most passionate voice over the question was Martin O’Malley, who quickly tried to jump in, saying the candidates should be talking about security issues.