During Sunday night’s Democratic debate, the Republican National Committee did something unusual. They sent out four real-time emails to reporters defending Bernie Sanders against attacks from Hillary Clinton.
One of the emails defended Sanders’ single-payer health care plan. Another offered a rebuttal to Clinton’s attack on Sanders over gun control. A third defended Sanders’ argument that Clinton is too close to Wall Street and the pharmaceutical industry.
In addition, the chief strategist and spokesman for the RNC spent much of the evening live tweeting pro-Sanders commentary, even using the hashtag #FeelTheBern. At one point, he even chided Sanders for his poor response to a debate question and added “come on we are trying to help u“.
After the debate was over, a Republican PAC promoted the narrative that Sanders won the debate. And Karl Rove’s American Crossroads started attacking Clinton as a “Wall Street insider”.
Since when did the RNC develop a crush on democratic socialist Bernie Sanders?
Are they just trying to pick their opponent in the general election? After all, Republican presidential candidate John Kasich said last week “We’re going to win every state if Bernie Sanders is the nominee.”
Even if Hillary retains her lock on the Democratic nomination, bolstering her main challenger will force her to use up campaign money too early, and may push her to the left, which the GOP could use against her in the general election.
6 Comments
Imagine the irony if the RNC pushes Sanders past Clinton in the primaries and then can’t beat him with whatever wingnut comes out of their own in the general election? Too good to be true, unfortunately.
But to answer your question: yes, they are absolutely trying to pick their opponent.
It seems to me that the DNC has already picked who they want the candidate to be (HRC if it’s not already obvious), and that the Democratic establishment is fully on board.
Don’t get me wrong, everybody plays the game of picking their opponents (I often wish the Republicans would nominate Ted Cruz because he would be completely unelectable as president). What’s ironic here is that the GOP is doing it so brazenly and shamelessly. I think Trump has taught them that there is no downside to being a loud asshole in the Republican party.
All so transparent, and the hypocrisy so deep and thick it’s smothering. Frankly, I’d welcome a Sanders vs. Trump face-off. The Socialist vs. The Fascist, hard to imagine a more clear cut case.
But it’s no wonder the RNC is panicking, Trump’s lead in the polls looks solid and even widening, regardless of how far off the reservation he wanders. Even worse (or better, depending on your POV)…she’s baaaaack! And trumpeting the trumpy trumpness that is Trump. Feel the squirm!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/20/sarah-palins-rambling-remarkable-and-at-times-hard-to-understand-endorsement-of-donald-trump/
Interesting — last time I saw a general-election poll, Sanders beat Trump by a few more points than Hillary. But I forget — Republicans have declared war on arithmetic, too.
Mike — You could have said exactly the same thing at this point in 2008 and been perfectly right then too. There was even a point during the 2008 primaries where the big Dem donors announced that if Clinton didn’t get the nomination, they would pull their money. As I recall, Obama said, “Go ahead. Who needs you?” Bernie appears to have already said that!
General Election polls are worthless this early in the game. Hillary has survived withering GOP attacks for a long time and survived them. There isn’t much more they can throw at her. But Sanders is a relative unknown, so it is no surprise that polls show him leading Trump now.
Bottom line: the presidential election is not a horse race. It is more like predicting hurricane season six months out. Or predicting earthquakes more than 10 minutes before they happen.
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[…] Finally, Electoral Vote has a good post on why even if Sanders was able to win the Democratic primary (which itself highly unlikely), he has pretty much zero chance of winning the general election. His popularity now has more to do with the fact that the Republicans are not smearing him (like they did with John Kerry); instead they are actually currently helping him to try to hurt Clinton. […]