"The biggest mistake Clinton has made during this election season is attacking Sanders."

[Attorney in Texas]

link to Taylor Gipple's excellent analysis on Huffington Post; excerpt:

The mainstream media almost convinced me Bernie Sanders had lost the Democratic nomination after his disappointing Super Tuesday. ... I wasn’t going to vote, politics was finally at its peak of corruption and the American public just didn’t care enough about its future. ... But a month later, after many blowout wins by Sanders, and multiple self-inflicting wounds by Clinton, Bernie Sanders proved me wrong. Now more than ever, the light at the end of the tunnel is finally shining through. I thought his momentum was at a halt, but Sanders out-raised Clinton in both February and March (and that’s without Super Pacs).

After Sanders wins both Wisconsin and Wyoming later this week, his train is going full steam ahead into New York.... A win in Clinton’s adopted back yard would push the Sanders campaign over the edge in momentum and cripple any inevitable belief that assumes Clinton will be the nominee.

The biggest mistake Clinton has made during this election season is attacking Sanders. Attacking the most moral candidate we’ve seen in quite some time is just an awful, embarrassing blundering misstep. It’s as if the Clinton camp assumes people don’t have access to the internet, won’t fact check her, and will believe whatever she says. That’s why she losing the under 40-age vote by a massive margin.... Look at Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, and Clinton overwhelmingly comes off like leprosy among people online. I’ll say it again, I just don’t see the same enthusiasm coming out of the Clinton camp.

And don’t forget Clinton is under federal investigation. No one knows what’s going to come of the current investigation, but the fact is she is under federal investigation! If any other candidate was placed under federal investigation, that’s an automatic disqualification of being able to run for president of the United States.... Don’t think for a second that there isn’t still a warm, glowing light at the end of a dark tunnel that is the election process. And that light is shining brighter than ever for Bernie Sanders.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

1. K&R...

Though apparently there are still some people who will believe whatever dungheap she is peddling. Just look at the Hillary Clinton group here...

[Hydra]

3. Team Hill has a stake in her win

They HAVE to keep shoveling, or they feel like she'll lose.

That's the real sign of weakness there- months ago they insisted there was no real challenger to her. Now they are struggling just to stay afloat.

Keep bailing guys!

[reddread]

10. paychecks

no wonder they cant relate to working Americans

[Hydra]

13. All of them here claim to be in the 1%, or close

So ya, a little hard to relate to the lives of people who make less every year than they pay in taxes.

[BernieforPres2016]

2. This appears to have been written before Hillary stepped in it again today

The article says Hillary seems to assume that young people won't fact check her. Today she compounded that by saying she "feels sorry" for young people because they just believe lies they are being told without fact checking.

You can't be much more tone deaf than Hillary and her campaign.

[Hydra]

4. Ya, it's like they give her a list of "Don't do this in public!"

And she runs off and does it. "Do your own research!"

Oh, we are Madame Secretary...

[nc4bo]

5. That was a silly remark. She and her campaign just don't get it, do they?

[roguevalley]

16. the fact check slander reminds me of Gary Hart daring the

media to follow him around. A stupid self inflicted wound

[Tanuki]

6. Meh. This is the guy from the Iowa town hall

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sanders-supporter-asks-clinton-question

[Gothmog]

7. The Clinton campaign and others have been treating Sanders with kids gloves compared to the GOP

The concept that the Clinton campaign has been very negative on Sanders is simply false when you look at what Sanders would be subject to if he was the Democratic nominee. VOX had a good article on the potential lines of attack that Sanders would be exposed to if Sanders was the nominee. http://www.vox.com/2016/2/3/10903404/gop-campaign-against-sanders One of the more interesting observations in the VOX analysis is the fact that Sanders have been treated with kids gloves compared to what Sanders would face if he was the Democratic nominee. I strongly agree with the VOX's position that the so-called negative attacks against Sander have been mild. Form the article:

I have no interest in litigating any of these attacks here. Like any Democrat elected president in 2016, Sanders wouldn't be able to get much done, but he would block attempts to roll back Obama's accomplishments and have a chance to fill a few Supreme Court vacancies.

When Sanders supporters discuss these attacks, though, they do so in tones of barely contained outrage, as though it is simply disgusting what they have to put up with. Questioning the practical achievability of single-payer health care. Impugning the broad electoral appeal of socialism. Is nothing sacred?

But c'mon. This stuff is patty-cakes compared with the brutalization he would face at the hands of the right in a general election.

His supporters would need to recalibrate their umbrage-o-meters in a serious way.

The attacks that would be levied against Sanders by the Kochs, the RNC candidate and others in a general election contest would make the so-called attacks against Sanders look like patty-cakes. The GOP and Kochs are not known for being nice or honest and as the article notes there are a ton of good topics available for attack. Raising taxes is never a good campaign platform (Just ask President Mondale). The GOP would also raise the socialism and age issues if Sanders was the nominee.

Again, I agree with the VOX position that so far, Sanders has not been subject to negative attacks close to what the GOP would use against Sanders and the attacks against Sanders if he was the nominee would be brutal. I urge Sanders supporters to read the VOX article to start to get a feel for what real negative attacks would look like.

[rhett o rick]

9. So your justification is that the GOP will be worse? Clinton has no positions on

issues. She has nothing but attacks. Where does she stand on fracking? or the TPP? or putting minorities in prison?

We want progressive leadership. We wanted it in 2008 and were set back and so we will try again. The middle and working classes and the poor can not survive more of the same shit the Clinton Class has been feeding us for 30 years.

[Gothmog]

14. Clinton has not gone negative on Sanders

There is a ton of material available for use. Sansers wpuld be destroyed by Rove, the Kochs znd thr GOP in a general election contest

[rhett o rick]

15. Are you trying to rationalize that there is a hundredth of baggage for Sanders as

for Clinton?

First of all, the republicons will say to her, "We appreciate your acquiescing to our Pary in 2002. I guess you recognized that Republicons were better at war."

[Gothmog]

18. Democrats would be insane to nominate Bernie Sanders

One reason why match up polls are worthless at this stage of the contest is that Sanders has not been vetted or subject to the expected attacks from the GOP. Dana Milbank has some good comments on general election match up polls https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democrats-would-be-insane-to-nominate-bernie-sanders/2016/01/26/0590e624-c472-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html?hpid=hp_opinions-for-wide-side_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Sanders and his supporters boast of polls showing him, on average, matching up slightly better against Trump than Clinton does. But those matchups are misleading: Opponents have been attacking and defining Clinton for a quarter- century, but nobody has really gone to work yet on demonizing Sanders.

Watching Sanders at Monday night’s Democratic presidential forum in Des Moines, I imagined how Trump — or another Republican nominee — would disembowel the relatively unknown Vermonter.

The first questioner from the audience asked Sanders to explain why he embraces the “socialist” label and requested that Sanders define it “so that it doesn’t concern the rest of us citizens.”

Sanders, explaining that much of what he proposes is happening in Scandinavia and Germany (a concept that itself alarms Americans who don’t want to be like socialized Europe), answered vaguely: “Creating a government that works for all of us, not just a handful of people on the top — that’s my definition of democratic socialism.”

But that’s not how Republicans will define socialism — and they’ll have the dictionary on their side. They’ll portray Sanders as one who wants the government to own and control major industries and the means of production and distribution of goods. They’ll say he wants to take away private property. That wouldn’t be fair, but it would be easy. Socialists don’t win national elections in the United States .

Sanders on Monday night also admitted he would seek massive tax increases — “one of the biggest tax hikes in history,” as moderator Chris Cuomo put it — to expand Medicare to all. Sanders, this time making a comparison with Britain and France, allowed that “hypothetically, you’re going to pay $5,000 more in taxes,” and declared, “W e will raise taxes, yes we will.” He said this would be offset by lower health-insurance premiums and protested that “it’s demagogic to say, oh, you’re paying more in taxes.”

Well, yes — and Trump is a demagogue.

Sanders also made clear he would be happy to identify Democrats as the party of big government and of wealth redistribution. When Cuomo said Sanders seemed to be saying he would grow government “bigger than ever,” Sanders didn’t quarrel, saying, “P eople want to criticize me, okay,” and “F ine, if that’s the criticism, I accept it.”

Sanders accepts it, but are Democrats ready to accept ownership of socialism, massive tax increases and a dramatic expansion of government? If so, they will lose.

Match up polls are worthless because these polls do not measure what would happen to Sanders in a general election where Sanders is very vulnerable to negative ads.

The so-called attacks on Sanders so far pale in comparison to that the GOP will do to Sanders if he is the nominee

[Hiraeth]

12. I can't wait for the GOP to BRING IT !!

so bored watching HRC try to.

[Gothmog]

17. Sanders supporters will not be able to stomach the GOP attacks on Sanders

According to this article, Sanders has been treated with kid gloves by the Clinton campaign to date. However the GOP will not be as kind to Sanders. This article from VOX has some good predictions as to how nasty the GOP and the Kochs will be http://www.vox.com/2016/2/3/10903404/gop-campaign-against-sanders

I'm not sure I have the requisite killer instinct to fully imagine how the GOP will play a Sanders campaign. But consider just this low-hanging fruit:

Sanders would be the oldest president ever to take office — older than John McCain, who faced serious questions about this in 2008.

Sanders is a socialist. "No, no," you explain, "it's democratic socialist, like in Denmark." I'm sure GOP attack ads will take that distinction into careful consideration.

Sanders explicitly wants to raise taxes, and not only on the rich.

That's just the obvious stuff. And he has barely been hit on any of it so far.

I have no real way of knowing whether Sanders and his advisers appreciate what's coming if he wins the nomination, or whether they have a serious plan to deal with it, something beyond hoping a political revolution will drown it out.

But at least based on my experience, the Bernie legions are not prepared. They seem convinced that the white working class would rally to the flag of democratic socialism. And they are in a state of perpetual umbrage that Sanders isn't receiving the respect he's due, that he's facing even mild attacks from Clinton's camp.

If they are aware that it's been patty-cakes so far, that much, much worse and more vicious attacks are inevitable, and that no one knows how Sanders might perform with a giant political machine working to define him as an unhinged leftist, they hide it well.

In the name of diverting some small percentage of the social media bile surely headed my way, let's be clear about a few things: This is not an argument against supporting Sanders. There's nothing dumber than making political decisions based on how the other side might react. (For one thing, that would have foreclosed supporting Obama, a black urbanite with a funny name, in 2008.)

But it is an argument that Sanders has gaping vulnerabilities that have not yet been exploited at all, so his followers should not yet feel sanguine about his ability to endure conservative attacks. Also they should get a thicker skin, quick.

The GOP will have a great deal of material to work with and the Kochs will be spending $887 million, the RNC candidate may spend another billion dollars and Bloomberg (who will only run if Sanders is the nominee) will spend another billion dollars. These groups will have a great deal to work with

The concept that the Sanders supporters think that the attacks by the Clinton campaign are scorched earth tactics is really amusing

[Hiraeth]

19. BRING IT, GOP !!! BRING IT ON !!!

[hobbit709]

8. her biggest mistake was thinking she would be crowned just because she wanted it.

[jillan]

11. Everytime they attack Bernie, his supporters just hold him a little tighter or send him a few more $

It's totally backfiring.

[GreatGazoo]

20. To me their biggest mistake is attacking all of us

Their obsession with the gender and race of voters and saying that women will go to a special place in Hell if they don't vote for Hillary seeks to reduce us all to our skin color or our genitals for their convenience.

She needed to attack Sanders' policies while avoiding any attack on his character (this is a primary after all) but that effort has been muddled by the lack of clarity about her own shifting policies and concerns about her character.

It is 2008 all over again.