Why Republicans are eager to intervene in the Democratic race

[Bill USA]

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/why-republicans-are-eager-intervene-the-democratic-race

When Bernie Sanders says current polling shows him as a strong general-election candidate, a point he emphasizes in nearly every speech, interview, and public appearance, he’s 100% correct. The polling data is readily available, and it says exactly what he claims it says. Political scientists are quick to point out that the evidence isn’t quite what it appears to be, but for Team Bernie, those details don’t negate the survey results themselves.

And yet, Republicans can see the same polling results as everyone else, and they appear to be convinced that Sanders would be vastly easier to defeat.

Indeed, Republicans aren’t just operating under those assumptions, they’re acting on them. Karl Rove’s Crossroads operation started boasting in February about its efforts to boost Sanders, and other Republican outfits have launched similar efforts to help the Vermont senator. In January, the RNC’s chief strategist conceded he was eager to “help” the Sanders campaign.

So, what explains the discrepancy? With so many polls showing Sanders faring better than Hillary Clinton in general-election match-ups, why would Republicans go out of their way to try to line up a race with the candidate who appears stronger?

Bloomberg Politics reported yesterday that Republican operatives “are chomping at the bit to face Sanders,” because they believe it would be easy to change the trajectory of those polls.


[div class="excerpt" style="border:1px solid #000000;padding:10px;"]“Republicans are being nice to Bernie Sanders because we like the thought of running against a socialist. But if he were to win the nomination the knives would come out for Bernie pretty quick,” said Ryan Williams, a former spokesman for 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign. “There’s no mystery what the attack on him would be. Bernie Sanders is literally a card carrying socialist who honeymooned in the Soviet Union. There’d be hundreds of millions of dollars in Republican ads showing hammers and sickles and Soviet Union flags in front of Bernie Sanders.”



“Hillary Clinton is a much more centrist candidate in comparison,” Williams said, and she would have a better chance of winning over moderate and undecided voters, despite numerous polls showing that many Americans, even in the Democratic Party, don’t view her as honest and trustworthy. “Bernie’s numbers are better than hers right now because she’s been in the political arena for 30 years getting beat up,” he said.

(more)

[Gothmog]

1. Despite Polls, Republicans See Sanders as an Easier Opponent

No one who understand the polling really believes that Sanders is more electable than Clinton. The GOP is clear that they would rather face Sanders compared to Clinton http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-04-18/despite-polls-republicans-see-sanders-as-an-easier-opponent

And yet, prominent Republican operatives are chomping at the bit to face Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont and self-described democratic socialist, in the general election, believing he'd be an easier opponent than the former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state.

“Republicans are being nice to Bernie Sanders because we like the thought of running against a socialist. But if he were to win the nomination the knives would come out for Bernie pretty quick,” said Ryan Williams, a former spokesman for 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney's campaign. “There's no mystery what the attack on him would be. Bernie Sanders is literally a card carrying socialist who honeymooned in the Soviet Union. There'd be hundreds of millions of dollars in Republican ads showing hammers and sickles and Soviet Union flags in front of Bernie Sanders.”

“Hillary Clinton is a much more centrist candidate in comparison,” Williams said, and she would have a better chance of winning over moderate and undecided voters, despite numerous polls showing that many Americans, even in the Democratic Party, don't view her as honest and trustworthy. “Bernie's numbers are better than hers right now because she's been in the political arena for 30 years getting beat up,” he said.

‘Out of the Mainstream’

Doug Heye, a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said Clinton would be a tougher opponent due to her foreign policy fluency, “her toughness as a candidate,” and the “Clinton attack machine” around her—groups like Correct the Record and Americans United for Change that are active on her behalf. He added that there's less room for the GOP to define Clinton than Sanders as “out of the mainstream.”

“Her negatives are set in. There's no American out there who doesn't have a definite opinion on Hillary Clinton,” Heye said. “That's just not the case with Bernie. The fact that some of his success has been looked on with bemusement, I think, speaks to that.”

Believing that Sanders may be too far outside the mainstream to win the Democratic primary, the Republican National Committee is doling out reams of opposition research on Clinton, and virtually none on Sanders. (By contrast, the Democratic National Committee has continued to launch attacks on Kasich, even though he has no mathematical chance of winning the GOP nomination before the convention.) Still, the RNC's actions don't reflect its chairman's rhetoric about who it would rather face.

Sanders has not been vetted and would be an easy target for the GOP

[Gothmog]

2. Some Republicans see ‘socialist’ Bernie Sanders as the weaker opponent

The premise of Sanders' lame claim that he should stay in is that he is a better candidate in the general election. That claim is simply false. Sanders has not been vetted which means that Sanders is very vulnerable to attack ads. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/04/19/some-republicans-see-socialist-bernie-sanders-as-the-weaker-opponent/

But allow me to highlight what I think is an under-appreciated aspect of this whole “electability” argument.

This current situation is in many ways unprecedented, and makes it harder than ever to gauge which candidate is more electable this fall. We have one Democratic candidate who has been a major national figure for 25 years, and has been subjected to unrelenting national attacks for just as long, and one Democratic candidate who legitimately is significantly more liberal than many in the party.

And so, it’s at least possible that two decades of attacks on Clinton are baked into her polling against the GOP candidates. Nor can the possibility be dismissed that some of Sanders’s positions (middle class tax hikes as part of a transition to single payer, which he defends on the grounds that Americans would benefit overall) could be made into liabilities, if Republicans prosecuted attacks on them effectively. There is a danger in being too risk averse, of course, but that doesn’t mean there is no chance that Republicans could successfully use these positions to paint Sanders as an ideological outlier, as those GOP strategists suggest above.

Of course, the fact that Sanders is a relative unknown nationally, at least compared to Clinton, could conceivably play in his favor — if he could successfully rebut GOP attacks on his proposals and background, he might arguably end up having less baggage in a general election than does Clinton, given her dismal personal ratings. And the rise of negative partisanship — in which voters are motivated more than ever by dislike of the other side — could also help mitigate any negatives about Sanders.

The point is that gaming out the electability argument — either way — is made harder than ever by the fact that the juxtaposition of these two particular figures has created such a strange and unique situation.

Match up polling is meaningless unless both candidates are fully vetted. Sanders is not vetted and is very vulnerable

[jfern]

3. They sure crushed that one term black Senator with a funny sounding name in 2008

[COLGATE4]

5. Well, they made it virtually impossible for him to govern

for eight years.

[jfern]

7. He had a solid Democratic majority for the first 2 years

[COLGATE4]

10. Yeah, solid of you 'count' Joe Lieberman.

[Lucinda]

4. They are pretty sure they can't beat Hillary. And they are correct. n/t

[SFnomad]

6. I've been saying this for a long time. A Republican scorched Earth campaign would eviserate BS n/t

[Romulox]

8. "so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me..."

[DebDoo]

9. I'm not buying it - if this were true they'd be attacking Hillary to help Bernie

[JaneyVee]

11. Yup, its called Operation Chaos 2016. Google it.