A strictly neutral observer
Lately the Clinton campaign has been charged with the very damnable act of engaging in “Rovian” tactics against the Sanders campaign, particularly on the subject of Healthcare Reform. How will partisans react when they are forced to acknowledge the intercession of actual real-life Karl Rove on behalf of their preferred candidate?
Meanwhile, American Crossroads, a group co-founded by Karl Rove, is airing an ad in Iowa bolstering a core tenet of Sanders’s case against Clinton: that she has received large sums of campaign contributions from Wall Street, and therefore can't be trusted to crack down on big banks. “Hillary rewarded Wall Street with a $700 billion bailout, then Wall Street made her a multi-millionaire,” a narrator in the ad says. “Does Iowa really want Wall Street in the White House?”
These Republican operatives are attempting to pick their Democratic opponent in the general election, and they’re making clear they’d rather face Sanders than Clinton. It is age-old political manipulation tactic, typically used with some subtlety. It comes as recent polls show Sanders as competitive in Iowa and leading in New Hampshire, where back-to-back Sanders victories could endanger Clinton's national lead.
The efforts indicate that Republicans aren't buying recent polls that show Sanders out-performing Clinton in hypothetical head-to-head match-ups against GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump. One reason may be that, unlike Sanders, Clinton has been through the wringer of Republican attacks. While a spokesman for Sanders didn't immediately return a request for comment on the Republican attempts to boost him, the senator went out of his way in Sunday's debate to invoke recent surveys to make the case that he's electable.
“In terms of polling, guess what? We are running ahead of Secretary Clinton in terms of taking on my taking on my good friend, Donald Trump,” Sanders said. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds him leading Trump nationally by 15 points, while Clinton leads Trump by 10 points.
Republican candidate John Kasich indicated in a debate last week that he'd love to face Sanders. “We're going to win every state,” he said, “if Bernie Sanders is the nominee.”
Will Sanders distance himself from the “Rovian” tactics of actual real-life Karl Rove? Is the enemy of your enemy always your friend?
