I keep seeing Bernie supporters claiming that Bernie does better in the general against any Republican than does Hillary.
Ahem.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I have two of them, and they're right below the fold. Come on down and see.
1) Every single poll I've seen that's worthy of the name (i.e.., not a self-selected-respondents one) shows that Hillary does far, far better against Republicans than does Bernie.
Compare the HuffPost poll tracking aggregate of Hillary versus Trump with that of Bernie versus Trump, who of all the major Republican candidates is the easiest for both to beat. Even at her lowest points in September, Hillary Clinton has always led Trump by at least an entire percentage point in the HuffPost aggregate.
The same cannot be said of Bernie Sanders. Trump was within a tenth of a percentage point of beating him in early September, then Bernie surged against him and peaked in mid-September, then started falling again. Sanders has been falling ever since and is now back to being only a tenth of a point above Trump.
Bear in mind that this is all occurring with Hillary having been slammed non-stop by the Republicans and their media allies throughout most of the summer and early fall, while Bernie hasn't been touched by them. Yet Hillary still outperforms him against the GOP. Which brings me to my next point:
2) If the Republicans really thought Bernie was the real danger, they'd be attacking him 24/7. But aside from doing some pro-forma efforts at creating oppo material (i.e., demagoguing what even NPR now calls "the Rape Essay") back in the spring, they haven't touched Bernie. At all.
By contrast, they've targeted Hillary from the start. The thoroughly-discredited Benghazigate was all about trying to bring down Hillary's poll numbers. In more direct attacks, Karl Rove was spewing baseless claims about Hillary's health back in April of 2014. (The very title of the CNN story on the Rove smear says it all: "How strong is Hillary? Karl Rove is attacking her.")
3) The GOP's reaction to Donald Trump. Really, there's nothing that separates Trump from the other GOP candidates platformwise, besides his stating more plainly the base-wooing bigotry his rivals usually try to conceal in coded dogwhistles so as not to tip off general election voters.
But what appeals to the Republican base scares the crap out of the general public, and the polling shows this. As I've maintained for months now, if the RNC's internal polls showed Trump beating Hillary, Reince Priebus would be giving him foot rubs. Instead, they've been frantically looking for a Trump-killer to unseat him as the Darling of the Base. For a while, Carson looked like he might be the One; but now the institutional money (and friendly media coverage) is going to Rubio.
UPDATE: A few more data points:
1) If Republicans really feared Bernie Sanders, they sure have odd ways of showing it. If you fear a candidate's electoral prowess, you don't give him nice little verbal cuddles for all to see. So, when John McCain made a point of loudly praising Bernie and dissing Hillary the other day, we can safely assume that he wasn't doing this purely from the goodness of his heart, but in order to damage Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
In other words, just the sort of thing you'd expect the 2008 Republican nominee for president to do in order to bolster the weaker person running for the Democratic nomination. Shades of McGovern and Muskie!
2) In the comments thread, I offhandedly referenced, much to the apparent dismay of several very fervent Bernie supporters, the news of Bernie Sanders' sudden announcement at George Mason University on Wednesday that he now favored legalization of marijuana, and the shock and surprise therefrom. Why the shock and surprise? Because it was a total 180 from the anti-legalization position he had stated back on June 2 when he was being interviewed by Katie Couric:
The announcement came as somewhat of a shock. Previously, in an interview with Katie Couric, Sanders said marijuana was probably less harmful than tobacco, but noted that law enforcement officials believe marijuana is a “gateway drug” that can lead to heroin and cocaine addiction.
Why the 180 on Bernie's part? Nothing material had changed from June 2 to now. No new path-breaking science on the subject. Nothing to change the views of medical professionals or other experts on the matter.
The only thing that changed was political in nature: As Hillary's poll numbers climb, Bernie's are still largely stuck around the 30% mark. So just as his supporters have ramped up the attacks (some attacks for which he's been forced to apologize), he's ramped up the politicking that he allegedly doesn't do, with a move that has all the marks of a blatant pander.
UPDATE 2: Oh, even better: One commenter (who is being copied by others) thinks that Bernie's pandering flip-flop on pot, going from anti-legalization to suddenly pro-legalization, much to the surprise and shock of those who've been following his stands on the issues, somehow doesn't count as a flip-flop.
Why? In their view, because Bernie didn't explicitly say that he himself thought pot was a gateway drug, he just said that law enforcement officials did -- but still opposed legalization anyway.
So they're in essence saying that Bernie Sanders, back on June 2, came out against legalization by citing the opinion of law enforcement officers that marijuana was a "gateway drug" -- but didn't actually believe the LEOs?
What does it say about someone when he allegedly doesn't believe in someone's opinion, yet still cites that opinion he doesn't believe in as a reason for his stance on a particular matter? Do the fervent fans of Bernie in the comments thread really think that painting him as a cynical hypocrite is an improvement on being a flip-flopping panderer?