The GOP will savagely attack our candidate PERIOD.

[Tom Rinaldo]

That's simply what they do. Bill Clinton was a moderate white male Governor from the South who they accused of ripping off their policies WHILE they savagely attacked and ultimately impeached him. Barack Obama came to prominence with a stirring call to transcend partisan divides. He gave praise to Ronald Reagan and embraced Republican pioneered solutions to problems that faced America, such as Cap and Trade to limit greenhouse gases and Romney Care to insure the uninsured. From day one they plotted to thwart his every move, and employed the ugliest tactics they could muster.

It doesn't matter if we nominate Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, the Republicans will savagely attack. It doesn't matter how moderate or progressive our candidate ultimately is, the Republicans will savagely attack. It won't matter if their line of attack contains a grain of truth or is totally bogus, their attacks will be savage. John Kerry faked his heroism in Vietnam, Barack Obama is a Muslim, Hillary Clinton killed Vince Foster, Bernie Sanders is a Communist.

If we let fear of the Republican Attack machine steer our choice of a Presidential nominee, they will have thoroughly out psyched us before the campaign even begins.

[amborin]

1. they will especially attack Hillary, the loser, liar, and major liability

[NewJeffCT]

34. she's been attacked constantly for 25 years now

and she's still even, or ahead, of the leading Republicans. Benghazi, emails, Monica, Vince Foster, Whitewater, etc have already been thrown at her and she's still ahead. Trump's already said he's going to attack her over Monica Lewinsky? Really? Is that the best he's got?

Sanders has barely been attacked by Republicans so far. That's my concern about Bernie - what happens when they take his sound bite "I will raise taxes on everybody" and then repeat it over and over and over. Just the fact that some candidates are killed by the potential they may raise some taxes, and you have an actual quote from Sanders saying that.

I'm not a Clinton or Sanders supporter.

[joshcryer]

2. Thank you.

Of course they will. Regardless of who the nominee is.

[Tom Rinaldo]

3. Yes. Whoever we support we might as well fight for what we believe in n/t

[tk2kewl]

5. and therein lies the crux

what do Hillary and her supporters believe in?

[DUbeornot2be]

27. Fear!

They seem to be quite scared as a group. Frankly, I'm tired of cowards running our country...

[Perogie]

4. But socialism....

They will call Bernie Marx or Lennon

[tk2kewl]

7. very nice

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. No doubt they will feature prominently in the attack ads.n/t

[lobodons]

18. Bernie the Commie

Socialism is no longer a bad scary word. Bernie is now a Communist don't you know.

[lark]

35. It won't be a joke when they do their best to crucify Sanders.

Red scare will be front and center full time and could do serious damage to Sanders. With Hillary, their attacks would be endangers national security with emails, Benghazi and other lies from their side and Bill. It will be totally venomous and disgusting, no matter who it is that wins the nomination on our side and their side.

Wish I could go to sleep and wake up on election day for the primary and general to avoid the horror that will be on tv, radio, print and internet news 24/7.

[emulatorloo]

6. Excellent post. The Republican lie machine does not get to interfere in out primary

[Waiting For Everyman]

9. Accommodating them is failure in advance.

The fact that matters is this: the R's are more than anything the party of big money (the social stuff is just a way to cage votes), and they are terrified of Bernie Sanders. Rightfully so. When he's elected and cuts their billionaires down to size, their party will be a much smaller problem too. (The same goes for the money minions within our party as well.)

David's gotta go meet Goliath sometime, or we never get out of this. My calculation is, Sanders can and will do it. The time is now.

[tk2kewl]

10. I've heard that Bernie is no MLK, Jr., Gandhi or Mother Theresa

How would the GOP treat them if they were our candidate?

The 25 year old solution of moving to the right to avoid these attacks never made them go away - all they did was aid the right in bringing us to this moment.

[myrna minx]

11. Thank you!

[liberal_at_heart]

12. Imagine what would have happened if Democrats had given into this line of crap when

Obama was running for President. You are absolutely right. They will attack any Democratic nominee. In fact, I heard Cruz say that a Democratic President would give reign to abortion on demand and partial birth abortion. He also said that a Democratic President would sandblast crosses and stars of David off of veterans tombstones. So yes any Democratic nominee will have to face attacks from the GOP.

[Jenny_92808]

13. This is why we need to get out the vote

and remove every republican we can.

[Gothmog]

14. But the attack ads on Sanders write themselves

The attack ads from this appearance on Meet the Press write themselves https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/10/12/why-bernie-sanders-isnt-going-to-be-president-in-5-words/

Meet the Press ✔ @meetthepress
CHUCK TODD: Are you a capitalist?@BernieSanders: No. I'm a Democratic Socialist.
8:33 AM - 11 Oct 2015

And, in those five words, Sanders showed why — no matter how much energy there is for him on the liberal left — he isn't getting elected president.

Why? Because Democrat or Republican (or independent), capitalism remains a pretty popular concept — especially when compared to socialism. A 2011 Pew Research Center survey showed that 50 percent of people had a favorable view of capitalism, while 40 percent had an unfavorable one. Of socialism, just three in 10 had a positive opinion, while 61 percent saw it in a negative light.

Wrote Pew in a memo analyzing the results:

Of these terms, socialism is the more politically polarizing — the reaction is almost universally negative among conservatives, while generally positive among liberals. While there are substantial differences in how liberals and conservatives think of capitalism, the gaps are far narrower.

...The simple political fact is that if Sanders did ever manage to win the Democratic presidential nomination — a long shot but far from a no shot at this point — Republicans would simply clip Sanders's answer to Todd above and put it in a 30-second TV ad. That would, almost certainly, be the end of Sanders's viability in a general election.

Americans might be increasingly aware of the economic inequality in the country and increasingly suspicious of so-called vulture capitalism — all of which has helped fuel Sanders's rise. But we are not electing someone who is an avowed socialist to the nation's top political job. Just ain't happening.

You can try to argue that the two terms are not the same but that will not stop the Kochs from running $200 milion to $300 million using that term in negative ads that would be very effective.

[tk2kewl]

15. and the attack ads on Hillary do not write themselves?

re this you and this thread:

[Gothmog]

22. Denial is not just a river in Africa

[tk2kewl]

23. and Projection is

pro·jec·tion
prəˈjekSH (ə )n/
noun

the presentation of an image on a surface, especially a movie screen.

[yodermon]

16. Benghazi! Emails! ARgle bargle! Do you not see that they'll do it ANYWAY

I would rather have a candidate that is standing STRONG FOR LIBERAL VALUES while being attacked, as opposed to a candidate that says "Oh I'll be able to compromise and strike deals with these silly Republicans" while being attacked.

The right wing will take centrist 3rd-way compromise-y positions and label them fucking COMMUNISM... that's how we've been moved so far to the right over the past few decades.

[Armstead]

37. LOL -- Argle Bargle.....Habnven't heard that phrase in a long time

[Tom Rinaldo]

17. As noted above, attack ads against Hillary feature her own admitted "mistake"

Her private Email Server comes to mind. If Trump runs against her he will use all the money she's raised on Wall Street against her too, along with her Iraq War vote.

Regarding your "Socialism!" premise, here is my full reply:

"President Sanders and a Republican Congress"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511090687

Every time Republicans or anyone else attacks Sanders on "socialism" it shifts the field of battle onto terrain favorable to him and he pivots smoothly into what citizens of the U.S. lack in the way of basic economic justice that citizens of almost all advanced Democracies get to take for granted.

[Gothmog]

21. What is the opposite of "I am not a capitalist?"

That line is all the GOP and the Kochs will need to run very effective ads against Sanders

[Tom Rinaldo]

24. They will run those ads. They will not be effective

They will lead to millions of internet searches under the query "Democratic Socialism". They will lead to Bernie being "grilled" about his economic program on Sunday talk shows -which he will happily explain in graphic detail. Republicans have long counted on Democrats to knee jerk choose the "flight" option of the "fight or flight" response mechanism when they get red bated "What? a Liberal? Oh no, not me". Bernie chooses fight and the facts are all on his side - which happens to be the same side that the vast majority of Americans are on economically.

[Gothmog]

25. Attack ads work and you are fooling yourself if you think that voters will research this issue

Sanders' speech on Democratic Socialism in December got zero press coverage and voters will have to search to find material that will will explain why Sanders stating that he is not a capitalist is not a bad thing

[Tom Rinaldo]

32. True. Sanders won't win 100% of the vote

There, I admit it.

No one other than us political junkies were paying attention last year to the race when that speech was made. But during every Democratic debate people google Sanders more than anything else, and for most of the Republican ones too it seems. Sanders tends to pick up more twitter follows than almost every Republican in each of their debates too.

The thing about being a major Party candidate for President is that you get ample opportunities to deliver your own message directly to the American people.

[Ed Suspicious]

33. You're just wrong, dude. And no amount of clarity on that point

will convince you of It's accuracy. You are irrationally unconvincible and have been for months. So from this moment forward you are to be treated like a beligerent toddler by me who is going to get no more in the way of explaination than "because I said so." There are no monsters under the bed. I've shown you multiple times. Now go to bed because I said so.

[Gothmog]

47. Denial is not just a river in Africa

Have fun

[Armstead]

36. Obama said he was going to "do some redistributing of wealth" He also said....

"You didn't build that business."

Taken out of context, those sound pretty damning to a conservative and moderate.

The GOP went full bore in attacking those statements to portray Obama as an enemy of all business and a Marxist.

Guess what? Obama won handily.

[Gothmog]

48. President Obama never claimed to be a socialist

Sanders has given the Kochs and the GOP some fun material to work with. That clip from Meet the Press will be used in negative ads like crazy if Sanders is the nominee.

[Armstead]

57. It doesn't matter....The GOP will portray every Democrat the same

They could not say anything more awful about Bernie or show things taken out of context than they have and will do to Obama, Clinton....or even Jesus himself if he ran as a Democrat.

[Gothmog]

58. Sanders has a great video clip from Meet the Press that will be used in a great number of attack ads

The Kochs and the GOP had nothing close to this admission. Again, what is the opposite of "I am not a capitalist" in most voters minds.

[Armstead]

59. Remember Joe the Plumber, Rev. Wright (Obama's pastor) his pot smoking youth...

his God, guns and gays comment in San Fran. etc?

All candidates have said things that the GOP can make to look like candidates are awful. That's not the point.

The point is to effectively counter their lies and distortions.

[Gothmog]

60. You do realize that Rove is already throwing everything he has against Clinton in the primaries

Rove has determined that Sanders would be the weakest possible Democratic nominee and so has been running negative ads against Clinton in Iowa, NH and Nevada. For example, the ads in Iowa were normal Karl Rove lies http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-flattered-karl-rove-attack-ad/story?id=36343405

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laughed off a new attack ad from a Republican super PAC run by Karl Rove during an interview Sunday on “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos.

The web spot, titled “Hillary’s Bull Market,” was launched by American Crossroads, which is run by the Republican strategist and former President George W. Bush adviser. After watching the ad for the first time during her interview on “This Week,” Clinton just smiled.

“I think it shows how desperate the Republicans are to prevent me from becoming the nominee,” Clinton said about the ad, which goes after her ties to Wall Street. “I find that, in a perverse way, an incredibly flattering comment on their anxiety, because they know that not only will I stand up for what the country needs, I will take it to the Republicans.”

In Nevada, Rove is accusing Clinton of being anti-immigrant http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/269460-rove-super-pac-links-clinton-to-trump-on-immigration-in

The super-PAC founded by Republican operative Karl Rove is running a provocative new attack ad in Nevada designed to paint Hillary Clinton as anti-immigrant.

American Crossroads is launching a digital ad titled "Hillary's Wall" that attempts to tie some of Clinton's harsher past remarks about immigration to those of Donald Trump, the current Republican front-runner.
In one scene in the commercial, influential Univision anchor Jorge Ramos asks Clinton, "What's the difference between your idea and Donald Trump's idea on building a wall?"

Preceding that moment are clips - all subtitled in Spanish - that show Clinton making tough comments about immigration that could now alienate large sections of the Democratic base.

Sanders would be a far weaker general election candidate which is why Rove is targeting Clinton.

What more do you think that Rove has to throw at Clinton that he has not used so far in Iowa. Clinton is surviving the worse that Rove can throw at her and is still doing well in these races. Again, the claims that Rove is holding back on Clinton is amusing.

Why do you think that Rove is spending so much to attack Clinton in these primaries?

[Armstead]

38. The Washington Post is losing its credibility daily

They've gone from the Newspaper of Record to an Internet scandle sheet under Bezos

[grasswire]

45. 2011 is ancient history, politically

You can't use a 2011 poll to predict 2016 behavior.

[Gothmog]

49. Then provide a new poll that shows that opinions have changed

These sentiments have been in place for a long time and are hard to change

[Tom Rinaldo]

52. The Independents who are breaking strongly for Sanders have heard him called a Socialist

They don't care, they think he is fighting for them. The blue collar workers who have broken for Sanders in the two contests to date, and in other polling, don't care either. They think he is fighting for them. The young sure as hell don't care. They have more immediate thins to worry about than cold war framing of polices.

Sanders was supposed to be only a fringe candidate this year because he is a socialist, remember? You may have noticed already, but conventional wisdom needs a reboot, it is working off of old scripts, and continually getting it wrong.

[noiretextatique]

55. right. it's not like sanders' voters are going to be swayed by GOP attacks

like some clinton voters might.

[grasswire]

54. LOL. YOU made the claim using an old poll.

You do your own footwork.

A five year old poll. Geez.

[mountain grammy]

19. Yes! Let's be prepared to respond accordingly..

[sarge43]

20. An argument that has the flight path of an office safe.

This time can we Democrats please for the love of God fight back instead of no mas, por favor

[Jester Messiah]

26. They've been saying Obama's a socialist for 8 years...

And look around; it doesn't look like the place is on fire or being smote from above by an angry god. In fact, our situation has been steadily improving in many regards. So apparently "socialism" isn't the toxic poison that they claim it to be.

[Gothmog]

50. But President Obama never stated on Meet the Press that he was not a capitalist

The clip from Meet the Press will be easy to use in negative ads. Sanders' answer to that specific question will be easy to use in a negative ad while all the GOP has were republicans calling President Obama a name with no support.

[Jester Messiah]

53. I don't think that'll be as big a problem as most of H's baggage.

I mean really, just saying the word "capitalist" brings to mind the bullshit ideological struggles of the 70's and 80's, about which no one but the oldest and crustiest give the slightest damn anymore. Contrast with modern stuff like corporate corruption, classified info on personal servers, and the ever-present OMGBENGHAZEE (which Republicans will never let drop) and... yeah, I like Bernie's chances better.

[0rganism]

56. they've neutered the effectiveness of their "socialism" attack

by screaming "socialism" at moderate Democrats and their policies even when said policies are observed by the public to be beneficial, the GOP has destroyed the original meaning of the word and, along with it, any intrinsic negatives it once had. Especially in the face of younger voters, the "socialist/communist/marxist" attack has lost its edge.

Bernie doesn't have to worry a whole lot about that one, imho.

the real insidious shit is going to hit the fan when they attack him for being a Jew. it's coming, i don't think they're especially eager to use it early on, but its potential effectiveness is too much for them to ignore long-term.

[Rogerichard]

28. Fear v Reality

I am not concerned about what the GOP attack machine will fabricate. By virtue of who he is and what he has done, Sanders is especially vulnerable. Having been a member of the Socialist Workers Party will not serve him well. He’s inexperienced on foreign policy. He’s more dovish than Clinton, and the average American already thinks that President Obama has been too “weak” and “soft” on our enemies. He promises to raise taxes on both the upper and the middle classes-the opposite of what nearly all voters want. Fifty-two percent of Americans say taxes are too high, 42 percent say they’re about right. Only 3 percent agree with Sanders that taxes are too low. He loses on this issue. On the question of health care, 53 percent of Americans still disapprove of Obamacare, yet Sanders wants to go even farther in the direction of big government, to a single-payer system that would require new taxes on the middle class, truly socialized medicine with fewer choices for those who can afford to make them, not to mention “death panels” and, somehow, the end of private health insurance. They are the left-wing equivalents of Trump’s Mexican wall or Cruz’s call to abolish the IRS: They play well to the base, but alienate the middle. Nominate Sanders-lose the election in November.

[ExPat2Mex]

29. OK, but why do you say.....?

You say: "[Obama] gave praise to Ronald Reagan and embraced Republican pioneered solutions to problems that faced America, such as Cap and Trade to limit greenhouse gases and Romney Care to insure the uninsured."

I agree 100 percent. And there's the rub. Obama backed away from a frontal assault to deliver on his hopes, just like Hilary did when Bill handed her the mantle to health care in 1993. You cannot bargain away Americans right to health care. But that was the direction they took.

If I vote for Sanders and he wins, great. If Clinton wins and loses to Trump, life goes on. The fight continues.

And yet, we can't all be the puppet masters of the pundits and the political class of OZmasters - unless we get together and change the direction of our faltering republic. Set the course towards socialism, and take on the best remnants of capitalism on the ark and leave the rest of the failed corporate nightmare to drown in it own self-imposed misery.

[lame54]

30. I think they're aware of that

[Armstead]

31. Bingo. We should also attack their ideology back in an honest and direct way

We need to return to elections that are actually contests of ideas. I think, if wwe aee smart in messaging and have good clear alternatives to GOP Corpoprate CONservatism, we'd win a lot of people over.

[Uncle Joe]

39. Which is precisely why Bernie's career long, preemptive attacks against the true culprits

is the best defense, he stays on the offense.


Thanks for the thread, Tom Rinaldo.

[MynameisBlarney]

40. They're loaded for bear in regard to Hillary

They're praying she gets the nod.
As for Bernie however, they have nothing. They are going to try to label him a godless commie, but Bernie will cram it right back down their stupid fucking throats.

[GreenPartyVoter]

42. Absolutely! The hate they have for her is visceral, and would be ten times the clarion call to

their voters than the fear they can instill over socialism. They have labeled all Democratic pols as Socialists and Liberals for decades. This is not a new smear.

[MynameisBlarney]

43. Yuppers

They've been ready for decades to run against Hillary.

[GreenPartyVoter]

41. Very true!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

44. Benghazi will be burning in every ad.

[TBF]

46. Moderates like Bernie and that

scares the crap out of Hillary's supporters. They are the ones yelling about socialism (which is clearly a word they don't understand). Bernie is drawing huge crowds of people. You'd think the DNC would have a brain and be all over that. I'm surprised they are not selling their own t-shirts outside the stadiums.

[Ferd Berfel]

51. Yes. What they did to Bill Clinton (impeachment years) and Obama (from day 1)

Are now their MO. THis will be their Operating model from now until the republican party dies. LEt's hope it's soon.