There are two groups of people who, while I do believe they mean well, drive me absolutely insane. It’s the “both parties are the same” folks and the people who don’t think Republicans winning this November would be all that bad. Do both parties have flaws? Of course they do. But if you really think Democrats and Republicans are no different, or that a Republican winning this November wouldn’t be catastrophic, you might want to rethink everything you think you know about politics. In fact, here are 10 terrible things that will almost certainly happen if Donald Trump, Ted Cruz or another Republican becomes our next president.

1. Conservatives will get a super majority on the Supreme Court: We already know one Supreme Court opening is potentially up for grabs this November. Well, up to three more might be opening up over the next 4-8 years. Most notably, the liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg who’s 83 and Stephen Breyer who’s 77. Then there’s fairly moderate conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy who’s 79. So, unless these three are serving until their mid to late 80’s, at least a couple are probably going to be replaced… very soon. Two who represent half the liberal justices on the Court. What do you think the Court looks like with a Republican potentially selecting 3-4 justices? Say goodbye to gay rights, voting rights, women’s rights and any possible dream of ever getting money out of politics. The next president may very well determine the fate of the Supreme Court for an entire generation. Which means if a Republican becomes president (especially someone like Ted Cruz) we’re likely looking at a Court with 3-4 new “Antonin Scalia-type” justices being put in place for the next 20-30 years. If that doesn’t terrify you, it should.
2. Net neutrality is likely dead: Remember when big business was trying to install a “fast lane” for the Internet? Well, thankfully, the Obama administration put an end to that – sort of. A Republican president could very well undo these protections for fair access to the Internet, allowing the free flow of information to be severely hampered, limited and restricted unless companies pay these Internet providers what essentially equates to “ransoms” for full-speed access. In other words, if you’re paying for 50 mbps speeds, you might not get those speeds to some of your favorite sites that refuse to pay these fees being charged by corporations like AT&T, Time Warner or Comcast.
3. Say goodbye to health care: It took us decades to get the modest health care reform known as the Affordable Care Act. All that work will be long gone if a Republican becomes president. Instantly, millions of Americans would lose their health insurance (most of whom are poor) and those with pre-existing conditions would go back to living a life where they could be denied coverage based on something with which they were born.
4. The Iran nuclear deal is history: For the first time in a long time we have a president who sees diplomacy as something he exhausts before taking the step toward war. While the deal with Iran may ultimately prove to be nothing – it’s a start. Of course there’s still a long way to go, but trying to work out even contentious diplomacy with an adversary is a hell of a lot better than the path that will almost certainly take us into another war. A war that will make the chaos that we’ve seen in Iraq look like child’s play. When you mess with Iran, you’re also stepping on the toes of China, Russia and threatening to disrupt the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz – a seaway through which a huge chunk of the world’s oil exports travel.
5. We’ll set combating climate change back decades: Even with the advancements we’ve made, we’re already years (if not decades) behind where we need to be as it relates to battling climate change. If a Republican wins the White House in November, not only will absolutely nothing get accomplished as it relates to stepping up our effort to prevent the planet from becoming uninhabitable, they will undo nearly all the progress we have made. Which means we won’t only be setting ourselves back 4-8 years – we’ll be setting ourselves back decades. Considering the dire issue of climate change at this moment, that would pretty much screw the planet beyond repair.
6. It’s very likely abortion becomes illegal: This ties in with #1, but deserves its own category. If a Republican president is allowed to replace even 2-3 Supreme Court Justices, that’s probably the end of the line for abortion rights. Or do you think someone like Ted Cruz (or any Republican for that matter) is going to nominate a justice who wouldn’t swear to them to overturn Roe v. Wade?
7. They’re going to open up a lot of our public parks and land to oil drilling: Republicans have been trying to destroy a good chunk of our public lands for years so they can hand these resource-rich areas over to big oil to destroy. If elected, huge chunks of our parks and wildlife preserves will likely be destroyed by big oil.
8. They could very well destroy Social Security and Medicare: Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have plans to expand Social Security and Medicare which would keep both programs solvent for years. Meanwhile, Republicans are doing just about everything they can to move both programs toward a “private” program, which is really just the first step they need to completely getting rid of both programs altogether.
9. Get ready for a whole lot of “Jesus”: If Ted Cruz happens to become our next president and select 2-3 Supreme Court Justices (both big ifs), that would pretty much seal up our path toward becoming a Christian theocracy. Ever heard of something called the Seven Cultural Mountains movement? Well, Cruz believes in it and it’s very… very close to becoming a reality. This should horrify anyone who doesn’t want to live in a country where nearly every aspect of society is ruled via some sort of religious control.
10. They’re going to make terrorism much worse: I’ve already written that I don’t believe Republicans are intelligent enough to handle fighting terrorism. Not only are their “plans” laughable, but their rhetoric helps create more terrorism. They’re literally giving terrorists exactly what they want by vilifying Muslims in the context of “the United States vs. Islam.” If we hand this country over to these bumbling morons, we’re going to see terrorism grow to levels that are unprecedented.

Keep in mind, not only will they likely do all of what I just listed (and more), but they’re going to put in place measures that make it much more difficult to try to undo all the damage they will most certainly cause. So, when I say this nation might not be able to recover from a Republican winning in 2016 – I’m not exaggerating. I am by no means a fear-mongerer or alarmist, but I am not at all kidding when I say that a Republican winning this November terrifies the hell out of me. Way too much is on the line to let that happen.

For the first eight months of the Bernie Sanders campaign, I joined my journalist colleagues in giving him the editorial benefit of the doubt. He didn’t put forward a single workable proposal, and he did nothing to suggest that he’d make an objectively competent President, but he swore he was only running to raise awareness on the issues. Since he was running a uniquely clean campaign of ideas, it seemed fair to report on him from that parameter. But two months ago he completely changed course almost overnight, gambling that the media wouldn’t dare call him out on it. I was one of the first, and to date one of the very few, to report on his heel turn in real time. I took a lot of heat for it. But his words today have ultimately confirmed every negative word I’ve written about him.

Two months ago Bernie Sanders came under the mistaken sudden impression that he could win. Perhaps his advisors sold him on that nonsense so he would remain in the race longer before dropping out, so they could keep getting paid. Regardless of who planted to seed, Sanders went as negative and dishonest toward Hillary Clinton as possible. He was counting on the media to ignore his hypocrisy and continue reporting on him with kid gloves, because their “underdog good guy” narrative about him has been too ratings-friendly to poke any holes in just yet.

And sure enough, the media mostly let him get away with it. Sanders and his campaign faked the endorsements of major entities, and even when those groups cried foul, the national media ignored it. He embarked on misleading claims about Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street, attacking her character after having promised he wouldn’t engage in personal attacks. He claimed that every move the Democratic Party made was a conspiracy against him, even in the instances where he was obviously cheating. Last week he even put out a press release publicly thanking Clinton for having agreed to a debate in New York, when Clinton had actually said no to the debate. But that was just the warm up act.

I dutifully documented all of this, because it felt editorially appropriate. When the “candidate of ideas” morphs into just another scheming politician, it becomes time to cover him as scrutinizingly as any other candidate. But perhaps because I was the only one willing to go there, I sure took heat for it. Even my liberal friends and journalism colleagues, many of whom have told me privately that they think Sanders is an buffoon, suggested that I shouldn’t criticize his antics. Perhaps they were understandably queasy about the idea of having to admit that he fooled us all.

Finally, after months of Bernie Sanders growing progressively dirtier, and nearly everyone in the media but me letting him get away with it, Hillary Clinton had enough of him yesterday. She said she was “sick” of the Sanders campaign lying about her. The response from Sanders today: he wants her to apologize for finally calling him out on his torrent of dishonesty. What a sick son of a you-know-what he turned out to be.

There was a part of me that wanted to be wrong all along these months. Perhaps Bernie Sanders would quickly regain his conscience, stop the dishonest antics, and get back to the clean campaign of ideas that won people over in the first place – meaning I’d have been taking him to the woodshed all this time for no reason. But as of today there’s obviously no hope of that. Confronted head on with his own dishonest tactics, Sanders has decided to make it his opponent’s fault. It confirms and justifies every negative thing I’ve reported about him over the past two months, sadly.

When Independent Senator Bernie Sanders announced his presidential run last May, he didn’t look far for his campaign team. The staff he assembled for this highest of offices are the same men who’ve surrounded him for the past ten to twenty years.

These are not fresh faces who might offer a different slant or inject a new perspective. They’re middle-aged white guys, and with the exception of Tad Devine, none has the policy credentials or international experience for the candidate to draw upon in his bid for the presidency.


The Sanders’ campaign touted the crew as “grassroots,” hoping to reflect a populist model. However, their lack of diversity, homegrown status and deep affiliation with the candidate should give pause to voters. Is Bernie Sanders representing the state of Vermont or all of America? Does he expect to appeal to all genders or just males; heterosexuals only or the widening sexual orientations? And, what about people of color? How can his Caucasian campaign speak authentically to a voting bloc outside their own racial identity? Primary results have already answered a couple of these questions.

An ethical issue is also connected to this team, as first exposed in a Politico article from July of last year. The story looked at Michael Briggs, the campaign’s Communications director, who also collects a paycheck for a similar position as Sanders’ communications chief in the Senate. The article notes that this arrangement is often seen with reelection campaigns but is rare and problematic when an elected official runs for higher office.

The arrangement isn’t unusual for staffers serving on Senate and House reelection campaigns. But such double duty is out of the ordinary for a high-profile presidential campaign — most other political operations rigorously separate the two responsibilities, especially for a role as public-facing as communications director. |Read the full Politico article|

Politico noted that “Sanders in particular has raised eyebrows with his near-mixing of Senate and campaign activity.”

In a similar vein, Tad Devine is compensated for his role as an advisor in the presidential campaign, and his political consulting firm, Devine Mulvey, has also received over $800,000 for its work in the campaign, according to FEC reports.

Perhaps the most troubling question has to do with the insularity of Bernie Sanders. What does it mean when a presidential candidate refuses to expand his circle of confidantes? Does this reflect a distrust of outsiders or an over-reliance upon Yes men? Is he unwilling to subject himself to the tough scrutiny of a campaign advisor who is not his longstanding friend?
For those taking a serious look at Bernie Sanders, these questions demand answers. His choice of campaign staff reveals an individual with a calcified mode, one who may lack the capacity to think beyond Vermont and outside the decades-long complaint against Big Banks and Billionaires.
Here’s a look at the top presidential campaign staff for Bernie Sanders.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) sent a letter to Bernie 2016 telling it to account for a discrepancy of over $10 million in donations. The letter is dated 30 March and cites the July 2015 Quarterly Report submitted by Bernie Sanders’ principal campaign committee.

The $10M occurs during the first months of fundraising (1 April 2015 – 30 June 2015). Susan Jackson, Treasurer of Bernie 2016, must explain the discrepancy by 4 May 2016.

Here is a snippet of the FEC letter:

The discrepancy appears to coordinate with an earlier post to this blog (See: Bernie Gets $10 Million in Mystery Donations from Washington D.C.) in which over $10M in un-itemized receipts is reported on this Schedule A-P; all are dated 30 June 2015 and marked as originating from Washington, D.C.

The FEC discrepancy noted in the 30 March letter ($10,465,912) matches the Schedule A-P referenced above and in this blog’s February post.

While the figures match, the FEC is concerned about a discrepancy between the amount reported on the committee’s Detailed Summary and its Schedule A-P. The Summary does not include that ten million in donations.

This is the latest in a series of campaign finance issues arising from the Bernie Sanders campaign committee.

Victoria Toensing and her husband and legal partner Joseph diGenova are pushing claims that anonymous State Department and CIA "whistleblowers" have been blocked and threatened by the Obama administration to prevent their testifying on the September 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. Toensing and diGenova are longtime Republican activists, and Toensing has a history of pushing dubious claims and falsehoods into the media.

Toensing And diGenova Are Pushing Claims That Obama Administration Is Threatening Benghazi Witnesses In Cover-Up

Toensing And diGenova Are Pushing Claims In The Media That Obama Administration Is Issuing Threats To Witnesses About Benghazi. According to Fox News, Toensing is now representing one of the supposed whistleblowers in her role with diGenova & Toensing, where she and her husband are partners. [Media Matters, 4/30/13; Fox News, 4/29/13; Breitbart.com, 4/29/13]

Toensing And diGenova Are Longtime Republicans

Toensing And diGenova Both Identify As Republicans. [DiGenovaToensing.com, accessed 4/30/13; DiGenovaToensing.com, accessed 4/30/13]

Toensing Served As Reagan Deputy Assistant Attorney General. Toensing served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Justice Department during the Reagan administration and was Sen. Barry Goldwater's chief counsel. [DiGenovaToensing.com, accessed 4/30/13]

Toensing And diGenova Both Served As Advisers To Romney In 2008. The two previously supported and advised the campaign of Fred Thompson. [American Presidency Project, accessed 4/30/13]

Toensing Has Donated More Than $30,000 To GOP Candidates And Causes. According to Federal Election Commission data, Toensing has donated more than $30,000 to Republican causes, including $1,000 to Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign. Toensing contributed a total of $1,150 to Democratic candidates. [FEC.gov, accessed 4/30/13; Media Matters, 7/13/10] FEC.gov, accessed 4/30/13; Media Matters,7/13/10]

diGenova Has Donated At Least $18,000 To GOP Candidates And Causes. Overwhelmingly Contributed To Republican Causes. According to Federal Election Commission data, diGenova has donated at least $18,000 to Republican candidates or organizations that support Republican campaigns. diGenova also donated at least $450 to Democratic and Independent candidates. [FEC.gov, accessed 4/30/13]

Toensing Has Been Criticized For Lacking "Impartiality, Non-Partisanship, And Professionalism"

The Pair Has A History Of Investigating Democrats And Defending Republicans Under Investigation. In a 1998 profile, The Washington Post reported:

Name a high-profile investigation in this city and chances are the prosecutorial pair is involved.

Charges that Republican Rep. Dan Burton improperly demanded campaign contributions from a lobbyist for Pakistan? DiGenova and Toensing are the Indiana congressman's personal attorneys.

Newt Gingrich's ethics problems? Toensing represents the speaker's wife, Marianne, to ensure her compliance with House ethics rules.

A House committee investigation of the Teamsters and the union's links to improper Democratic fund-raising? DiGenova and Toensing are leading the probe as outside counsel. [Washington Post, 2/27/98]

They Have Been Criticized For "Non-Stop Mugging" And For Lacking "Impartiality, Non-Partisanship, And Professionalism." In 1998, Toensing, who was working as outside counsel for the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, was criticized for her actions in connection with the Monica Lewinsky scandal. A February 5, 1998, Roll Call article (via Nexis) reported: "Rep. Bill Clay (D-Mo) launched a stinging attack on the two lead attorneys investigating the Teamsters campaign finance scandal yesterday, alleging that the attorneys have lost their objectivity because of their frequent television appearances and 'participation' in the scandal involving ex-White House intern Monica Lewinsky." The article also reported:

Clay's rebuke of former independent counsel Joseph diGenova and his wife and law firm partner, Victoria Toensing, who were hired in November by a House Education and the Workforce subcommittee, came in a letter to Chairman Bill Goodling (R-Pa) yesterday.

"Sadly, Mr. diGenova and Ms. Toensing have become so closely aligned with the President's critics and so personally identified with the scandal itself as to have relinquished the air of impartiality, non-partisanship, and professionalism required of leaders of a serious congressional investigation," wrote Clay, the ranking member of the Education and the Workforce Committee.

"Put more bluntly," Clay added, "the couple's relentless self-promotion and non-stop mugging for the likes of Geraldo Rivera - however good for business and their egos - is unseemly, undignified, unworthy of this committee, and generally detrimental to important Congressional functions."

Clay said in his letter that a LEXIS/NEXIS search found 166 citations of diGenova and Toensing commenting on the Lewinsky affair between Jan. 21 and Feb. 4. The letter came even as Republicans approved an additional $750,000 for the diGenova-Toensing investigation. [Roll Call, 2/5/98; Media Matters, 7/13/10]

Toensing and diGenova Were Criticized For Conflict Of Interest For Dual Role In Separate DOJ Investigations. Toensing and diGenova were criticized for serving as special counsel in the House Education and the Workforce Committee probe into Justice Department oversight of the Teamsters union while also representing Dan Burton, the committee's chairman at the time, in a separate Justice Department probe. A December 18, 1997, Roll Call article (via Nexis) reported: "Rep. Bill Clay (Mo), the full committee's ranking Democrat, has raised questions about the fact that the two attorneys are also representing Burton in the Justice Department's investigation of charges that the Government Reform and Oversight chairman tried to extort campaign money from a lobbyist during the 1996 election cycle." The article also reported:

Democrats believe this creates a conflict of interest because [Rep. Pete] Hoekstra's [R-MI] subcommittee plans to investigate the Justice Department's decade-long oversight of the Teamsters, specifically the agency's handling of the union's 1996 presidential election.

Clay says that diGenova and Toensing, a former chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee and a deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan Administration, should not lead a Congressional investigation of the Justice Department while the department is conducting a criminal investigation of one of their outside clients. [Roll Call, 12/18/97; Media Matters, 7/13/10]

Toensing Has A History Of Pushing Falsehoods In The Media

Toensing Attempted To Link The Resignation Of David Petraeus To The Benghazi Attack. In November 2012, Toensing wrote an op-ed for Fox News attempting to draw a link between the Benghazi attack and the abrupt resignation of former CIA director David Petraeus. [Media Matters, 4/30/13]

Toensing Pushed Media Falsehood That Plame's CIA Status Was Widely Known On D.C. "Cocktail Circuit." Toensing and co-author Bruce Sanford promoted the false claim -- popular in right-wing media circles -- that Valerie Plame's CIA status was known "on the Washington cocktail circuit" prior to its disclosure by columnist Robert Novak. Toensing and Sanford wrote in a January 12, 2005, op-ed:

Merely knowing that Plame works for the CIA does not provide the knowledge that the government is keeping her relationship secret. In fact, just the opposite is the case. If it were known on the Washington cocktail circuit, as has been alleged, that Wilson's wife is with the agency, a possessor of that gossip would have no reason to believe that information is classified -- or that "affirmative measures" were being taken to protect her cover. [The Washington Post, 1/12/05]

Fitzgerald: Plame's Status Wasn't "Widely Known Outside The Intelligence Community." In an October 28, 2005, press conference announcing the indictment of I. Lewis Libby, then chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald refuted the falsehood, stating: "Valerie [Plame] Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community. Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life." [Washington Post, 1/12/05; Media Matters, 7/13/10]
Toensing Advanced Falsehood That "Plame Was Not Covert." In a February 18, 2007, op-ed for The Washington Post, Toensing wrote: "On Dec. 30, 2003, the day Fitzgerald was appointed special counsel, he should have known (all he had to do was ask the CIA) that Plame was not covert, knowledge that should have stopped the investigation right there." [Washington Post, 2/18/07]

CIA Director: Plame "Was A Covert Agent." Rep. Henry Waxman stated on March 16, 2007, in a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing, that then-CIA Director Michael Hayden confirmed to him that Plame was "a covert agent." Waxman stated: "General Hayden, the head of the CIA, told me personally that she was -- that if I said that she was a covert agent, it wouldn't be an incorrect statement." [Media Matters, 7/13/10]
Toensing And diGenova Involved In Discredited And Retracted Article About President Clinton. In a February 27, 1998, article on Toensing and diGenova's involvement in a retracted Dallas Morning News article claiming that a Secret Service agent had witnessed President Clinton and Lewinsky in a "compromising situation," The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reported:

The melodrama began when Toensing was approached by an intermediary for a Secret Service agent who was said to be willing to testify that he saw Clinton and Lewinsky in a compromising situation. DiGenova passed this on to Morning News reporter David Jackson ("Joe and I exchanged a few words over that," Toensing says), and the paper published the story in its Internet edition, attributing the account to an unnamed lawyer "familiar with the negotiations." But by then the intermediary had told Toensing the agent was backing off.

Hours later, the Morning News retracted the report, saying the "longtime Washington lawyer" had said the information was "inaccurate."

The couple now say that Toensing, taking a call from Jackson hours before deadline, told the reporter: "If Joe is your source, it's wrong."

"The bottom line is, they were told not to print and they chose to print," diGenova says. "I don't know how much more helpful you can be to a newspaper than to tell them not to print."

Carl Leubsdorf, the paper's Washington bureau chief, says: "The reporter's recollection of that conversation is quite different. He was told that 'if Joe told you that, he shouldn't have.' If it had been the other way, the story of course would have been reassessed at that point." [Washington Post, 2/27/98]

Benghazi Witnesses Have Not Been Silenced

Benghazi Witnesses Have Reportedly Testified To FBI, Independent Benghazi Review, Spoken To Senator. Contrary to the suggestion that the Obama administration has prevented Benghazi witnesses from testifying, survivors have reportedly been interviewed by the FBI for its on-going criminal investigation into the attack and spoken to investigators from the State Department's independent review of the event. The Senate Intelligence committee reportedly received redacted transcripts from the FBI interviews of the survivors and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has said he's spoken with some of the survivors. [CBSNews.com, 3/11/13; Huffington Post, 12/18/12; Fox News, Special Report, 3/15/13]

CHRIS HAYES (HOST): The key part of this. I want to go back to May 2013. We were on air, we'd been on air for about a month. Big new piece on ABC: "Exclusive: Benghazi Talking Points Underwent 12 Revisions Scrubbed Of Terror Reference." And again, this was coming, pretty clearly, from a Republican member of Congress. Then the original full e-mail chain showed the source was completely wrong about it. And again it was the same thing. It was a full day story, three day story, four day story and then finally the actual e-mail chain came out and it was totally debunked.

ERIC BOEHLERT: We see this over and over again. Republican staffers just feeding this stuff, feeding this stuff.

HAYES: This piece was a member of Congress. The citation here is "lawmaker."

BOEHLERT: That's right, that's right, that's a good point. We saw the pattern with Benghazi. We've seen it with e-mails. If you want to get nostalgic go back to Whitewater, go back to travel-gate, go back to the Clinton pardons. This is over and over again. We create these investigations. Republicans are briefed on them and then they spin these fantastic tales to the press who types it up because they think it's a great story.

HAYES: Well if it was true it's a story. I mean if it was true --

BOEHLERT: Every time, every time when we go through it, these facts don't hold up. Then The Washington Post. They're not going to make any change in their anonymous sourcing policy according to Media Matters and according to The Washington Post. So we're just going to keep doing this. New York Times last summer, Hillary is the target of a criminal investigation.

HAYES: Famous leak. And then criminal was walked back. And then it was revised in the story.

BOEHLERT: But, once you put that in the pipeline, once you put that out there, wait, Hillary is going to be indicted? You can't walk that back. 150 agents? You can't really effectively walk that back. I haven't seen many news organizations try to walk it back in the last 48 hours.

The Boston Herald, which endorsed Mitt Romney and John McCain, published a piece today entitled, Potential indictment of Hillary could be convention wild card.

Tons of recommendations to the article followed by Sanders supporters hoping for a miracle to save Bernie's dying Campaign. :++ www.democraticunderground.com/…+

Sanders supporters have been strangely prone to link to Fox, Boston Herald and other conservative outlets that share similar dislike for Hillary Clinton.

The feeling is mutual as Republicans openly root for Bernie Sanders. Bloomberg (Jan, 2015) : Republican Operatives Try to Help Bernie Sanders

Analysts find prosecution of Clinton unlikely. www.msn.com/…

Joseph DiGenova, The "expert" quoted in the article is married to Victoria Toensing. Article on the couple: Who Are The Right-Wing Media's Benghazi Lawyers Victoria Toensing And Joseph diGenova?

Bernie supporters should stop littering left wing sites with right wing opinion.

With enemies like these, who needs friends?

Senator Bernie Sanders often boasts that he has no “super PAC” supporting his candidacy and he has vigorously tried to keep any from forming. But he has been getting some unsolicited if mischievous help from Republican groups actively promoting the Vermont senator’s surging campaign.

America Rising, a Republican political action committee, reacted with glee on social media on Tuesday to a CNN/WMUR poll that showed Mr. Sanders with a large lead over Mrs. Clinton in New Hampshire, sharing the news with “BREAKING” qualifiers and links to news stories.

Karl Rove’s American Crossroads recently created an ad parroting Senator Bernie Sanders’s critiques of Mrs. Clinton’s ties to Wall Street, made repeatedly last week in the days before Sunday’s debate.

And during the debate, Republican groups were blasting out rapid emails defending Mr. Sanders’s positions, including his universal health care plan, an issue many Republicans would embrace as warmly as they would higher taxes.

All of it, of course, is intended to get under Mrs. Clinton’s skin and promote the Democratic candidate they believe would be weaker in a general election. Republican groups and super PACs have spent nearly $5 million targeting Mrs. Clinton so far this cycle. They’ve yet to spend a dollar on advertising attacking Mr. Sanders.

The Clinton campaign released a statement saying this support only furthers their argument that Mrs. Clinton is the candidate the Republicans are most afraid of facing.

“The Sanders argument falls apart when the G.O.P. spokesman is trying to help him and the Republicans run ads trying to stop Hillary Clinton in the primary,” said Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for the Clinton campaign, in a statement. She asserted that Mr. Sanders was “taking his cues” from Mr. Rove, though the senator’s Wall Street attacks predated the Rove ad.

The effort on the right to attack Mrs. Clinton from the left has actually been underway for a while, with groups like American Crossroads and America Rising targeting digital content criticizing Mrs. Clinton’s positions on the Keystone oil pipeline, for example.

“The idea is to make her life difficult in the primary,” Colin Reed, America Rising’s executive director, said last year.