run the dems out of money.

What exactly does "prolong the primary" mean?

The convention will happen in the summer, and we will likely have a nominee by then. There is no "prolonging" of anything.

If Bernie lost the first few states, he wouldn't be a serious contender and Hillary could reserve most of her campaign war chest for the general.

As evidenced by what happened in 2008, right?

A prolonged primary can strengthen a candidate and help them build momentum and support, but on the other side it costs a lot of money. The difference as well with 2008 was that the populist candidate won. If Clinton had won in 2008, would she have gone into the general invigorated or would she have been weakened by the positions she took and the attacks she made to try and beat Obama?

If Clinton had just been the nominee by default this time, then she could have basically sat back, raised money and watched the Republicans tear strips off each other while avoiding controversy. You can see why the GOP wouldn't have wanted that, but it carries risks both ways.

problem solved.

as Candidate Obama did ... unless his 1,000,000s of $27.00 donors can suddenly become $2,700 donors.

An early exit, not only stops the internal conflict; but, more importantly, allows resources to be directed at the real enemy.

We don't. As such, she needs to earn the support of primary voters, like any other candidate would.

She has failed miserably in that regard, as evidenced by the polls. Her campaign has been run even more craptastically awful than I feared it would be, and that's saying something.

So maybe an early exit is warranted, so the Candidate generating enthusiasm through actual leadership on actual issues can head into the general with the full weight of the party behind him.

O"Malley will eventually drop out. Thus effectively ending the primary earlier than playing it all the way out. I don't know why people act like they don't have a clue when you know they do.

I agree that Karl Rove wants to run against the weakest possible candidate who he thinks is Sanders http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-karl-rove-attack

OH yeah, this is clearly meant to harm her and help Bernie

And so can his minions. I think there are a couple of other reasons:

1. It's looking more and more like tRump is going to be their nominee (and oh pleasepleaseplease put Sparkle Moose on the ticket!).
2. They've got a war chest of sleaze to throw at HRC, but they know that the Clinton Machine is also ruthless and will dig up a ton of skeletons on tRump and perhaps Churchy Spice if that glorious day comes when he puts her on the ticket.
3. They don't think SBS will spend time or money digging up dirt on tRump, which he probably won't.

Hot Karl is already getting busy trying to polish a turd, and that polish is more likely to remain in place if a clean campaigner like SBS is on the other side.

One other thing - I think a lot of us (and I'm not referring to the OP here) put way too much stock in what Hot Karl thinks. When's the last time he did anything right for his money people? He was SURE that Rmoney was going to win in 2012 and pissed away hundreds of millions of dollars in other people's money pushing that narrative. He's overrated.

So it's possible that he's just making another idiotic mistake. Good.

Now, I think Bernie can win and I doubt there is some unknown dirt so it has to be about Socialist.

We know teaparty and far right cons are too brainwashed to understand how wonderful Democratic Socialism is for them, or how their entire lives now depend on it.

So they cant vote for Bernie.

What it comes down to, as usual, is that middle group.

Does Bernie energize the youth vote? If so that is HUGE...I want to see numbers on that the closer we get to picking our candidate

but Hot Karl has been wrong more than he's been right recently.

I really think they're in a position much like 2008. They were all geared up to unleash their BS machine at HRC and had been waiting for that for a long time. Then along comes this mysterious, fast-rising black guy and they had no idea what to do. They were so spun around that they wound up putting a moron on the ticket.

Fast forward to now. They have 8 more years of pure garbage in the tank to unleash on HRC and along comes this old "socialist" and I don't think they have any idea what to do. They're already spun around to the point where they're starting to somewhat begrudgingly accept that they're going to put a moron at the top of the ticket.

I don't see a lot of wisdom in this either way, but obviously I could be very wrong.

I am not sure what Rove's end-game is. He is so duplicitous you never know what's in his head for sure.

But he is definitely attempting to interfere w our caucuses and primaries.

that she is struggling in the polls with Bernie, so he wants to take her out.

Maybe Bernie beats the GOP, maybe he doesnt.

But Karl and company HATE Hillary, they go INSANE at the thought of having their country run by and taking orders from a Woman and not just a Woman but THAT Woman.

- Rove wants to run against Clinton
- he attacks Clinton from the left to trick Dem voters into thinking he wants to run against Bernie
- Tricked Dem voters then vote for HRC to stand up to Rove
- Rove gets his wish, HRC is nominee

Like I say I personally have no idea what Rove's endgame is. I tend to think he wants to run against Bernie, but as they say:

Be careful what you wish for, it may come true.

You think he's some sort of evil genius or something?

And who really gives a flying fuck if they call him a socialist, he calls himself a socialist.

It isn't 2000 anymore, Rove has been pretty much discredited.

That's a great point, and something I think that should be a lesson for progressives. For years, progressives ran and hid from that "evil" word liberal to the point where candidates would actually deny that they were, you know, liberal. It became voodoo and did a lot of harm to some great candidates and legislation.

Bernie doesn't shrink or hide from that evil S word - he accepts it and explains WTF it actually means when people challenge him on it.

If he's the nominee, I hope among other things that people actually listen to his explanation and avoid the Frank Lutz-fueled stupidity of attaching evil to harmless, even positive words.

...he's done a great job under the circumstances, but every one of his contributors will have to cough up ten times the amount to pay for a General Election campaign. Even as President, Barack Obama raised $1 B for his 2012 race.

Suppose in the general all of those Clinton supporters "walk their talk" and come up with a contribution too, to make sure a GOP doesn't get in there.

If enough made modest donations, that would be a substantial potential financial base.

Unless they want to pout and sit it out, which they keep telling Sanders supporters not to do.

Add to which, candidates still have to go out and get the money; will he be comfortable reaching out to the likes of me?

Despite what you might think, this is not about screwing over everyone who is successful and affluent.

It is about restoring a balance in which the poor and middle class are allowed to participate in the system, and broaden access to political power so that policies are developed that benefit everyone instead of just the large corporations and the wealthy. And an economy that broadens the benefits of prosperity, instead of funneling everything to a small handful at the top.

If you support those basic (and very traditional Democratic liberal goals) then I'm sure Sanders would welcome your money and any other help you can provide.

Karl had his day Life moves on. The familiar template he is used to no longer holds. He also doesn't know how to handle people like Trump and Cruzzer.

He is living in the past.

Can you explain it a little?

Or is there another ad from Rove I've not seen?

I only know about this one:

can win.

Show me a serious expert in politics and elections who does NOT say those numbers can easily change dramatically AFTER a person is chosen and the spotlight is on that person.

I have no doubt the polls can change after the spotlight is on a nominee, so what's Hillary's upside when her negatives are higher than Bernie's on the issues of trust.

This year's election is about much more than personality, this is an anti-establishment year because so many people are keenly aware of money's corruption from Wall Street through Government.

Rove is most certainly an establishment promoter, he wants the status quo to remain and if he can't get a Republican elected, he will accept Hillary.

Okay.

Were they not going to vote for her because Rove loved her?

does Rove have with Democrats?

Rove is betting that some people will be sucked into blind partisan hatred vs the issues that Bernie rightfully raises by trying to co-opt Bernie's message just as Bernie is catching up to or passing Hillary in the polls.

OK. Good. Whatever brings 'em to the polls.

Still not sure why they would vote for Clinton as a result. Do they think that Rove loves Sanders?

Like randys1, I submit that you're not making any sense whatsoever.

I was just having fun. Now it's just stupid banter.

... of who wins the general election. With Bernie winning the nomination, Corporate America is more threatened in that scenario if the Democrats win. Rove definitely wants a "win/win" situation, which is why he's trying to play the psychology game to find some way to keep Bernie out of the general election race.

There IS a thing called reverse psychology that has been used a lot in the past.

Is that Rove is trying to make Democrats think Hillary is more electable by running ads against her, when in reality he wants her to win because he thinks Republicans can beat her.

Karl Rove is an idiot.

His picks last election cycle did poorly. The republicans don't even like him. He no longer understands what is going on in the world or the nature of people's anger at entrenched institutional corporate power.

Of course he imagines Bernie is going to be easier to beat. He still thinks it is the late 90's or early aughts and imagines that Democrats are all going to play like the DLC and refuse to engage in populism or somehow run from the charge of being liberal or progressive. He also foolishly thinks that the American people is still enamored with the wealthy 1%.

Karl Rove is deluded.

idiot and is wrong and cant possibly accomplish anything.

Gee, I hope you are all right.

I really do.


I wont make the mistake of assuming those things, however.

But, once again, I care ONLY about keeping the horrid puke fuck GOP out of the WH and little else.

He's fearful of losing ALL of his former glory.

Or, maybe he's bought the HRC Koolaid. Or, it could be 12th dimensional chess. This is KKKarl Rove we're talking about here.

NOW sees Karl as harmless.

I get it.

Trust me

so convinced...the fix was in. It was first embarrassing for her, then for him. That was not one of his better moments, and he's been eerily quiet (at least in DUland) for some time.

I still worry about him.

right, sadly, in a way. The Republicans are itching to throw the socialist/communist label around.

They'd love nothing more than to push for war and paint Bernie as a dove-loving, tree-hugging liberal.

But I would hope that they'd also want Hillary as the nominee. She has many weak points. MANY!!

They think taking on a socialist in the general would be an easy win.

The problem (for them) though is that the unfortunate side effect of being a conservative strategist is that you also tend to actually be a conservative. In this instance that's a huge issue, because to the conservatives the idea of (oh my gosh) a real life, self proclaimed socialist is basically equivilent to being a real life, self proclaimed satanist. They threw it at Obama constantly because it was one of the worst things they could think of (along with Muslim). The thing is though that after 7 years of hearing a fairly popular moderate centrist being labelled as a 'socialist' every 5 minutes, that label has lost the power it once had to shock people. "Oh Bernie is a socialist? Well Obama was pretty cool". It's a beautiful example of the right shooting themselves in the foot, as they are so delightfully prone to do.

On a side note, it's noticable however that despite Bernie being stronger on Social Security, Hillary is winning strongly amongst over 50s. It may well be that for a generation who grow up during the period when the Cold War was still hot and the anti-communist propaganga machine was at full rev, it's much harder to break through the drilled in connotations of the word.

He's used words like crazy and communist. The problem is Bernie loses his cool and his grumpy demeanor would play into everything Trump says about him. I really think it would be a disaster. JMHO.

Hillary isn't a great campaigner either, but she has a poker face (doesn't show when she's rattled--remember the Benghazi hearings?). Also, Clinton has heavyweight surrogates to deflect some of the blows.

Otherwise, no idea except they thing they can beat him. Both parties have interesting dynamics in terms of targeted voters.

He always thinks the Democrat farthest to the left will be he easiest one to beat. He was crowing loudly that he wanted to run against Howard Dean in 2004. I wish he had had the chance. I think Howard would have demolished Bush Lite. But Rove was convinced Howard was way too far left to gain any traction nationally. I'm sure he feels the same way about Bernie. But now he has a roster of Republicans to work with who make W seem like FDR by comparison. He had better bring a LOT of lipstick this time.

Another republican is running an ad designed to help Sanders in the primary process. This ad uses the same trick that Claire McCaskill used in 2012 to select Todd Akin as her opponent because Akin would be the weakest possible general election candidate http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/anti-sanders-attack-ad-isnt-quite-what-it-seems-be

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