Tuesday, May 07, 2019

Many in GOP would like Nothing More than Sanders as Democrat Nominee

Sometimes seeing who those on the opposing team see as must vulnerable ought to make one think twice about their own choice.  Rational people might pause and question their support when the opposing political party see your choice as the easiest one to defeat.  Most likely, such thoughts will not register with Bernie Sanders whose peevishness put Trump - a man diametrically opposed to what they claimed to espouse - in the White House in 2016.  Many Democrats fear a reprise of 2016.  As a piece in Politico reports, many Republicans are salivating at the prospect of Sanders winning the 2020 Democrat nomination.   I share their views of Sanders' potential liabilities, especially the risk of losing moderate and independent voters.  Note how Republicans also view a Sanders nomination as a boost to their effort to retain control of the U.S. Senate.  Here are article highlights:

Republicans like their chances of keeping the Senate in 2020. But there’s one thing they think would all but seal the deal: Bernie Sanders as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Some GOP incumbents are practically cheering him on, confident there’s no way a self-described democratic socialist could win a general election against President Donald Trump and that he’d drag other Democrats on the ballot with him.
“It would be good for us to have a nominee like that,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who is up for reelection next year and sounded downright giddy about the prospect of Sanders representing Democrats at the top of the ticket.
Trump and the Senate GOP have explicitly designed their 2020 strategy around Sanders, beating the anti-socialism drum incessantly and attempting to tether every Democrat on the ballot to what they call a creep away from capitalism and toward collectivism.
“A lot of people think that in that crowded field, he could break out,” said Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.). He added: “If we can run a race against a person that’s an out-of-the-closet socialist and promoting socialist ideas, it’s a great contrast for us.”
The strategy shows Republicans are much more comfortable talking about Sanders and tying other Democrats to his brand of socialism than they are in defending this year's meager legislative agenda. But Republicans could be making the same mistake Democrats made four years ago, when Trump launched his presidential campaign and they began salivating over the prospect of a Senate sweep.
That misunderstanding of Trump’s appeal is now the subject of repeated examination by Democratic politicians and strategists.
“I would suggest they underestimate me at their own peril and I hope they do,” Sanders said in an interview. Republicans are unlikely to run on their own forward-leaning agenda, he added, “So they have to figure out some boogeyman that they think they can run against.”
Though Republicans will try to attach the socialist label to anyone who endorses sweeping expansions of government health care programs and climate change legislation, GOP lawmakers and Trump allies concede it would work much better against Sanders than it would against some of his rivals. Independent voters tired of Trump might hold their nose and back him again if Sanders were the alternative, the GOP logic goes, in turn lifting vulnerable Republican senators to victory. However, one Democrat working on Senate races said a Sanders nomination could help individual Democratic congressional candidates assert their independence from their party in key races.
Democrats have a clear but narrow path to the Senate majority that hinges largely on picking up seats in states like Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Arizona, and defending incumbents in Michigan, Alabama, New Hampshire and Virginia. Democrats need to net at least three Senate seats to win the chamber.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is urging at-risk Republicans to emphasize to voters that the GOP Senate is a “firewall against socialism in this country.” And apparently they're listening.
Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, perhaps the most endangered Republican up next year, is lacing into Sanders’ proposal to let prisoners vote as “not who America is” and the “antithesis [of] our values.” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), up for reelection next year, said his fortunes will improve if he gets to run against Sanders because he can cast his race as "a referendum between free enterprise and socialism."
[S]ome Democratic senators said privately they agreed with Republicans that a Sanders nomination would be too easy for the GOP to demagogue. Some fretted about the down-ballot effect he would have on Senate and House races if he were to win the nomination. They declined to speak publicly because it's early in the race and they didn't want to exacerbate tensions within the party.
Two moderate Democrats, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, both acknowledged that the GOP’s strategy of painting the entire Democratic Party as in lockstep with Sanders could work in a national election. But Tester, who won reelection in deep red Montana last year, said Republicans are merely deflecting, given their own heartburn over Trump.

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