Karl Rove: Bernie Sanders Could Win This Time

[question everything]

(snip)

The pugnacious Vermont socialist was rewarded with around 2.6 million viewers—nearly twice as many as his February CNN town hall drew—making his appearance the most-watched election event so far this cycle. Viewers saw Mr. Sanders’s strengths and flaws. The senator demonstrated that he’s a serious contender with an upside, but has glaring weaknesses that deft opponents can exploit.

(snip)

The senator from Vermont distinguished himself by focusing on his vision, not simply bashing the president. “If we spend all of our time attacking Trump,” he said, “Democrats are going to lose.” Perhaps most importantly, Mr. Sanders’s 2016 experience seems to have taught him how to smooth socialism’s rough edges. “Democratic socialism to me,” he told the crowd, “is creating a government and an economy and a society which works for all,” not only the top 1%. “In a wealthy, democratic, civilized society like our own,” people “are entitled to certain basic rights.” But such platitudes go only so far in masking what drives Mr. Sanders’ philosophy: resentment, grievance and a desire to take from those who have and redistribute the wealth, all to expand government. He may describe socialism in benign terms, but he regularly drops his guard, opening himself up to devastating counterpunches.

For example, the senator said “Medicare is a government-run program” but also claimed “we are not talking about government-run health care” when discussing his Medicare for All proposal. He casually dismissed concerns about abolishing private health insurance for nearly 177 million Americans by suggesting that lots of people lose their insurance under the current system when “they get fired or they quit and they go to another employer.” Now all of us can be so lucky.

(snip)

He was often light on vital details. In one instance, Mr. Sanders dodged attempts to pin him down on his agenda’s cost, saying “we pay for what we are proposing,” without mentioning any numbers. Call it Bernie’s magic asterisk...Mr. Sanders was also prickly. (He always is.) Though it was smart to come on Fox, he continually picked at the moderators and denigrated their network. It would have been better not to be churlish. Still, when only 37% of Americans in the RealClearPolitics average think the country is going in the right direction while 56.4% think it’s on the wrong track, Mr. Sanders could be perceived as an agent of change. If he is the Democratic nominee, Mr. Trump’s task will be to convince Americans that a socialist turn would be a ruinous change. Based on Monday’s town hall, that won’t be as easy as Republicans may think. Mr. Sanders is a real contender.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bernie-sanders-could-win-this-time-11555541440 (paid subscription)

[JaneQPublic]

1. Are we taking Rove's "advice" at face value now?

If Rove says a certain Dem candidate is electable, then we should read that to mean he wants us to nominate him/her only to improve the GOP candidate's chances of winning.

Rove ain't in the business of telling Dems how to win.

[question everything]

10. Should not discount Rove. in the summer of 2011 he predicted that Romney would win

the White House...

[JaneQPublic]

12. Ha! Yeah, Rove isn't as good at predictions as he is at

dirty tricks.

[True Blue American]

27. Then pitched a fit on Fox when they called

Ohio for Obama. They had to take him backstage to prove their figures.

Oh,yeah,trust Karl!

[Cha]

36. Right! Rove thought he was in the Twilight Zone..

it couldn't be happening!

Believe Rove

[Blue_true]

35. His writing is classical opo research.

Evaluate where your opponent looks strong and where that opponent shows weaknesses. Rove is giving the basic roadmap of how republicans would come after Bernie.

[delisen]

2. I am waiting for Sanders to thoroughly denounce Putin and Russia

[SidDithers]

17. Don't hold your breath...nt

Sid

[MrsCoffee]

28. Yeah, he passed on that opportunity multiple times already.

[Hoyt]

3. Will be interesting to hear how Sanders' supporters feel about Rove's prediction.

[Go Vols]

23. Fuck Karl Rove

[Lucky Luciano]

33. Nice!

I chuckled at that reading this thread seeing your Sanders supporting tag line.

I personally love Bernie, but I’m still waiting to decide for 2020.

[Kahuna7]

4. My my my. It seems like republicans (coulter and rove)

and others are hoping that bernie is the nominee. I wonder why.

[customerserviceguy]

7. Yes

Why is that, I suppose?

[LovingA2andMI]

24. Yes....

We definitely in light of the Mueller Report, need to ask ourselves why so?

[Amimnoch]

5. Wow, Trump, Limbaugh, Coulter, and now Rove.

With a cheerleading squad like that, I should just give up and go ahead and switch over right now!!!

[redstatebluegirl]

29. There is a reason they prefer BS.

In their minds he would be easier to defeat.

[Mike Nelson]

6. He's pretty obvious...

… Rove wants to encourage Bernie backers... I'm not a backer and think it will be harder to win with Bernie as the nominee, but I intend to make I do everything I can to support the nominee - even if it is Bernie Sanders!

[Amimnoch]

25. I think it's more nefarious than that.

Cheetolini is running unopposed. They have no primary. yeah, sure there's technically Bill Weld, but really they don't have a primary battle going.

States with close primaries and caucus won't have much to worry about.

However, states with open primaries can be flooded with people who can go vote for the worst Democratic Party ticket that Republicans want to run against trump and bias the results for them.

Check out the map:
https://www.openprimaries.org/primaries_by_state

In all of those states, Republicans will be able to go and vote in the Democratic Primary for whomever their party leaders and surrogates give the nod to.

Pretty obvious who that nod is going to at this point.

[True Blue American]

30. Not now

William Weld is running against Trump!

A couple of others are talking about running.

[Mike Nelson]

34. I agree...

… I don't know how big or organized the effort is, but it's there.

[BlueFlorida]

8. Trump and Republicans want Sanders to win

and will do everything to promote him. Sanders will take the enemies' help even though it hurts the Democratic party.

[totodeinhere]

11. And some of them would also like to see Joe get the nomination on the theory that

Trump could beat him. Either Sanders or Biden could easily beat Trump, so what the rethugs think about all this is irrelevant IMO.

[question everything]

14. Not exactly. How are we going to explain that our candidate is not a Democrat, has never been

a Democrat, has actively campaigned against Democratic candidates including wishing for someone to primary challenge Obama in 2012? Who has mocked us for four years now and, of course, enticed many by haranguing against "millionaires" while happily accumulating his?

[thesquanderer]

31. No explanation needed.

90% of Dems will vote for whoever the Dem candidate is, even if it's Sanders. Certainly few are going to vote for Trump, no matter what.

And the independents don't care about labels or whether or not someone is a "true Democrat."

[artislife]

32. The biggest thing to add

is that he is such a charlatan that the Democratic Party hasn't noticed that he snuck by all their rules about who can run in the primary. Gosh, he even has his photo on their website.

[floppyboo]

18. I think it wise to keep the distinction btwn Repub voters and Repub elites seperate

I have neighbours that in the quiet of friends I call 'tools' however, they are not my enemies. And in the end, the cable and the pipe and the roads are shared. Really divisive way of looking at things. Can't win that way.

[BlueFlorida]

20. The fact remains that Sanders would be

extremely easy for Trump to beat.

[totodeinhere]

9. After all of the damage to this country that Rove facilitated while Shrub was in office,

I am not going to pay any attention to any predictions or analysis coming from him now.

[radical noodle]

13. Well, sure...

I'd trust Rove to give us an honest assessment. Nope.

[question everything]

15. Why not? In 2011 he predicted that Mitt Romney would be the next president

[radical noodle]

16. There you go!

He may have really thought that about Romney. He's pushing Sanders because he thinks trump can easily beat Sanders.

[MineralMan]

19. Who TF cares what Karl Rove thinks?

I'll listen to him when he campaigns for the Democratic Nominee.

[peggysue2]

21. As if I'd . . .

take Karl Rove's opinion seriously about anything or anyone.

[mcar]

22. Well, if Rove said so...

[Zoonart]

26. Fuck right off, Turd Blossom.

[KayF]

37. he's obviously ratfucking

so why spread it around?