Clinton insiders want to launch Republicans for Hillary; Bernie staying in the race threatens that

[kcjohn1]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/democratic-primaries-2016-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-220314

We all foresaw this. The real "call me moderate" Hillary would show up in the general. The funny thing is this is not a winning strategy. When the Republicans voters either vote for the real GOP candidate or not show up, they will blame the loss on Sanders supporters.

It's not an opinion necessarily shared in her circles; Clinton insiders are eager to begin recruiting Republicans turned off by the prospect of Donald Trump to their cause -- and the threat of Sanders sticking it out until June makes the general election pivot more difficult.

How constructive the rest of the primary stands to be is a looming question for Clinton. "As long as she is winning, and as long as she isn’t forced to constantly try and maneuver to the left of Bernie Sanders” it’s not a bad thing, former Mitt Romney strategist Kevin Madden said of Sanders remaining in the race. “That’s the biggest risk that Bernie Sanders has posed and could continue to pose, which is that a number of times during this campaign, Hillary Clinton has been forced to abandon the centrist Clinton brand to try and out-liberal an avowed socialist.”

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. The weathervane just doesn't know which way to point.

[Qutzupalotl]

8. Bernie's compass is unaffected by winds.

[kath]

17. THIS!

[AtomicKitten]

2. "Everybody knows Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June" Hillary on why she stayed in in 2008.

Bernie already announced he's staying in all the way to the convention.

---> http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511378281

[roguevalley]

19. I remember that, Miss Kitteh. It was vomitous. Thank you for the reminder. It should never be

forgotten

[Kittycat]

23. God that was vile. How could anyone forget that?

What a horrible person.

[DefenseLawyer]

3. Moderate "independents" could move to Clinton.

I can't imagine large numbers of self identifying Republicans EVER voting for Hillary Clinton, but moving right will alienate progressives. That seems like a losing strategy.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. The Rs are a coalitiion of business

religious right, and libertarians. This are the major ones.

Business will pivot to her. since Trump is dangerous to their interests

[DefenseLawyer]

15. Good luck with that.

If you're talking about corporate donations, I agree wholeheartedly. If you're talking about actual Republicans voting for Hillary Clinton, I think that is a ludicrous Third-Way pipe dream.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Actually that part of the coalition will

not a pipe dream, that is where third way has been going towards anyway, The end of this electoral seasons, let's just say parties are realigning.

Rank and file, depends, If they are business people, they might... if not, foregtaboutit. But the elite, they will, As I said, Trump is quite scary if you are a master of the universe. And some of the rank and file business people will do whatever the chamber of commerce tells them to do.

Now the granola munching, hybrid driving, organic eating, left wing (I am making fun of myself) might have a huge issue with that.

[msongs]

4. "Bernie Sanders helps Trump, the angry populist, every day he remains a candidate." - that's the

conclusion of the article

[peacebird]

5. My R friends say there is a movement if Trump is NOT the nom to vote for all Ds downticket and

Write in Trump for pres

[liberal_at_heart]

11. It seems voters in both parties don't appreciate the party choosing the nominee for them.

[oldandhappy]

21. clear to me!

[Bjornsdotter]

28. Yeah...

....we're funny that way. We like to think that our votes count.

[Vote2016]

6. How selfish of Sanders to mess up the timing of Hillary's flip flop on her core values.

[Samantha]

9. There has been Republicans for Bernie Sanders for a long time now

They (Clinton insiders) want to maneuver to try to woo them over because they are beginning to sense many Democrats for Bernie will not support her in the General.

Sam

[kgnu_fan]

10. kick

[stevenleser]

12. More hypocrisy. Republicans supporting Sanders = OK, Republicans supporting Hillary = Bad.

And regarding "When the Republicans voters either vote for the real GOP candidate or not show up, they will blame the loss on Sanders supporters." No, as many folks have noted, there are a lot of Republicans who will not vote Trump who have said they will vote Hillary instead.

[kcjohn1]

14. I see very few GOP voters

Voting for Clinton. They hate the Clintons irrationally.

I keep making this point, but it is not widely discussed. In '12, Romney lost 7 million voters who voted for McCain but not him. Obama lost voters as well, so they didn't for him either. Most stayed home. Trump can afford to lose the few rational GOP voters left, and pick up more of the crazy ones who thought Romney was not conservative enough.

[stevenleser]

16. I think the bigger 2012 story is Romney's awful result with Latinos that offset his large victory

with white voters, a result likely to continue in 2016 considering how gung-ho both Cruz and Trump have been with attacking undocumented immigrants.

[kcjohn1]

18. Obama votes with minorities was down in '12

He lost ~1.5M black voters. He gained 700K latino voters.

If you ask me the real difference was the white voters who stayed home. The question is why did white voters come out to vote for McCain/Palin ticket but not Romney/Paul? The reason is 1) Romney was unpopular 2) His Mormon 3) Didn't connect with the Evangelist / Racist / Or Libertarian wing 4) Obama did a good job of running a negative campaign against

Trump or any of the other clowns will not have the above issues with the GOP base. If anything they are more riled up now. Hell those same voters would probably come out for Romney.

[stevenleser]

20. Trump's negatives are worse than Hillary's and he's polling worse with Latinos than Romney.

A recent Washington Post-Univision poll of Latino voters shows that in a general election match-up, Latinos would vote 72% for Hillary and 16% for Trump.

See http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/washington-post-univision-news-national-survey-of-hispanic-voters/1970/

Trump is down 11 % from Romney's total that cost him the election.

Trumps overall unfavorables are higher than Hillary's:

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/donald-trump-favorable-rating

Sure, he can win a half of the 30% of the country that are Republicans, but that leaves 85% of the rest of the country, most of which doesn't like him. He doesn't concern me at all.

[kcjohn1]

24. I'm concerned that he doesn't concern you at all

Obama is probably the best politician of our generation, and IMO the only reason he won in '12 is because Romney could not turn out his base. Granted Obama is facing unprecedented disadvantages in being AA in country with racist tradition, and where probably 30% of the population would not even consider voting for him based on his race.

Latino/AA are not going to save this country from the likes of Trump alone. This is GOP cycle. They will naturally have the more enthusiastic voters given we have gone through 8 years of Dem in the white house. I guarantee you not as many AA will come out to vote for Clinton that did Obama in '12. Obama lost 1.5M black voters after 08. She will be lucky to get the same amount that came out to vote for Kerry in 04. Sure Dems will get more Latinos votes, but it aint like they voted for Romney in huge numbers. I'm not actually convinced that any POC who voted for Romney will think twice about voting for this current GOP candidate. It aint like they weren't racist in 08, 04, 00, etc. This is the racist party and everyone knows that.

You underestimate how many voters the GOP has. If Dem voters come out to vote, they have no chance. But as we have seen when the voter turnout is 50-55%, the GOP would be the favorite. Tell me why think years and years of declining turnout (including this primary season), why you expect higher turnout in '16?

[stevenleser]

27. I'm concerned that you're concerned about my not being concerned about Trump

Highest unfavorables of any candidate in either party, extraordinarily high unfavorables with Latinos, approximately 24 percent below what he would need to be elected and various other problems make Trump unelectable unless the Democratic Party candidate implodes.

[fourcents]

29. Don't you get it? A lot of Democratic voters think Hillary is a Republican, all they want

is everybody to vote for the Democratic candidate. They think the Democratic candidate is Bernie Sanders and think of Hillary as a Republican. Also Bernie would swing more Republicans to vote for him than Hillary right?

[Hydra]

13. They're trying to win a game that isn't a game anymore

We don't have the luxury of time for their political chessboarding. Climate change is here, our economy is in a lopsided death spiral and we cannot have another failed expedition to the Mid East or Africa.

[Ken Burch]

25. So it's OK when HRC tries to get Republican voters to switch over, but not Bernie.

Even though Bernie does it by getting them to abandon their hates and fears, and HRC does it by pandering to those hates and fears.

[Ken Burch]

26. If she gets nominated, she'll start posing with white cops again.

And her apologists here will defend it and say we have no right to call that what it is.

A "law and order" candidate will always be a "black lives DON'T matter" candidate. You can't be "tough on crime" AND fight racism.

[JudyM]

30. Bernie trounces trump on his own;Hillary barely scrapes by. So she will require republicans shifting

to her in order to win in the GE