Unit: Campaigns and Elections (Extra Credit)
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/20/bernie-sanders-gets-some-outside-help-he-didnt-ask-for/
Synopsis: Presidential candidate hopeful Bernie Sanders, Democrat senator of Vermont, likes to talk about how his campaign is not funded by any "super PACs". He does not have one, and does not want one. Yet interestingly, Republicans groups have been supporting his campaign financially. America Rising is a known Republican political action committee. This week, they tweeted excitedly concerning Sanders lead over Hillary Clinton according to the CNN/WMUR poll Tuesday, January 19th. During the Democratic debate, Republican groups like America Rising were defending what Sanders was saying about health care and economy. But why? Most Republicans hate Sanders for his strong liberalism and affection to socialist views. They are really being quite sneaky by helping Sanders out to squelch the chances for Clinton, a Democratic presidential candidate hopeful that the right hates even more than Sanders. Nearly $5 million in conservative groups and super PACs have been spent in ads targeting Clinton or helping Sanders in some way that makes Clinton look undesirable. Clinton's campaign has responded that this action is only symbolic of how scared the possible Republican presidential candidate are for the election.
Analysis: This article explored an interesting campaign tactic that I think is very important for both sides to understand and utilize for their party's advantage in this presidential campaign season. The actions of PACs like America Rising over this past week directly hurts Clinton, the Democratic candidate that most right-leaning people despise for her secret email account, Benghazi, and relation to scandal-ridden and former Democratic President Bill Clinton. Clinton is going to be hurt in the primary. Yet, their work as a PAC in creating ads that benefit Sanders and expose Clinton in a negative light works against Sanders. He is continually underscoring his lack of PAC money, attempting to appeal to voters that are tired of the enormous amount of money pointlessly thrown into campaigns. Now whenever he says that, he's now technically lying. This article called this "the effort of the right to attack Mrs. Clinton from the left".
Earlier in the year, American Crossroads and America Rising used this strategy with ads that criticized Clinton's moderate position on the Keystone oil pipeline. This is an example of a position issue, and most Democrats who would vote for Clinton but are in favor of dismantling machinery like the Keystone pipeline find something against Clinton that might sway their decision to Sanders.
