I Agree to See: Republican PAC Has Something To Say About Democratic Superdelegates - America Rising PAC

I Agree to See: Republican PAC Has Something To Say About Democratic Superdelegates

We’ve seen Republican super PACs inject themselves into the Democratic presidential election a few times this season. American Crossroads aired an ad echoing Bernie Sanders’ attacks on Hillary Clinton’s ties to Wall Street. And the ESA Fund tried the good ol’ reverse psychology play, “attacking” Sanders in a fashion designed to endear him to liberal primary voters. America Rising […]

April 6, 2016

We’ve seen Republican super PACs inject themselves into the Democratic presidential election a few times this season. American Crossroads aired an ad echoing Bernie Sanders’ attacks on Hillary Clinton’s ties to Wall Street. And the ESA Fund tried the good ol’ reverse psychology play, “attacking” Sanders in a fashion designed to endear him to liberal primary voters.

America Rising Amplifies Sanders Supporters’ Distrust Of Superdelegates

Now America Rising is trying to stir the pot around the Democratic “superdelegates;” those elected officials and other Democratic Party leaders who automatically become delegates and can vote for any presidential candidate they want. Since Clinton has a huge lead in unofficial surveys of superdelegates, many Sanders’ supporters consider the system to be rigged against their candidate. And America Rising wants to amplify their case. The ad “Ticked Off” is a montage of TV pundit commentary and news reports expressing the anger directed at superdelegates, and efforts by Sanders supporters to change the system. It begins with a Fox News anchor saying that Sanders supporters are “getting ticked off,” followed by a news report on petitions calling on superdelegates to support the candidate with the most popular votes. Multiple anchors mention that some consider superdelegates “undemocratic.” A Fox News anchor closes the video speculating that “if Hillary gets all those superdelegates, and if she gets the nomination, maybe a lot of those Bernie supporters won’t come to the general election.”

Republicans Aim To Sow Democratic Division

Clearly, America Rising wants to sow as much division within the Democratic Party as possible, but the timing of the video is a bit odd. Clinton is the one who leads with pledged delegates and in the popular vote count, and the Sanders campaign has begun to shift its rhetoric, suggesting that superdelegates should ignore who’s leading nominally if he ends the primary contests with a strong finish. But details, schmetails – America Rising understands that passions are rising on both sides in the Democratic contest, and anything it can do to stoke the embers serves its purposes.

This article was excerpted from I Agree to See. Click here to read the full article online.