"This Is Bernie Sanders' Plan to Beat Hillary Clinton"
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/bernie-sanders-plan-to-beat-hillary-clinton
Excerpt:
It's fortunate for Hillary Clinton that Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent socialist from Vermont who is challenging her for the Democratic presidential nomination, despises and eschews negative advertising. That's because the political consulting firm that Sanders has retained to advise his campaign has a well-developed expertise in devising attack ads. Earlier this year, this outfit, Devine Mulvey Longabaugh, won a Pollie award from the American Association of Political Consultants for creating the best Democratic congressional ad of 2014.....
The Sanders campaign has no plans to hurl these kinds of ads at Clinton. As Tad Devine, the veteran political operative who leads this firm and a longtime adviser to Sanders, notes, mudslinging is not part of the campaign strategy that Sanders and his advisers have crafted. There won't even be one speck of dust directly tossed at Clinton. But, Devine tells me, implicit negative messages aimed at Clinton will certainly be "embedded" in Sanders' advertising and social media messaging.
Sanders does have an overall plan on how to beat Clinton. As Devine explains, it goes something like this: Raise enough money to devote significant resources to building a full operation and maintaining a media presence in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as Nevada and South Carolina. At the same time, develop a basic foundation for campaign organizations in other states, so if Sanders fares well in the initial contests, these preliminary outfits can quickly be built out. Devine and other Sanders advisers estimate they will need to raise $40-$50 million by the Iowa caucuses to be in such a position, and they claim Sanders is on track to hit that mark, mainly with thousands and thousands of low-dollar contributions.....
Ten years later, Sanders ran for the Senate, with Devine still advising him. His Republican opponent was a millionaire businessman named Rich Tarrant who dumped about $7 million into the race in a state where, Devine says, no candidate had ever spent more than $2 million on a campaign. "It was a vicious campaign against Bernie," Devine recalls. "He ran ads that accused Bernie of supporting child molesters and terrorists. Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid were telling Bernie, 'You must respond.'" Sanders replied with an ad Devine had cut, in which Sanders noted he was being unfairly attacked and asked voters to visit his website to get the truth. Subsequent commercials by Sanders attempted to refute the stream of attack ads from Tarrant. The Sanders campaign also pushed an ad in which country singer Willie Nelson endorsed Sanders and cited his work for family farmers. Sanders beat Tarrant by more than a 2-1 margin.....
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