Republicans are trying to help Bernie Sanders win, and it's not because they like his message

Sen. Claire McCaskill, facing difficult re-election prospects in 2012 as a Democrat running in Missouri, made a daring gamble: She bought millions in TV and radio ads designed to push Republican primary voters toward the least-electable candidate in the field, Rep. Todd Akin. The high-risk maneuver worked, as Akin won the GOP primary, then went on to run a disastrous general election campaign made immortal by his remarks about “legitimate rape.” A Senate seat that looked set to turn red instead stayed blue, and McCaskill earned credit from campaign operatives everywhere for her savvy interference with the GOP’s nominating process—an age-old tradition sometimes known more colorfully as “ratfucking.”

Now we’re seeing some ratfucking once again, only this time, it’s coming from Republicans, who are trying to meddle in the Democratic primary for president. During Sunday night’s Democratic debate, the Republican National Committee issued several blast emails to reporters defending Bernie Sanders against Hillary Clinton. As Bloomberg’s Sahil Kapur put it, “one could be forgiven for thinking the RNC communiques came from the Sanders campaign.” They certainly looked that way:

One RNC e-mail, which was titled “Clinton’s Misleading Health Care Attack,” defended the Vermont senator from what it described as “the Clinton campaign’s inaccurate remarks on Sanders’ single-payer plan,” and quoted news articles that featured rebuttals of her arguments. A second message countered Clinton’s attacks on Sanders over gun control by pointing out her gun-friendly statements in the past. Two other e-mails sought to bolster Sanders’ case that Clinton is too close to Wall Street and the drug industry.

But Republicans are doing much more than just sending out debate-night emails that happen to be friendly to Sanders’ cause. American Crossroads, the GOP dark money group founded by Karl Rove, is running ads in Iowa depicting Clinton as a tool of Wall Street.