If we could go back to September 30, 2015:
I think the RNC would pull out all the stops to cut Trump short and nip the Trump phenomenon in the bud. There would be a massive, cohesive Republican effort to deny Trump the nomination. There might be fewer candidates in order to avoid spoilering each other. The RNC might still end up with a Cruz, (or maybe Kasich would be a lot stronger) but no way Trump gets it.
The DNC would make more of an effort to get Bernie supporters to support Hillary by maybe having Hillary be more left-wing and also avoid every appearance of sabotaging Bernie. Or maybe they truly would not sabotage Bernie at all. Hillary would be less centrist in the primaries and focus more on battling Bernie on Bernie’s terms. If things went well enough, maybe Bernie would even be her VP, or someone like Elizabeth Warren, not Kaine.
the rnc should go back 2 or 3 years and work on jebs public profile and not have him coast along on the fact hes a bush who thought everyone was going to fall all over him like royalty … maybe have him have a term or two in the house or on a “committee for big things” after leaving the Florida gov…
the dnc should of hired Carville and have bill help out more …
As far as the DNC is concerned, anything you mentioned could only have come to pass if DWS had either been removed or convinced to step down.
Who the heck knows what the RNC could have done differently? The party is in such disarray a step in any direction would probably have fallen on a landmine regardless.
They did not sabotage Bernie at all. This is a conspiracy theory with zero evidence to support it.
I don’t think so. The RNC doesn’t have the backbone to do something like that or they would actually have done it. Even a year ago, Trump was already polling 30% in the primaries. You would have to go back two years, at least, but let’s be honest: if the RNC had any backbone, they would have shut down Trump and his stupid birther nonsense eight years ago. Any version of the GOP that’s willing to say “Well, sure it’s a lie, but it’s our lie” will eventually end up with someone like Trump as their leader.
I’m not even sure the DNC would have done much different unless maybe it was to convince Lieberman to run. Bernie was never a serious candidate and he only got people to believe otherwise by selling his own lies about rigged systems.
I think the OP massively overstates how much control the DNC/RNC leadership has over the candidate’s behavior and positions.
Agree with several folks above that one year ago we were already pretty far down track towards where we are. Real change would’ve had to have started two years ago.
Sticking with the OP’s formulation as I understand it … If we magically transported everybody back to a year ago and left them all in the same spot they were but with total foreknowledge of what happened the first time you’d see things like this:
Bernie tries harder. He moved Clinton’s needle, and might, with a few different breaks, win the nomination this time. He fervently hopes.
Cruz tries harder. If he avoids booger-eating on TV and shows a little more fire in the belly he’s sure he’ll be the nominee this time.
Rubio tries harder. If he keeps his drug selling cousin under wraps and shows a little more fire in the belly he’s sure he’ll be the nominee this time.
Carson tries harder. If he’s a little less religio-wacky and shows a little more fire in the belly he’s sure he’ll be the nominee this time.
Kasich tries harder. If he acts with a little more gravitas and shows a little more fire in the belly he’s sure he’ll be the nominee this time.
etc.
Even Fiorina will be able to convince herself she’s got a path forward on this do-over.
Don’t forget we might also see a dozen Trump imitators pop out of the woodwork. Palin? Arpaio?
It’s just fantasizing of course, but I don’t think anything would have changed. The thing is, the reasons why we have the two candidates we have, were established by choices made and decisions taken over a period of at least three decades, especially on the Republican side.