In the crowded field of Presidential candidate there are two names regularly making News --- Donald Trump & Bernie Sanders

Why not a Trump - Sanders race in November 2016 ?  ---   What are the chances ?

That thought is shaking up some of the pundits and all of the establishment  ---   Republican &  Democrat  ---   So they're pulling out the stops to avoid that match-up, if they can

"It’s a match-up borne of extremists’ fevered dreams: Trump vs. Sanders. Except it would be a disaster if it did."                                                                                            ---  Ana Marie Cox,  Daily Beast, 7/11/15 

HERE'S A LITTLE MORE OF WHAT SHE HAD TO SAY

Yesterday,  Ana Marie Cox of the Daily Beast said,  "Bernie Sanders is the Left’s Donald Trump....   Bear with me here. There is a lot they don’t have in common, including where they stand in their respective party’s polls—though Sanders’ slow creep into a distant second is likely to be more sustainable. Still, they have both managed to disrupt their respective nomination races, and they’ve done that because they both have a similar appeal: They’ve tapped into anti-establishment passions with rhetoric that is a kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy for some voters.  'He has the guts to say what others won’t'  could be the slogan for either of them....   I don’t want to gloss over the content of that gut-driven bluntness. In Trump’s case, just because he’s saying what others won’t doesn’t mean what he’s saying is true. And it’s fair to point out that Trump’s lowest-common-denominator xenophobia is a sugar high kind populism: it’s cheap and easily reproduced but difficult to sustain. Sanders, on the other hand, offers a chewier and less visceral version of “us-versus-them”: discussions about income inequality and financial regulatory policy don’t create the same kind of direct line to voters’ emotions that Trump’s talk of rapists and thieves travels on...."  (See  "Bernie Sanders Is The Left's Trump"  by Ana Marie Cox, 7/11/15, Daily Beast/ Thunderdome [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/11/bernie-sanders-is-the-left-s-trump.html]).

But, perhaps the most important thing that Ana Marie Cox said in her 7/11  article is this:  ".... The media is covering [Trump and Sanders] in a similar fashion, too, though that’s mainly a function of how the political media cover campaigns in general. The story is the process, not the messages or ideas. 'Analysis' consists of asking, 'What this will do the race?' and not, “'hat does it mean for voters?'..."

AND TODAY,  THE DAILY BEAST POUNDED BERNIE SANDERS WITH THE NRA AND TED NUGENT

Another guy writing for the Daily Beast  is trying to skewer Bernie Sanders with stuff like this:  "The left’s favorite presidential candidate defends his record on guns with the right's talking points—and even voted to protect gun manufacturers from lawsuits....   Bernie Sanders is the tell-it-like-it-is candidate of the left’s dreams: He takes on “the billionaire class” and wants Medicare for all. Thousands are drawn to his unapologetically liberal (even democratic socialist) message at events in Iowa and New Hampshire. In both states he’s closing in or even tied with Hillary Clinton in presidential polls....   So why on the issue of guns is he parroting wholly inane, sometimes racist talking points from the National Rifle Association?... "  (See "Bernie Sanders Parrots the NRA" by Cliff Schecter, 7/12/15,  Daily Beast/ Shots Fired  [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/12/bernie-sanders-parrots-the-nra.html]).   The rest of the Schecter piece was a series of anecdotes and comparisons trying to link Bernie Sanders with  the likes of GOP Congressman Louis Gohmert and NRA advocate Ted Nugent  --  along with some very extreme anti-urban crime rhetoric of some other NRA/ gun rights  defenders.

Maybe it's me, but I'm detecting a theme here;  and it looks like it's coming from some Hillary Clinton oriented slime machine.

SIMILAR THINGS HAVE BEEN SAID ABOUT DONALD TRUMP'S HAVING HELD LIBERAL OR PROGRESSIVE POSITIONS

Earlier this week, the Washington Post did a feature on Donald Trump that pointed out that  "[p]erhaps no presidential candidate has the self-confidence he does, even in the face of some glaring flip-flops on his political positions. Where lesser candidates would dodge questions about why they've changed their mind or give a focus-group-tested line about how they evolved, Trump doesn't admit to ever having a different opinion....  He loved Hillary Clinton; now he thinks she's the worst. He was very much in favor of abortion rights before he opposed them. And he might be running as a Republican today, but he was once a registered Democrat who called for legalizing drugs, a massive one-time 14.25 percent tax on the wealthy and staying out of wars that didn't present a "direct threat" to the U.S. In many ways, he's been to the left of Clinton and even Bernie Sanders on some issues....   But in Trump's world, there is no truth but now.... "  (See "The many ways in which Donald Trump was once a liberal’s liberal"  by Hunter Schwarz, 7/9/15, Washington Post/ The Fix [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/07/09/ths-many-ways-in-which-donald-trump-was-once-a-liberals-liberal/]).

Hunter Schwartz then catalogued several of Donald Trumps more notable flip-flops,  including:   abortion rights, gun rights, healthcare, suppot of Hillary Clinton, support of Jeb Bush, party affiliation and  press availability.

STRANGE,  CONTRADICTORY AND TORTURED SIMILARITIES BETWEEN CANDIDATES   ---   WHO ARE  AT THE SAME TIME PORTRAYED AS POLAR OPPOSITES

It seems that the MSM and others want us to think some very strange and contradictory  things about both Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders. With one breath, they tell us these two populists represent the polar opposite extremes of the political spectrum;   and that's a bad thing.  Then, with various bits and pieces of evidence, they try to show us that the same two guys are very much alike, either as liberals or as conservatives,  and that's  supposed to be bad too.

Maybe, there are some similarities between these two particular candidates.  Why would that be so odd?  However, what is being done  looks like a tortured methodology to achieve a false parity among the candidates, while simultaneously  trying to preserve the aura of their being polar opposites.
OK, let's go with all of that....    Still, there are many Americans who will think that a 2016 race between Donald Trump as the GOP candidate and Bernie Sanders as the Democrat's standard bearer might be just what the system needs to shake all the rust and cobwebs off  ---  regardless of what makes them alike,  completely different, or a little of this 'n' that.