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The mistake being made is that some conservatives think that would provide advantage. It wouldn't.
Or his own sins, crimes and weaknesses are every bit as bad. For example - he will not release his tax returns. He is guilty of paying off public officials on the other end. He is guilty of corporate greed.
He is not a virgin working in a whore house for heavens sakes.
Sanders did "significant damage" to Hillary during primary
1 and 2 certainly helped Sanders when he finally went on the offensive and started making these points in earnest; unfortunately it came too little too late. Perhaps its effectiveness is exclusive to his person as someone with the moral authority to attack Clinton on these matters, but I'm inclined to think that it presents an angle of attack even for Trump, especially as he can also claim independence from those same vested interests unlike with many Republicans.
Overall, the absurdity of Trump's nomination is only matched by that of Clinton's; both parties have engaged in electoral self-destruction: one via split vote populism, the other by the nepotism of corrupt insiders. Both have picked the worst (or perhaps one of the worst in the Republican case) possible candidate for this presidential election.
Something like that might work on people who bought into the myth of an incorruptible Sanders. It worked for him because he was an ideologue and a broken record spouting off the same talking points that some people could identify with. He lost because that's all he was good for - he's not a man of solutions. Sanders might have scored some points by accusing Hillary of fraternizing with the enemy but it's a stretch to imagine that the same tactic would work well coming from someone who IS the enemy.
Something like that might work on people who bought into the myth of an incorruptible Sanders. It worked for him because he was an ideologue and a broken record spouting off the same talking points that some people could identify with. He lost because that's all he was good for - he's not a man of solutions. Sanders might have scored some points by accusing Hillary of fraternizing with the enemy but it's a stretch to imagine that the same tactic would work well coming from someone who IS the enemy.
And Clinton is too afraid of the media to highlight those points. I don't think the releasing tax returns is as big of an issue as releasing transcripts to big banks but that would be up to the public to decide. The point being that there are legitimate lines of attack that Trump could be engaging in but he isn't either because he's not a smart tactician or because he's too busy on twitter torpedoing his own campaign.
Trump isn't able to take advantage of it because he's not hammering home the point of...
1) Release the transcripts of your speeches to big banks
Trump isn't able to take advantage of it because he's not hammering home the point of...
1) Release the transcripts of your speeches to big banks
2) Hammering home the fact that she's a bought and paid for candidate by said big banks.
3) A smart tactician would also point out the redlining case done by some big banks as recently as 2014 and tie that into the race issue.
Bascially Trump isn't able to unleash a full volley against Clinton because he's an incompetent tactician or he has an incompetent team around him and also he keeps committing "OWN GOALS" that put him on the defensive.
Source: Clinton confidante: Sanders did 'significant damage' | TheHill
Firstly, this news article is obviously overblown --Obama went for under-the-belt tactics, just like Hillary went for the under-the-belt tactics during the 2008 primary. 2008 was far more negative than 2016. So I don't buy the implicit claim that Sanders was underhanded, or that the primary "went on too long." Secondly, I think the largest differences here are two issues:
1.) The left-wing public (meaning not just DNC loyalists, but also the Progressive Left/Progressive Independents) is exceedingly uninterested and put-off by mudslinging campaigns. In a time when people are genuinely economically hurting and have been for eight years, a personality conflict feels condescending to their needs. Bernie hit Hillary on policy and judgment issues, but they were all backed up by at least some facts and a plausible interpretation of them. Barrack and Hillary largely hit each other over nonsense, and the economic collapse hadn't happened yet, so the mood of the country was different. In the 2016 primary, Hillary tried to hit Bernie with that same kind of nonsense, too, and it succeeded for Democratic partisans --but those blows cost her among everyone else. Keep in mind that it's a general rule that if you attack a candidate with higher approval ratings, your public approval goes down. Hillary could use surrogates to viciously attack Sanders, but I don't think many people were confused over whether or not this was coming from Hillary's campaign. Everyone knew what narratives were coming from the very top (i.e. Hillary or her close advisors), and the only people who waste their breathe denying this are DNC partisan hacks or people who work for Hillary/the DNC. Like it or not, Sanders rates much more highly with non-partisan Liberals/Progressives and Independents, so the baseless attacks cost her.
2.) Hillary has this unconscionable habit of not merely going after an opposing candidate, she goes after their supporters directly. I cannot fathom this, I must imagine that I'm not privy to the right expert polling on how this helps, but Hillary's 2008 "Obama Boy" and 2016 "Bernie Bro" narratives are part of how Hillary's campaigns work. Hillary and her mouth-pieces spent 12 months going after the Progressive Left and Progressive Independents as "sexists" and sometimes far worse (a few articles, possibly funded by Correct the Record, possibly not, outright stated that Sanders supporters were white supremacists). Hillary's mouth pieces directly went after Sanders' female supporters multiple times in overtly sexist attacks, once saying that women who don't vote for Hillary are going straight to hell, another time outright stating that young women only attend Sanders rallies to find dates, another time insinuating that young women have been duped into Sanders lies because they're to young and stupid to know better, and on and on. They overtly went after all youth voters as though they were complete imbeciles who want airy-fairy, pie-in-the-sky nonsense.
So I'm not exactly certain what Hillary's team expected to happen to her poll numbers after all of this. There are consequences for how you conduct yourself in a race. I certainly went from indifference/typical anti-neoliberal dislike of Hillary, the politician, to a fervent, passionate hatred of the Clinton political machine and Hillary Clinton over the primary. I'm not certain how anyone who wasn't a Hillary-partisan would have seen the 2016 primary tactics as a means of engendering trust and approval for Hillary. You combine that with the DNC wikileaks, the pay-to-play emails, her VP choice... If you are on the Left, it's hard to have any positive sentiments aimed at Hillary. She should be very happy that she's running against Donald Trump, because it's the handicap that Hillary needs to win the presidency. So, once again, Bernie gets to be the Clinton machine's favorite punching bag and scapegoat for Hillary's mistakes and failures.
Maybe a bit.
But lets be honest here, the American Electorate has the attention span of a goldfish, most of them now, if you said Bernie Sanders they'd say "Was that the Colonels first name"?
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