ENOUGH with the "Clinton campaign didn't ask for our help" whining!

[onyxw]

78. I don't think FBI would have had same opening to insert themselves with Biden/Sanders

I'm aware of the Republican slant of FBI. No I don't think they'd have been effective against Biden and Sanders. There wasn't anything for them to insert themselves into without it being out of left field and deeply partisan. Fair or not, Clinton gave the FBI the opening with the ongoing server investigation for them to be a large part of the conversation and narrative. I'm unaware of any past history Biden/Sanders would have that would give them an opening for FBI to insert themselves in 2016. And you'd have Lynch at DOJ not being as hamstrung to oversee/counter FBI as she was after the Clinton tarmac meeting.

I think the Republicans would have attacked Bernie by conflating him as commie/socialist, sure. What's the FBI going to have? Reports that he met with folks? Photos of handshakes with people?

Here's the key with Sanders vs Clinton handling of these things. Clinton deflected and downplayed and let things linger and be drawn out. Sanders generally faced things head on and own his flaws. He'd address things and then move on. Sanders would have faced the commie/socialist thing, laid out why that's not a scary thing, he'd have to explain his democratic socialism mindset a few times along the way anyway, so he'd just have to tie the questions to that explanation. He'd probably have worn the labels and said "Yeah, so what. Call me whatever boogeyman name you like, but doesn't change the fact that income inequality is growing and there's lead in Flint's water...etc so let's address those and here's my plans". He'd answer questions until press got bored after 2-3 cycles of him agreeing and admitting he had democratic socialist tendencies in the nature of Scandinavian countries and moved on.

I'm not sure red scaring is overly effective anymore. It's meaningless on the 18-35 crowd that grew up post Reagan/Cold War. On the over 35 crowd trying to taint someone wrongly as communist/socialist probably doesn't play well with the lefties and independents who remember McCarthy and HUAC. I think it'd mainly harden Republicans and make them less easy to pry, and make it tougher to sway some independents but I'm not sure the target market of folks influenced by "Russia=bad" were going to be receptive to Sanders anyway. He'd struggle with the Cuban-American population and so he'd probably underperform Clinton in South Florida but since we lost FL anyway, at most the difference is it maybe allows Trump to focus on other swing states earlier.