Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
I expect we'll find a lot of this stuff is baked in. If you attack Sanders over some construction of "socialism" before voters who aren't technically-minded about ideologies, it just plays into Sanders' brand as an "authentic" truthteller and contrarian who says common-sensical things.

The electorate is familiar with Sanders by now, at least superficially. They've heard that he's a socialist before. Why would it make a big impact now, especially once the conflict is clarified to a one-on-one between him and Trump? It's possible, but I'm not worried.
The electorate might be familiar with Sanders, but they never had to decide on whether or not to vote for him outside of Vermont or primaries. I wish I had as much faith in you that the electorate will overlook it in a general election.

What's that? When he called Maduro a dictator?
When you have headlines like this, it can be harder to spin it away. Again, it feeds into the narrative.

The Hillary corruption narrative had been cultivated by the entire right wing media and political machines for 25 years before that election. They hit her in the weak spot they had engineered. As I point out above, "socialism" for Sanders is almost like an opposite valence.
To you, maybe.

Right, and it doesn't mean the opposite. Look at the fundamentals, which include polarization and at least half the population who hate Trump. Any old Democrat has a good shot on paper. The real danger is in the ratfucking that you know is coming.
Ok, and I agree there will be a lot of shenanigans going on. But that doesnt refute my main point if an opponent seems to really want a certain person to run, it pays to try to figure out why.

It's part of a study purporting that nonvoters in swing states may be friendlier to Republicans to Democrats, so turning out more voters would in that case backfire. Though the findings are weakened by the high rates of "Other" or IDK responses. The implication is supposed to be that nonvoters tend to dislike the parties and like perceived outsiders (e.g. Trump and Sanders).
But would they vote? Seems like a hell of a gamble to me.

Obviously he's more popular than we like, that's not the same thing as having the advantage.
Both GWB and Obama were at around the same percentage at this point in the race. Barring some gigantic scandal (well, more than impeachment anyways), I think he has just as strong of an incumbent advantage as his predecessors did. Combine that with voters having a pretty good outlook on the economy, Id say more voters are sadly likely willing to overlook the whole corrupt wannabe dictator thing.