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Sanders did "significant damage" to Hillary during primary

The mistake being made is that some conservatives think that would provide advantage. It wouldn't.

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.
 
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.

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.
 
Sanders did "significant damage" to Hillary during primary

not really. it was still a coronation, for the most part, and the other side nominated a really poor candidate. if she wants to be president, she'll have to deal with worse problems than Sanders.
 
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.

Since not all Sanders supporters went to Hillary, Trump isn't automatically "the enemy". Furthermore there are still independents who might also like that line of attack.
 
Neither Sen. Sanders nor Mr. Trump, two clowns in my book, did anywhere near the damage to Sen. Clinton that Sen. Clinton does.
 
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.

He lost because he refused to go on the attack while being decisively outgunned in terms of money and spending until late in the nomination, and because the DNC did its damnest to stifle it with a debate schedule specifically engineered to throw shade on Clinton's competitors who had zero name recognition. Again it is extremely telling that even with Clinton's litany of advantages, her insurmountably strong initial position against Bernie with 50-60%+ of Dem support vs his ~3%, her wholesale support by the Dem establishment and incredible initial advantages of name recognition, popularity, money and resources, she won by a pathetic margin of 54 - 46%. Imagine if the DNC wasn't putting its thumb on the scale; it is entirely conceivable he may have succeeded.

As solutions went, he offered better ones than Clinton (some of which she absconded with) with a comprehensive platform.

Meanwhile, there is little to impugn Sanders' integrity (lol, 'myth of incorruptibility', please; even if he's not 100% incorruptible, he is substantially less depraved than any other candidate from either side of the aisle), vs Clinton's sprawling closet boneyard of itemized failures and controversies.

Lastly, I don't doubt that hitting Clinton with her connection to big finance/corporates won't be _as_ effective when coming from Trump vs Bernie, but there is no doubt it will do damage because the charges are fundamentally true and damning, and because Trump has sufficient distance from those same influences.
 
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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.

I think the taxes are far far far more of a bigger deal since every prez candidate in recent memory has done it and Trump has made his wealth a pillar of his credentials to be president. I agree that Clinton should release those transcripts but the precedent is nowhere near as strong the tax returns is.

Clinton wants to be the "smartest girl in class" and she does not want to admit when just did not know the technology part of the server problem. Which is strange because I suspect the vast majority of the American public could sympathize with that.

The right is hitting the transcript issue hard because they simply want to make the point that Clinton is a whore with legs spread. That makes her a big time politician and Trump is working the room across the hall. Neither has any room to proclaim their purity or virginity.
 
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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

He cannot demand she release anything until he at least releases his tax returns.
 
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.

I agree, I think it's now indisputable that Trump cannot sell himself to the American public at large. I find it bizarre, too, because back in the Spring I was 50-50 on the fence that he was a brilliant tactician who knew how to hone his message. But he is on the national stage now, and he (like Clinton) is up against one of the most flawed candidates in US history, and he has no idea how to make his lands blow. It's incredible. I could sell his immigration policies better than he can. He understands that he needed to pull the youth vote, the anti-establishment, and do damage-control with minorities, but he keeps on doing everything that makes no sense if he actually wants to be elected come November.
 
Speaking of Sanders, he hasn't been around. Somebody needs to drive by Fort Marcy Park.

Sent by telegraph
 
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.

I have a feeling nominating Hillary will come back to bite them in the ass. Hard. (It's already starting to).
 
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"?

That's what happens to people with 10 minutes of fame. There's nothing memorable about Bernie. He's just another politician who sold out.
 
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