Let the anti-Sanders red-baiting begin: Hillary’s super PAC wants you to know he’s a socialist

[Catherina]

Tuesday, Sep 15, 2015 11:30 AM CAST

Let the anti-Bernie Sanders red-baiting begin: Hillary Clinton’s super PAC wants you to know that he’s a socialist

The pro-Clinton group Correct the Record places Bernie Sanders within the international socialist conspiracy

The Bernie Sanders 2016 boom has reached a critical threshold: it is now significant enough to be the target of nonsensical attacks from the Clinton universe. Sanders has been coming on hot in recent polling, overtaking Hillary in New Hampshire and threatening to pull even (or ahead) in Iowa. Up to this point, Clinton’s campaign has barely acknowledged Sanders’ existence and has maintained its critical focus on the Republican presidential candidates. But as the Huffington Post reports this morning, the Clinton-aligned super PAC Correct the Record is now dabbling in some very silly attacks on Sanders, looping in the democratic socialist senator as part of the international socialist conspiracy:

...

THE RED MENACE! As HuffPo lays out, the gist of the email is that Corbyn, a long-serving socialist Member of Parliament, has made some “extreme comments,” and that there are “similarities” between Corbyn and Sanders. Correct the Record is also apparently trying to make the case that Sanders was totally best buds with now-deceased Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez:

...

This is the sort of lame degrees-of-separation attack that hapless conservative bloggers have deployed against Barack Obama for the better part of a decade. A controversial person said a controversial thing, and Obama/Sanders has a tangential, superficial link to that person, so clearly there’s a huge scandal here. It’s a tactic you see deployed when one side has an interest in portraying its opponent as dangerously extreme, but lacks any real, compelling evidence of their opponents’ disqualifying radicalism. Correct the Record is highlighting the radicalism of a third party, drawing the thinnest of lines back to Sanders, and claiming to be troubled by the “similarities” they’ve just invented.

I’m also genuinely puzzled as to the political logic behind this attack. It’s difficult to see how transparent red-baiting of this sort would find a sympathetic audience among liberals and Democratic primary voters. Claire McCaskill, a Senate colleague of Sanders and a Clinton supporter, tested out a similar version of this attack over the summer, going on TV and calling Sanders “extreme” and “too liberal” and reminding everyone that “he’s a socialist.” The party and its base have spent the past seven years rolling their eyes at people like Sarah Palin who describe everything the Democrats do as “socialism” – why would they respond favorably to an intramural version of this same dumb jab?

...

http://www.salon.com/2015/09/15/let_the_anti_bernie_sanders_red_baiting_begin_hillary_clintons_super_pac_wants_you_to_know_that_hes_a_socialist/

[SonderWoman]

1. Hot take.

[MoveIt]

16. Sanders supporters are mean to point out the red baiting

The meanies!

[TheFarS1de]

2. With friends like these ...

who needs enemies . Looks like the Republicans are everywhere now , a few of them just rebadged and called themselves Democrats , I mean what's in a name ? Really .

Actions speak louder than words .

[Ed Suspicious]

11. They've been almost republicans for a while. Socially liberal fiscally conservative is pretty damned

republican.

[NCjack]

3. What? You mean that guy there holding a sign that says "i'm a Socialist Democrat is ..." /nt

[Catherina]

6. I'm shocked. Shocked! n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Well time to run for them darn hills.

Protect women and children!!!! A, a, a RED!!!! Gasp!!!!

[sabrina 1]

5. Lol, red baiting is so 'fifties! I'm laughing because how many young people

even know WHY this is supposed to MEAN anything? More likely they will say 'Great, that's exactly what we need'!

But let them spend all those billions in Dark Money wasting their time trying to attack Bernie with stuff no one but THEY seem to think matters?

And what would you expect BUT red baiting from someone like David Brock?

Who though we wouldn't find out who was behind it!

Seriously, if I had all that money to spend, I would hire INTELLIGENT people, and I would demolish my opponents on the ISSUES.

Negative personal attacks. Just what the American people want to hear and see.

However, this latest lame attempt does have on good aspect to it. It EMPHASIZES Bernie's message on the corrosive, corrupting effects of money in politics.

He can USE it now as an example when he talks about this topic.

I mean if they are going to spend millions on this kind of thing, why let it go to waste? WE can use it!

[davidpdx]

17. Well I'm sure you know Brock's history

I read his book Blinded by the Right. Considering he spent years smearing the Clinton's (and of course Anita Hill) and then had a change of heart and became their best buds speaks volumes about all three of them. Brock is the king of smear and is good at his job. His time with The Heritage Foundation and The American Spectator trained him well for that.

[sabrina 1]

18. Oh yes, it speaks HUGE volumes about all three. I was not aware until this

happened that the Clintons had embraced this smear monger. Last I heard, they had refused to accept his apology after he decided that his right wing buddies weren't treating him very well.

I did not read his book, never trusted him, was glad to see the internal fighting between him and the rest of his gang. But other than that, my theory is 'leopards don't change their spots' and if you really ARE sincerely sorry, great, go forth and do good, but NEVER deign to lecture those who do not have your immoral past.

He was on probation and has now violated that probation, returning to his past behavior.

Far as I am concerned, he simply proved those of us who never trusted him, correct.

If smearing people in order to defeat political opponents was wrong when he was doing TO the Clintons, then it is wrong when he does FOR the Clintons.

He's toast and no one deserves it more as far as any credibility as a person to be trusted. My feeling is he would run right back to where he came from if it benefited him personally.

[Fearless]

7. Well their last "revelation" was a boom for Bernie's fundraising

So, frankly, have at it!

[SoapBox]

8. Agh...the smell of desperation in the morning!

And Mr. Blockhead, uh, Brock...bring it...since it lookes like each time you try to slime Bernie, he's going to gain at least a million in donations!

Smooth move, Mr. ExLax!

[Jack Rabbit]

9. How completely ridiculous

Ask Bernie if he's a socialist and he'll tell you that he is.

Yes, I would prefer the next president be a socialist over one bought and paid for by crooked bankers and industrial polluters.

[PatrickforO]

10. Smart post. You've brought up a really good point in

that last paragraph. Maybe the GOP and it's attack dogs have cried the proverbial 'wolf' once too many times.

[beam me up scottie]

12. Her PAC is finally catching up to her supporters on DU.

Millions of dollars will now be spent swift boating Bernie and that means they'll never run out of material.

[eridani]

13. Our military is a communist dictatorship that conservadems have no problems with

Big nanny state provides food, clothing and shelter, and in return you do whatever you are told to do.

If it's a public good, it's Marxist. Urban fire departments are supported by property taxes. The more your property is worth, the more you pay. That would be “from each according to his abilities.” But they don’t send a truck out unless you have a fire. That would be “to each according to his needs.” That’s how public goods work—we all pay, and when we need them, they are there. (Rural fire departments are anarchist, as in Kropotkin and mutual aid. In the 19th century, anarchism was called “left communism.”)

Smearing "socialism" is basically an attack on public goods.

[reformist2]

14. And they think this will hurt Benrie among Dems exactly how??!! #outoftouch

[corkhead]

15. ... and damn proud of it!

[awoke_in_2003]

19. I hear

that he wants to fluoridate our water.