Commentary on Charlie Rose tonight...

[winter is coming]

4. The biggest challenge there is that Sanders isn't ashamed of who he is.

Most of the time, when one politician attacks another, it's for something they did that they hoped no one would notice. Their first reaction is usually to deny and equivocate, and it's often the weasel-worded answers that do them in. If nothing else, the protracted denials keep whatever "it" is in the spotlight for several news cycles and call into question the politician's trustworthiness on other issues.

Just the other night, Jorge Ramos was trying hard to get Sanders to say that his vote against the Brady Bill was an error. He asked him that question three or four times, even though Bernie's immediate response was a flat no, followed by an explanation that it was a complicated bill. IMO, he was hoping to get Bernie to give some sort of weaselly answer he could later be attacked on.

So, yeah, people are going to try to paint Sanders as a scary socialist, but he's not going to apologize for being a democratic socialist. Despite hyperbolic and unproven "but he says he's a socialist, and people won't vote for an admitted socialist" assertions, I think that most Dems and unaffiliateds under the age of 60 (and some over) aren't going to be scared off by him. They might not vote for him in the primary, but they'll give him a fair audience.