Quote:
Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis
Once he starts going through the grinder you can quite obviously expect him to take some hits. With Trump his negatives are already priced in, Bernie has a lot more beating up to take.
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If you're a political junkie, or even just a moderately well-informed citizen, it's easy to forget that a great many people do not follow politics at all. The Arizona debate set a record for the Democratic primaries with 20 million viewers; that's 1 in 16 Americans. I'd guess most Americans know next to nothing about Sanders, beyond the vague impression of an old dude talking about free health care and other socialist stuff. The first picture many of these voters will get of him will be the attack ads Trump puts out.
And he's very vulnerable on some of the radical stances from his past. A 28 year old software developer in Seattle probably doesn't care Sanders expressed admiration for the Sandinistas. But to a 67 year old Latino in Miami, or a 52 year old pipefitter in Ohio, those attacks will stick.