Bill Scher is the senior writer at the Campaign for America’s Future, and co-host of the Bloggingheads.tv show “The DMZ” along with the Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis.

The candidate to beat at the Democrats’ first debate on Tuesday isn’t Hillary Clinton—it’s Bernie Sanders. The campaign’s socialist Cinderella presents a huge conundrum not just for the tenuous front-runner Clinton, but also for the scrappy also-rans: Lincoln Chafee, Martin O’Malley and Jim Webb. For all of them, Bernie is in their way. But because Sanders is not a typical politician he cannot be dislodged with the typical attacks.

The Washington Post’s Amber Phillips once listed all the ways Sanders reminds us of “our grumpy grandpa.” To attack him directly would be akin to kicking someone’s grandpa in the face.


Yet, for the rest of the field, something must be done about him. Clinton is outright losing in New Hampshire, and Iowa is too close for comfort. Meanwhile, Sanders is sucking up so much left-wing oxygen that Chafee, O’Malley and Webb haven’t even gotten an audition for the role of Guy Who Is Not Hillary Clinton. (And if Vice President Joe Biden jumps in after the first debate, the window for getting that audition may slam shut.)

The debates provide the first opportunity for Sanders’ rivals to shake up the direction of the race, even if it is an opportunity fraught with risk.

While many Sandernistas have been agitating for more debates, fearing that the Democratic National Committee's shrunken schedule of six debates is rigged to help Clinton, the reality is that the debate-free summer did wonders for the Sanders campaign. He was able to amplify his message, unfiltered, with a steady stream of megarallies, while Clinton was up to her neck in email muck.

Some complain that Sanders hasn’t received his share of media attention. That’s another way of saying Sanders has yet to take his turn in the campaign crucible, with the requisite barrage of fair and unfair questions about his platform; about issues outside his wheelhouse, such as how he would handle ISIL, Syria and Russia; and about his more controversial opinions from decades past, such as ending compulsory education and legalizing all drugs.

Instead, Sanders has largely gotten a free ride, allowing him to be cast, at least among white progressives, as the Democratic Party’s conscience. Democratic “base” voters may not all be socialists like Sanders. They may not subscribe to, or even know, every aspect of Sanders’ shoot-the-moon platform. They may not even believe he can win the general election. But they certainly embrace Sanders’ classist diagnosis of what ails America, his commitment to cut Wall Street down to size and his condemnation of an “oligarchy” dominated by corporate campaign cash.

Die-hard progressives are not interested in the Sanders’ narrative being challenged as overly simplistic or politically untenable. But debate moderators will likely do it anyway, looking to both put Sanders on the spot and goad the others into criticizing him. How might his rivals react?

Clinton has already signaled what her approach to Sanders will be: use her innate wonkery to draw implicit, not explicit, contrasts.

Recently she made a point of including in her gun control package the repeal of liability protection for the manufacturers of guns used in crimes, a National Rifle Association-supported law that Sanders backed while serving in the House. In a televised town hall Monday, Clinton took a swipe at Sanders’ plan for free public college tuition, characterizing it as too broad: “I am not in favor of making college free for Donald Trump's kids.” In both cases, she didn’t mention Sanders’ name, but the media filled in the blanks.

Such comments either help Clinton get to Sanders’ left or, more provocatively, cast a skeptical eye toward the thoughtfulness and practicality of his proposals. Don’t expect her to overtly label Sanders as quixotic. But even subtle jabs carry risk. One must remember that Clinton has played the pragmatist card before, and lost.

She was burned badly in the July 2007 debate when she tried to portray Barack Obama as naïve for saying he would personally meet with the leaders of Iran, Cuba and North Korea in his first year. “It’s not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are. I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes,” she said. A perfectly reasonable answer … that completely backfired by failing to signal a big enough break with Bush administration foreign policy.

And her oh-so-careful answer to an October 2007 question about drivers’ licenses for undocumented workers proved to be another disastrous turning point in her ill-fated campaign. She tried to justify a proposed New York state plan to provide licenses without fully embracing it: “I did not say that it should be done but I certainly recognize why Gov. [Eliot] Spitzer is trying to do it.” Sen. Chris Dodd pounced, “Wait a minute. You said ‘yes.’ You thought it made sense to do it.” The exchange seared in the public mind the image of the over-calculating Clinton.

The fact that it was Dodd who cornered Clinton is an important reminder: also-rans are debate wild cards.

Dodd never broke out of the bottom tier of candidates and eventually dropped out after scoring a goose egg in the Iowa caucus. But in that one moment, Dodd significantly altered the trajectory of the race; Clinton’s poll numbers in Iowa headed downward after that debate and never recovered.

Similarly, it was Al Sharpton who twisted one of the final screws into the coffin of Howard Dean’s campaign in a debate one week before the 2004 Iowa Caucus. Sharpton humiliated Dean for failing to have a person of color in his gubernatorial cabinet. This was a bit of a cheap shot; Vermont’s population was 98 percent white and the cabinet totaled six people. But Dean’s response was wobbly, leaning on endorsements from minority politicians. Sharpton blasted back, “I think you only need co-signers if your credit is bad.” Like Dodd, Sharpton came up empty in Iowa, but he took his target down with him.

Which is why we should not assume that the forgotten O’Malley, Chafee and Webb will stay forgotten. How they choose to approach the debate matters immensely to both Clinton and Sanders.

While taking on Sanders carries enormous risk for Clinton, the risks are greatly diminished when you are already hovering around zero percent. So they may be inclined to take their chances and take a whack or two or 12 at him.

O’Malley’s super PAC has already run the only negative ad in the Democratic primary to date, knocking Sanders’ gun record. And O’Malley is pushing the most ambitious gun control proposal in the race. He could try to undercut any attempt by Sanders to minimize their differences on guns.

Chafee has been mainly focused on foreign policy, tacking to the left of Clinton by stressing his vote against the Iraq War and calling for the end of drone strikes. But many voters do not know that Sanders is to the right of Chafee on drones. On NBC’s “Meet The Press” this past Sunday, Sanders said “yes” when asked if he was “comfortable with the idea of using drones if you think you’ve isolated an important terrorist.” Chafee has every incentive to inform the public of Sanders’ stance, and drive a wedge between him and his more pacifistic supporters.

Jim Webb, the most conservative of the field, serves as a stand-in for the white working-class voters Democrats have lost in the past two decades. He carries an economic populist message similar to Sanders’, but with a better track record of using it to win votes in reddish areas. He may be the most comfortable with raising the issue of Sanders’ socialist label and arguing it threatens his general election viability.

And how might Bernie handle being put on the hot seat for the first time in the campaign? He’s been close to unflappable in interviews so far this year. But the Boston Globe examined his past debate performances and cautioned that, “[h]e can get defensive. Insults lodge under his skin. He turns bright red and can display a flaring temper.” The Globe also reported that Sanders “is showing little appetite for the traditional debate preparations,” a dicey move considering Sanders will have never participated in a presidential-level debate before. An unprepared Sanders may be prone to blow a fuse at an inopportune moment.

That’s a concern for Sanders only if the target is on his back. It’s just as possible that the bottom-tier candidates pile on Clinton, letting Sanders hover above the fray. Or everyone may opt for dullness and resist the moderators’ attempts to sow discord, worried that any attack would simply boomerang.

To duck a fight with Sanders is to bet that Sanders will fizzle on his own, which is entirely possible. Closer proximity to Election Day may prompt voters to increasingly prioritize electability over purity, popping the Sanders bubble much like his fellow Vermonter Dean. But while waiting Sanders out may suit Hillary fine, it wouldn’t do much for the bottom three. If any of them wants a breakout moment, especially with Biden waiting in the wings, now is the time.