I say all that to set up “Zany Professor,” the latest NRCC ad in the race for New York's competitive, rural 19th District. With Rep. Chris Gibson (R-N.Y.) retiring, the race has pitted Republican former Assemblyman John Faso against Zephyr Teachout, a law professor who ran for governor in 2014 and began her political career working for Howard Dean's 2004 run. (I profiled the race in September.)

In 2014, Gibson pasted Sean Eldridge, the self-funding husband of Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, who had moved into the district pretty much to run for Congress.

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In the ad, Faso, and the NRCC, call Teachout a “professor,” because in Faso's words she is an “ivory tower elitist.” The “Zany Professor” ad throws all subtlety out the door, portraying a (fairly decent) Teachout look-alike as she:

1. Reads “Socialism for Beginners”

2. Uses pencils from an “I Heart Vermont” mug

3. Drags her mouse across a mousepad that portrays her and Sanders as “Best Friends”

4. Scrawls the higher taxes she wants on a chalkboard

5. Hangs a houndstooth coat with a “Socialists for Bernie Sanders” button on it (and a peace sign button)

6. Displays a Che Guevara portrait (and Bernie action figure*) on her desk

7. Works from a laptop with a Bernie 2016 sticker on it

8. Wears Birkenstocks

It's a memorable ad, I'll give it that. Frankly, in pure aesthetic terms, it's welcome break from the parade of “shady donor” and “voted against bill that would have deported sex offenders” ads that tend to dominate House races.

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But who is it for? One reason for the underrating of Sanders's early appeal was a sureness, among political analysts, that “socialism” was a political atomic bomb. It didn't seem wrong — even after the Sanders campaign, just 35 percent of voters said they had a favorable view of “socialism.” The millennials who sort of like the idea of higher taxes on the wealthy paying for lower health insurance and tuition costs remain outnumbered.

Sanders, however, is popular. While he lost the New York primary, he won most of NY-19. Polling before the primary found Democratic and Republican voters viewing him more favorably than Clinton. Teachout has not brought Clinton to the district; she has brought Sanders, for a rally of hundreds of people in New Paltz that was bigger than a lot of crowds Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) gets.

This ad represents the sort of attack that never actually got launched against Sanders. In the Democratic primary, he was only hit from the left (on guns, mostly). Since he never made it to the general election, he escaped with his popularity intact. There is literally no figure in the Republican Party as popular with the average voter as the socialist from Vermont. The hoary tax attack on Teachout makes some sense, but the attempt to weaponize her support from Sanders is a bet that swing district voters don't like what he represents.