May 12, 2016 – New polls are causing a bit of a stir within the political establishment, citing Bernie Sanders’ large lead in a Sanders/Trump mashup. Articles have appeared over the last few days asking for wake up calls for the Democratic party leadership, and the obvious loss Clinton would experience in a Trump race. In every poll Sanders experiences a strong lead against Trump, casting him as the obviously electable candidate – a far cry from mainstream media’s portrayal of a campaign without a chance.

Sanders Trump Lead

Real Clear Politics 51.8 38.8 +13

CNN 56 40 +16

IBD/IPP 50 38 +12

USA Today 52 37 +15

Battleground 50 40 +10

Fox News 53 39 +14

REF: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-5565.html

Let’s fast forward to July. The contested National Convention has arrived and Senator Sanders is the democratic nominee. The previously unpledged superdelegates have fallen in line with reality, and choose to back the electable candidate that the people have supported most. This brings us to a general election race between Sanders and Trump.

The presidential candidates are making their platforms clear, launching ad buys, and even possibly fabricating attack ads. This becomes Trump’s first problem in a race against Senator Sanders. What is there to attack? Trump has been quoted as saying Sanders is “crazy”, however rhetoric does not damage a presidential candidate. If it did damage a candidate, we likely wouldn’t be mentioning Donald Trump in this article, because he’d have been out of the race long ago.

While Hillary Clinton sits in her glass house, the Trump campaign eyeballs her, knowing that they can pull out a well documented decades long history of bad votes, sketchy money, and inappropriate behavior as an official – and use it as potent ammunition in advertisements against her. On the other hand, looking at Sanders campaign they feel less confident in discrediting their opponent. What can they find to attack Sanders with? Playing the “he’s a socialist” card didn’t work for Clinton and her shady superPac Correct The Record, so there’s no reason to believe it will work coming from someone even less credible than her. The “They just want Free Stuff” offense while certainly annoying, is weak tea when it comes to attacking an opponent.

They could try to attack his progressive ideals, but that method has been tried by Clinton as well, and in the process Bernie has won 19 states. As for personal integrity attacks…there simply are none. Those only really work when there is at least a degree of truth that can be twisted. Trump could make up all kinds of lies on Twitter and maybe get some clever hashtags to trend but that won’t help come November. Such ads or social media attacks would be easy to discredit for the nominee that has lived his senatorial career transparently.

A Clinton and Trump election race yields different results. Hillary Clinton has baggage like no other Presidential candidate before. Trump and his campaign team will have an absolute field day with her and the he can stick to truth. The internet is almost bursting at the seams with destructive content and that method will have an effect on her. No doubt, they have already compiled the list, it’s just a matter of when they do it. As she waits for a possible indictment, Trump and his people drool at the possibilities. The confirmed FBI investigation into her email setup while Secretary of State, the dark money to her foundation, finance issues from the Hillary Victory Fund…the list goes on and on.

Trump’s campaign has clear fodder against Clinton, and will simply need to advertise truth to alienate her support base. In this contest, against the two most widely disliked candidates in the history of the presidential elections, it’s a choice between the devil you know or the devil you don’t. In these theoretical contests, it has been shown that Clinton does not have the voters needed to maintain a democratic presidency. Lacking trust in her, the American people have distanced themselves from Secretary Clinton’s ideals. She continues to flip flop on issues when large special interests donations are involved. Clinton elected as the nominee at the national convention in July is the Democratic party choosing a Trump presidency for America.

Sanders’ Immunity to Trump attacks is just another rung the ladder of his overwhelming elect-ability and the only choice to maintain progressive ideals in the United States of America.