Bernie Sanders’s campaign for president next year is likely to produce a huge favor for the Democratic Party’s frontrunner, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Sanders is an unapologetic socialist. He’s an independent U.S. senator from Vermont. He’s going to attack Clinton from the left as the two of them seek their party’s presidential nomination.
The favor? It will be that Clinton will be seen as the mainstream candidate and — perhaps — more palatable to the vast middle-of-the-road sea of voters who dislike extremists on either end of the political spectrum.
Republican candidates and members of the TEA party wing of the GOP try all the time to label Clinton as some kind of “closet socialist.” Well, she’ll be running for her party’s nomination against the real thing.
Sanders has no qualms about extolling the virtues of wealth redistribution, which is a socialist tenet. Clinton doesn’t say such things — out loud, at least. That doesn’t stop her fervent critics from hanging the socialist label on her.
So, look for Hillary Clinton to welcome Sanders’s attacks. She’ll parry them easily and possibly deprive her Republican foes a key weapon in their own arsenal against the probable Democratic presidential nominee.