Would Bernie Sanders be able to withstand torrid GOP pummeling?

By David Brock

Friday, Feb. 19, 2016 | 2 a.m.

Can Bernie Sanders take a right-wing punch?

Vox.com recently ran an article about a subject worth exploring further. It had the headline “Give a little thought to what a GOP campaign against Bernie Sanders might look like.”

I’ve given it some thought, imagining that I was still operating in the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” as I did in the 1990s.

Here’s what I’ve come up with.

First, there’s the obvious stuff. Sanders will be dubbed a tax-and-spend socialist. Marco Rubio already has said Sanders ought to run for president of Sweden, not the U.S. (This one might be hard to defend against, as Sanders describes himself as a democratic socialist, and both his health care and paid-family-leave plans call for tax increases on the middle class).

Republicans will attack the substance, not just the $15 trillion cost, of the government takeover of health care. For instance, what’s the role of doctors in the public system? “Death panels,” anyone?

Next, in a reprise of the malicious Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign portraying John Kerry as a traitor, Sanders will be called “unfit for command.”

One proof point: As the Daily Beast recently reported , in 1980 Sanders was on the ballot as an elector for a fringe political party called the Socialist Workers’ Party, which traces its ideological lineage to Leon Trotsky. At the time Sanders was affiliated with it, the party called for “solidarity” with the Islamic revolution in Iran while that nation was holding U.S. diplomats hostage.

No, I’m not making this up; right-wing website NewsMax recently documented it, and I have no idea how Sanders would explain it.

Also in the public record are quotes from the early 1970s in which Sanders analogizes U.S. military atrocities in Vietnam to the Nazis and Hitler. The U.S. atrocities are certainly a terrible historical fact, and given the complex feelings that linger about American involvement in Vietnam, I leave it to others to judge the aptness of the analogy. But I do know in right-wing hands these quotes will be distorted into “Sanders hates the troops.”

Less obvious is the tried-and-true Karl Rovian method: Turn the enemy’s strength against him.

Republicans will try to flip Sanders’ brand. The noble progressive floating above the grimy political fray suddenly will be made to look like a typical flip-flopper playing politics as usual.

Sanders pledged that his health care plan wouldn’t tax the middle class, but it would. Sanders promised never to run negative ads, but he broke his promise. He was against comprehensive immigration reform before he was for it. He was elected with National Rifle Association backing and supported the gun industry’s liability exemption until criticism from Hillary Clinton forced him to move left. Sanders voted for regime change in Iraq before he voted against the war and subsequently voted to fund it.

You get the picture.

Another Rovian trick is to depress the opposition’s vote. Here the GOP will cite a treasure trove of attacks by Sanders on the Democratic Party, its ideas and its leaders. For instance, Sanders once said the sight of John F. Kennedy nauseated him. Then there are his anti-President Barack Obama statements, including calling for a primary challenge to the president in 2011.

Finally, there will be death by a thousand adjectives, all in support of the idea that Sanders is fringe-y, far-out and bizarre — not like you and me. John Kasich already has depicted Sanders as “floating around Pluto.”

None of this is to say that inevitable and unfair Republican attacks are a reason for Democrats not to vote for someone. If that were the case, Democrats ought to withdraw from the election because there is no doubt that any Democrat running for office will be demonized and lied about by the well-oiled conservative attack machine. Just ask Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Kerry or Obama.

But it is worth considering whether Sanders and his campaign are prepared for the type of withering assault he has been spared by rival Democratic campaigns and the news media. Is he ready in the way Clinton and Obama were and Gore and Kerry weren’t?

Sanders isn’t the fresh face his supporters may imagine; he has a trainload of baggage. Voters ought to be able to assess now whether Sanders has the fortitude to survive such attacks, and what his answers will be when his extensive record is challenged — either with the truth or with distortions.

We all know by now the story of the 25-year campaign by the right wing to wreck Clinton at every turn. We know what the Republican ads against Hillary will look like; in fact, Rove and his wealthy backers are already running them to help Sanders damage her.

But we also know Hillary can take a punch. She has not only gone up against the GOP machine, she has defeated it (see Benghazi). Hillary’s nothing if not resilient.

Can the same be said about Sanders? I don’t know, and that worries me.

David Brock rose to fame as a conservative attack dog on Bill and Hillary Clinton, then shifted to the left and founded the press watchdog Media Matters for America and the fact-checking Correct the Record to debunk attacks on Hillary Clinton.