How to Increase Bernie’s Negatives
Put yourself in the shoes of David Brock. You have a tough job. You have to somehow increase Bernie’s negatives. Your problem is that your standard tools, like opposition research, are not producing any actionable intelligence on Bernie. In an ironic twist, the candidate you need to take down doesn’t have many skeletons in the closet.
But David Brock is a professional, and he’s teaching us a magic trick: if you can’t move the candidate’s negatives directly, you can still affect the numbers indirectly by adjusting the negatives of the candidate’s colleagues or supporters.
What this teaches us is that *any* candidate’s negatives can be affected. All it takes is money and coordination. You need to be able to rely on a handful of journalists and pundits to stick to the talking points, and they have to be pretty skilled at acting. Even if they aren’t particularly good at acting, at minimum they must stick to the script like a magnet, just keep saying the same thing.
I’m sorry to report that Brock’s efforts have had the desired effect. In my case, it is my brother-in-law: he was explaining to me that Bernie is imploding, stressing the violent behavior of the “Bernie Bros” in Las Vegas. I calmly explained that the empirical evidence doesn’t jibe with the narrative, but he would have no part of it; he dismissed my analysis as a conspiracy theory.
As a progressive, I am a big fan of peace and justice. I think we all are. So it is very painful to and unnatural to take my emotions out of the picture and say touché to David Brock. While I strongly oppose his goals, I have to admit that his team has done an amazing job. He surprised me by doing something that is very difficult: he knocked Bernie off of his pedestal.
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She's a pro at that - she's even good at doing it to herself. 
