In that regard Bernie Sanders is still Hillary Clinton’s straw man Had it not been for Hillary Clinton, Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders would never have been in the 2016 Democrat primaries. True that the then 75-year-old Sanders would have been the same old, same old Vermont senator spouting off his crazed Socialist ideas from Senate back benches, but he became Clinton’s straw man in 2016 primaries—to keep anyone with a better chance of winning DNC sanction—leaving the coast clear for a soon-to-be-defeated Hillary Clinton.