Guest,#, it is the oldest argument tactic in the world to find your most vulnerable area, and attack your opponent first on that topic. Republicans have been doing it for years. Accused of Fascism? Call your opponents "Feminazis". Accused of racial bias because of your nasty attacks on a black president? Tell everyone you hate him because he's a liberal, not because he's black...gosh, we never even noticed, we're so color-blind in the Republican Party. Accused of cozying up to the Klan? Well, didn't everybody know the Klan sprung up in the south in opposition to reconstruction, a Republican process, and in states that consistently voted democratic until the mid-1960s? Therefore they were an offshoot of the democratic Party, who are liberals, and therefore the Klan are liberals. Like Obama.
If your candidate refuses to condemn the Klan, why waste time defending that fact? Go on the attack...the Klan are liberals!
The tactic is obvious. What is more difficult to understand is why reasonable people fall for it.