Progressives: There's a lesson to learned if you'll simply look south of the border.

Instead of getting upset when the warmongers make bogus accusations of collusion between Putin and Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders, and anyone not named Hillary, simply stop taking baseless accusation seriously.
Allow me to present socialist presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO.
Back in January, as his campaign was gaining popularity, Washington came out and accused him of being a Putin Puppet.

The news that Washington has detected Russian interference ahead of Mexico’s July presidential election was revealed last weekend by the daily Reforma, some three weeks after McMaster gave a speech at the Jamestown Foundation in which he noted, almost casually, that U.S. intelligence had picked up “initial signs” of Russia’s “sophisticated campaigns of subversion and disinformation and propaganda” in the Mexican election.
...Observers started noticing months ago that the Kremlin’s unofficial television network, RT, which is available in Mexico, started giving vast amounts of time to López Obrador’s main English-language spokesman, John Ackerman. Lopez Obrador recently announced that Ackerman’s wife will join his cabinet if he wins the election. And an RT program host even described Ackerman as “Our man in Mexico.”

AMLO had a choice to make. He could a) ignore the accusations, or b) he could deny the accusations and fire anyone that is accused.
AMLO chose c) to make a video mocking it.

Ya no soy peje, ahora soy AndresManuelovich pic.twitter.com/L1fzb5QGgX

— Andrés Manuel (@lopezobrador_) January 18, 2018

“I’m standing here waiting for the Russian submarine,” he says, staring at the ocean. “It will be bringing me Moscow’s gold.” López Obrador then mocks Javier Lozano, one of the PRI’s spokesmen, who this week warned against possible Russian intervention in Mexico’s electoral process.” I am now Andres Manuelovich,” he says with a chuckle before adding a rather lame joke about a parrot he owns.
If only it were a laughing matter. López Obrador needs to get serious and sort out a potential conflict of interest within his team before shrugging off any suspicion of Russian influence in his campaign and, crucially, his now likely future government.

Yes, López Obrador needs to take Russiagate seriously, says the so-called serious people at the Washington Post who are pushing this bad joke.

So what did López Obrador do?
Instead of taking this joke seriously, he incorporated the joke into his campaign.

Mis asesores, los rusos de Tuxtla Chico, Tepetitán, Catemaco, Zacapoaxtla, Tlaxiaco, La Yesca, Mocorito, Imuri, Bácum y de muchos otros pueblos, me recomiendan no pelearme y nos ha ido requetebién. Miren esta encuesta. pic.twitter.com/uGUQXNYeJq

— Andrés Manuel (@lopezobrador_) March 12, 2018

Translation: "My aides, Russians from Tuxtla Chico, Tepetitán, Catemaco, Zacapoaxtla, Tlaxiaco, La Yesca, Mocorito, Imuri, Bácum and many other localities recommend that I should not fight."

This is in reference to the fact that the #2 and #3 candidates are both attacking each other with accusations of corruption (which is entirely true in both cases).

Instead of "taking it seriously", AMLO is having a blast with it, and so are his fans.

Translation: "Russians from Tuxtla Chico are with Andrés Manuel. Go "Morena", go."

Of course, by not taking this joke seriously, he's obviously paid at the polls, amirite?

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor, saw his effective lead rise to 42 percent support, according to the survey in business newspaper El Financiero, up from 38 percent in from the paper’s prior poll in February.

AMLO now only leads in the polls by 18% and rising.