Hillary Clinton says early lead in polls was ‘artificial’

Hillary Clinton, in early primary states. The same survey showed Clinton leading in a 51-40 percent match-up just a month ago.

Sanders campaign spokesman Michael Briggs said the senator had “spent a career standing up to powerful special interests whether they be Wall Street, big banks or Big Oil or the pharmaceutical industry, you name it”.

Sanders’ underdog campaign said it is seeing a surge of contributions as a direct result of the new attention it is getting from the Democratic front-runner, with money coming in at almost four times the average daily rate reported in the last quarter of 2015.

“Sen. Sanders wants to dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the CHIP program, dismantle Medicare, and dismantle private insurance”, Clinton said in New Hampshire Jan. 12. “We engage on substantive differences”, Clinton said, commenting on the rhetoric of Sanders’s latest ad, in which he said there were “two Democratic visions” for regulating Wall Street. When President Obama had majorities in both chambers of Congress, I sat in the White House for a year pressing for the public option, a much easier lift that was, let’s be honest, a bridge fuel to single payer, and got nowhere. But that doesn’t mean she should be complacent at all. Obviously she is part of the establishment that Wall Street has showered with financial support. “Sanders’ plan would do”.

That ad similarly featured the candidate narrating the spot, in which Clinton said she stood with US President Barack Obama on holding firearms manufacturers accountable for gun violence.

The Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll suggests that Democrats are most concerned about the “values” of the candidates and confidence in their ability to change the way the government works for the better. “There’s a subset of Democrats who would prefer Bernie but who have decided he can’t win and decided they will support Clinton”.

It was more or less inevitable that if and when the Democratic primary tightened (particularly in Iowa and New Hampshire) what started as a friendly exchange of ideas would get more than a little bit pointed.

In recent days, Clinton has stepped up criticism of Sanders for failing to say how he would pay for a health care plan that some have estimated to cost $15 trillion. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), swiped at her in a television ad.

Any Clinton supporters looking for a reason to panic should consider the way the campaign attacked Sanders on health care this week.

After noting she and Sanders are close, host Jimmy Fallon reminded Clinton that she once “had a 20-point lead at one point”. Others argue that Clinton may have waited too long to step up her attacks in order to draw sharper distinctions between Sanders and herself. “It tells you everything you need to know”, said one Democratic strategist. Redlawsk, the Rutgers professor, agreed that Clinton may end up getting some mileage out of her attacks on Sanders.

“The truth is we already have a plan”, Sanders said, referencing his 2013 proposal for expanding Medicare.