Is Hillary Clinton feeling the Bern?
Wins by Sanders in Iowa and New Hampshire could be game changers, proving – as President Barack Obama did by winning Iowa in 2008 against Clinton – that Sanders is electable and shift the tides in SC in his favor, Sanders’ S.C. director Chris Covert says.
The growing concern may affect Clinton’s performance in the final debate before voting begins in the Democratic contest.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley announced his bid in Baltimore. Hillary Clinton is concerned about her “rational message”, which isn’t necessary adequate for a restless Democratic primary electorate. As for Mrs. Clinton’s discourse, it does nothing but question Mr. Sanders’ ideas.
The Times article is based on interviews with 11 people campaign advisers, outside allies, friends and donors who have spoken to the Clintons about the race.
The next president needs to be someone to calm down the American people “put Humpty Dumpty back together”, he said. “But that recent trend line, a function of two new national polls that were close after a bit of a lull, is not very good news [for Clinton]”, Bump wrote. Unfortunately, Chelsea Clinton misrepresented Senator Sanders’ position, and her premiere performance on the stump backfired, producing a flood of political donations to Sanders. Gun control has emerged as a central theme in the race, with Clinton citing it as one of the major differences between the candidates.
It’s make or break time, with a little more than two weeks to go before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses. “She’s performed solidly enough, but it’s been a hard race”. So it’s likely that electability will be hotly debated on Sunday. Clinton campaign senior strategist Joel Benenson said the Sanders ad marked a new phase in the campaign but would not commit to responding in turn with a similar ad. The campaign noted that Sanders pulled a digital ad in December that the senator felt fell into a gray area of negative campaigning. Monday, he will appear at a King Day rally in Birmingham, Alabama, with Cornel West and Nina Turner, a former OH legislator who made waves when she jumped from Clinton to Sanders last fall.
“They’re taking Sen. Sanders much more seriously, and I think at this classic point of the primary, you need to punch back”, he said.
The new dynamic will be on display in SC this weekend, when the Democratic candidates attend a party dinner and then a fish fry hosted by Clyburn ahead of their next debate tomorrow. They are offered impossible choices: “Do they condemn their partners and thereby destroy the legacies and legitimacy they have helped to build, and if they do not, do they become culpable in those partners’ misdeeds?” says Rebecca Traister in Chicago Tribune. And in New Hampshire, Sanders – a longtime senator from next-door Vermont – leads Clinton by six points.
Though Clinton is clearly positioning herself as the more pragmatic candidate who could work with Republicans to pass legislation, most voters and politicians (Republicans included) have no expectation that the next president will be able to get any more done than President Obama has with the Congress of the last eight years.
Many had thought that the party establishment had cleared the way for her nomination. “It also would have given her the kind of fight in which she thrives”.
Sanders will be featured in next month’s issue of Ebony magazine and on Sunday in a debate in SC sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, he will have a chance to connect with black voters and post up against the former secretary of state on issues like criminal justice reform, education, and the economy.