Hillary Clinton, who came in to the 2016 presidential race so strong, is now fledging – dangerously close to being usurped by a resurgent Bernie Sanders. Clinton went through this before in 2008 and her aides are reportedly afraid that history will repeat, with Clinton’s presidential aspirations once again dashed by a rival candidate much better equipped to speak to the roots of his party.
Hillary Clinton’s best moment came in the wake of the Benghazi hearings. Republican congressmen like South Carolina congressman Trey Gowdy tried and failed to pin that terrorist attack on Clinton and thus slander her time as Secretary of State during the Obama years. Gowdy was seen sweating and nervous while Clinton was calm, collected and in command for the nearly 12 hours that the hearing went. Clinton even provided a few zingers like “I’m sorry that it doesn’t fit your narrative, congressman. I can only tell you what the facts are.”
Rolling Stone said that Gowdy handed the presidency over to Clinton with that hearing, while Clinton charged renewed in to the Democratic race with double digit numbers ahead of candidate Bernie Sanders. What changed?
The ultimate problem of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy was its professed inevitability. She is easily the most experienced candidate in either party – boasting decades of experience in government. Experience may work when you’re applying as a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs but experience is not what voters seek – they seek someone who shares their concerns and speaks their language. This was a problem for her in 2008, when she was usurped by then Senator Barack Obama and it is a problem now as she runs against Bernie Sanders. It’s a problem again because Clinton’s candidacy is resting on experience just as it did in 2008, only with Secretary of State added to the list of her accomplishments.
Like 2008, this is a “change” election. Donald Trump dominates the Republican field over establishment candidates like Chris Christie or Marco Rubio because of his lack of political experience. In one debate, he even boasted that he had only been a politician for a few months but already was dominating polls among Republicans by “a lot.”
Clinton cannot sell “change.” Even if she has never been president, she has been high in the echelons of power for decades – as first lady, as senator and as secretary of state. We have seen how things play out with her in power – much of Obama’s foreign policy was shaped by Clinton, including interference in Libya and Syria that could be seen as helping to create ISIS.
There are many holes in Bernie Sanders’ candidacy that Clinton could have broken in on. Firearms have exploded as an issue in the United States in recent years, in a way never really seen before in the country’s history. Sanders has been on both sides of the issue – he has voted with the National Rifle Association many times and, up until very recently, had a talking point that he didn’t let go of on the issue – the rural/urban divide. His home state, Vermont, had little gun control and Sanders often said that “urban America needed to respect hunting and what rural America is all about.” It’s the sort of talking point that conservatives stipulated for years whenever the issue came up.
Near weekly shootings changed things, however. President Barack Obama enforced universal background checks by executive order – a move that Bernie Sanders said he unequivocally supported. He even brought the issue in to his narrative, characterizing Republicans as being dominated by pro-gun lobbying groups. Clinton attempted to bring up Sanders’ pro-gun past but failed as he embraced Obama’s reforms while attacking her from the left on most other issues as well.
Sanders, an unabashed and self-described democratic socialist, may also be gaining momentum from President Obama’s final State of the Union. Obama, in his last SOTU, made a series of pronouncements that sounded like Sanders himself could have said them, such as “Food stamp recipients didn’t cause the financial crisis; recklessness on Wall Street did.”
Other bits of his speech, such as “After years of record corporate profits, working families won’t get more opportunity or bigger paychecks by letting big banks or big oil or hedge funds make their own rules at the expense of everyone else; or by allowing attacks on collective bargaining to go unanswered,” sounded almost as if Obama was opening the door for a Sanders candidacy.
Sanders’ appeal is positioned with his timing – politics is more raw in the United States than it has been in the past. Where once it was dominated by moderates who promised, on both sides, less government, it is now abundant on both sides with politicians who promise bold government action. On the left, it’s Sanders, who advocates for expanding Social Security benefits, raising the federal income tax on corporations, increasing veterans benefits and expanding health care benefits toward some sort of universal health care. Much of the same is actually shared by Donald Trump on the right, who has coupled various left wing policy proposals with heightened nationalism and xenophobia, including calls for the deportation of the country’s Hispanic immigrants and Muslim population.
The real impact of Sanders’ advantage at the critical point before voting really demonstrates with a demographic that Clinton, who would be the first female president, should have in the bag – millennial women. According to one report by The Hill, a prominent Washington D.C. political journal, Sanders maintained a 19 point lead among young women as of mid January.
Voting has yet to occur but polls are indicating that Sanders, like Obama in 2008, is hedging on Hillary Clinton’s territory by providing a candidacy that connects more with the interests of Democratic voters. In a race where Democrats may face off against the closest the United States has ever had to a genuine fascist candidate, someone who can present democratic socialism clearly to voters is a critical asset.
Your hate for Hillary is predictable and disgusting. Who are you kidding?
Bernie is a false candidate, who delivers grand programs at the last moment, fails at all his saintly nonsense, makes impossible promises, worst of all, to the youths (“If you want a revolution, vote for me”). Loses his patience in the face of the slightest disagreement from his fellow debaters. His 15 an hour is more nonsense. If Hillary had said 15 an hour, he would have said 18. His gun record is deplorable. The man can’t remain cool under any circumstances other than complete agreement with his poorly though out beliefs. It’s shameful, that he turns every argument into another opportunity to babble on about how the rich have all the money. A 16 high school student with poli sci hopes, knows the crap this guy keeps repeating, over and over.