Sanders sharpens his elbows

As Hillary Clinton enjoys the best phase so far of her presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders and his aides are seeking the right approach to counter her.

Sanders aides believe he can find a sweet spot that is more aggressive than he was during the first Democratic debate in Las Vegas — where Clinton was widely seen as the winner — but not so antagonistic as to turn voters off.

{mosads}But other Democrats and outside experts believe that could be a hard needle to thread. As the skeptics see it, Sanders risks undermining his appeal as a different kind of politician if he goes after Clinton at full force, especially given his frequent promises to run a positive campaign.

Sanders aides were especially irked when Clinton herself recently implied that Sanders had been sexist in remarks on gun control.

After Sanders suggested that “shouting” about the issue did not accomplish much, Clinton said, “I haven’t been shouting, but sometimes when a woman speaks out, some people think it’s shouting.”

“If there is going to be this other campaign of sniping and insinuation then that is going to precipitate a reaction from us,” Tad Devine, a senior adviser to Sanders, told The Hill. “That reaction would take the form of a more direct setting-out of policy differences.”

Those differences would likely encompass Clinton’s recent embrace of more liberal positions on issues such as free trade and the environment. Sanders has a long record of advocating for progressive policies.

More generally, Devine also suggested that to unilaterally disarm would be to allow Clinton’s team to dictate the dynamics of the race.

“The reality of presidential campaigns — and I think campaigns at every level — is that if you have conflict you have coverage. And if one side is engaging in conflict and the other is not, the coverage is going to be one-sided against the side that is being attacked.

“If they are going to do this back and forth about sexism, we have got to talk more about whether she can fulfill some of the promises she is making about the big banks and so on.”

The Sanders campaign was on the defensive on sexism more than once this week. A second instance came when Sanders’s campaign manager Jeff Weaver lightheartedly suggested in an interview with Bloomberg’s John Heilemann that the campaign would be “willing to consider” Clinton as the Vermont senator’s vice-presidential nominee, adding, “We’ll even interview her.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-28/bernie-sanders-brain-trust-says-he-can-beat-hillary-clinton

Christine Quinn, a former New York City Council Speaker and Clinton ally, hit back by telling Politico that Weaver’s remark was “arrogant and sexist.”

Tobe Berkovitz, a Boston University professor who specializes in political communication, told The Hill: “Bernie Sanders has committed to running a positive campaign and yet one of his staffers slips up and HillaryLand goes after him like a demon.”

Alluding to a maladroit Mitt Romney soundbite from the 2012 campaign, Berkovitz added, “Basically they are pummeling him like he said ‘binders full of women’. It’s really unfair but it shows that the Clinton people are much more aggress and brass-knuckle.”

Sanders is taking the gloves off himself, however, even if is for now throwing jabs rather than haymakers.

At the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner last weekend — a major event in the run-up to that state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses — Sanders assailed Clinton repeatedly, albeit without naming her.

Referring to Clinton’s recent declaration of opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which she had once called the “gold standard” of trade agreements, Sanders said, “I did not support it yesterday. I do not support it today. And I will not support it tomorrow. It is not now, nor has it ever been, the gold standard of trade agreements.”

Sanders also pledged that, if he were elected president, he would “govern based on principle, not poll numbers,” a remark that echoed then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s speech at the equivalent event in late 2007.

Not everyone is persuaded such attacks will be as effective for Sanders as they were for Obama, however. Referring to recent comments by the Vermonter’s aides, one unaligned Democratic strategist who did not want to be named said that the “negative hits on HRC” showed a “failure to recognize that voters don’t punish candidates whose positions move in their direction — but do punish candidates who don’t evolve.”

In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday, Sanders said, “Of course, we are going to talk about her record. She is talking about my record. That’s fair. So, you know, I think you’re going to see some give and take and we will give back as strongly as we get.”

But when Blitzer said, “That’s a threat,” Sanders demurred, “Not a threat.”

The new assertiveness of Sanders’s approach at least underlines that he is going full-bore to win the race.

Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons said that was important in itself, since it helped push back suggestions that the self-described democratic socialist was running to raise issues and perhaps push Clinton leftward rather than to actually triumph.

“Yes, it will be challenging to thread the needle of criticizing her while offering a positive agenda,” Simmons said.

“But a big moment that Sanders has to answer came the night that Larry David portrayed him on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ The final joke was that he was aiming to be Hillary’s vice president. The last thing that Sanders needs if he truly wants to win the White House is for people to think he is not really aiming to do so.”

Sanders’s newly sharpened approach may at least put those doubts to rest.