Presidential races

Anti-Clinton super-PAC looks to inflame intraparty tension with Sanders backers

An anti-Hillary Clinton super-PAC will spend more than $300,000 on a new mobile ad that targets Bernie Sanders supporters in the wake of the controversial Democratic National Committee (DNC) email hack that disclosed top aides rooting against the Vermont senator. 

{mosads}”Hillary’s Washington insiders rigged the system and Bernie never had a chance,” the narrator in the new ad by the Defeat Crooked Hillary PAC says.

The narrator then notes how outgoing DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who tendered her resignation effective after the party’s convention, was tapped to be Clinton’s honorary chair for her campaign’s 50-state ground game effort surrounding her departure. 

“More corruption by Hillary and her cronies — now Hillary hires her DNC chair and wants you to just roll over? Hillary Clinton — she just doesn’t get it.”

It’s aimed at inflaming the tensions within the party by keeping the latest controversy alive. 

Sanders supporters have expressed outrage at the release of the emails, pointing to the correspondence as proof that the party was working against their candidate and in favor of Clinton, now the Democratic presidential nominee. 

That frustration has boiled over at times during the Democratic Nation Convention, where Sanders supporters have shouted down speakers and staged walkouts despite the urging from Sanders and his top aides to stay united. 

A press release from the PAC adds that the group will use its analytics to target Sanders supporters at the convention in Philadelphia and in eight states. The ad is the first from the group, which re-branded itself from a pro-Ted Cruz super-PAC during the Republican presidential primary.

The group is led by David Bossie, the president of the conservative group Citizens United. Bossie told Bloomberg in an interview last month that the group is set up to help woo donors who are against Clinton but are hesitant about supporting a group that expressly backs GOP nominee Donald Trump.