Hillary Might Be Better Off Next Nov. If She Doesn't Allow EMILY's List To Offend Bernie's Supporters With Their Ugly, Aggressive Lies

Dream ticket

Aside from the lesser of two evils approach she will eventually win or lose the general election on, Hillary's most salient appeal is that it's time-- past time-- for a woman. But she shouldn't use that argument up in the primary. Attacking Bernie as somehow sexist is really stupid. First of all, it isn/t even remotely true-- it's Carly Fiorina/Donald Trum/Ben Carson/Marco Rubio territory false-- and Democratic voters know it. This wasn't written by a Bernie partisan:

Let’s discuss first the charge, then the truth and then the impact of Hillary Clinton’s false charge that Bernie Sanders is a sexist during their recent debates over gun control.

Here is the charge: Mr. Sanders has been saying that nothing is achieved by politicians “shouting” about gun control. In response, Ms. Clinton replied she was not “shouting” in her advocacy and implied that when men—in this case Mr. Sanders—say women are “shouting” they are being sexist.

Here is the truth: Bernie Sanders is not a sexist.

Period. Exclamation point. End of discussion. Mr. Sanders has a stellar and uncompromising history of supporting the range of rights and aspirations for women. He and many other male and female politicians often use the word “shouting” as a figure of speech applied equally to men and women in the course of political debate. Ms. Clinton knows this well. She also knows very well that Bernie Sanders is not sexist.

If this column offered a truth-o-meter, this political attack by Ms. Clinton that Mr. Sanders is sexist would earn the maximum number of Pinocchios.

Here is the effect of this Clinton charge against Bernie Sanders: first, it does not enhance her reputation for being trustworthy, which is in need of enhancing, and second, it angers supporters of Mr. Sanders, who she will desperately need to vote for her in November 2016 if she is ultimately the Democratic nominee for president.

“Who doth ambition shun” wrote Shakespeare in As You Like It. The rap against Ms. Clinton, which sometimes concerns even many of her supporters, is that sometimes in order to win an election she plays fast and loose with words, with the result that she generates an abnormally high level of distrust from voters.

The sad and strange thing about the bogus attack by Ms. Clinton against Mr. Sanders when she suggested he is sexist is that it was both wholly false and wholly unnecessary. At the very moment Ms. Clinton was regaining strength after her strong performance before the Benghazi committee-- after an assist from Mr. Sanders, who showed his character and integrity defending her over the emails during the debate—she regressed to the kind of low blow that accounts for the kind of distrust she often generates.

...Whatever the merits of the gun control debate, Bernie Sanders is not a sexist. His comments about “shouting” had nothing to do with his views about women. The Clinton charge of sexism was both false and offensive to supporters of Mr. Sanders.

Bernie Sanders is the candidate of conscience for progressives. On issue after issue-- including issues of vital importance to women-- Mr. Sanders has been a leader and champion in the House and the Senate, year after year, decade after decade. He has talked the talk and walked the walk in good times and bad, under Democratic and Republican presidents and Congresses, whether his positions championing progressive causes were popular or not.

It is a political mistake of the first order of magnitude for Ms. Clinton to falsely charge Mr. Sanders with sexism. This charge is transparently false, unworthy of the Clinton campaign and unworthy of the Democratic party.

Budowsky is right to point out that her "charge of sexism was both false and offensive to supporters of Mr. Sanders." And, if she wins the primary, she can't win the general if his supporters don't turn out for her. Her policy positions are already ugly enough without her giving them more reason not to. And if he wins the primary, if she continues to be so mean, she won't have a chance to be the first woman vice president. Remember, he's still ahead in New Hampshire and, continuing to catch up in Iowa. USAToday and the Des Moines Register write that both have grown in popularity in the state and that the gap between them has slimmed to 7 percentage points, 48% to 41%, without Joe Biden in the race."

Matt Brunei comes at the Hillary/EMILY's List-- of course it was their idea-- trope that Bernie is a sexist from an entirely different position. Each campaign has approximately the same proportion of men to women, she has a few more women and he has a few more men. "There simply isn’t a gender demographic divide... If you wanted to write about demographic divides, it is age and race that matter in the Clinton/Sanders fight. Gender doesn’t even register." Yesterday Dante Chinni wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "Sanders’s strong numbers with young voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as his high 'positive feeling' number nationally, suggest he could play a significant role for the Democrats in that fight next fall, even if he doesn’t win the nomination." If Hillary keeps following the deranged EMILY's List approach-- demonizing progressive men-- it will do the same thing for her it did for Wendy Greuel, Colleen Hanabusa, Martha Coakley, Nikki Tinker, Alex Sink, Michelle Nunn, Marjorie Margolies, Kay Hagan, and Emily Cain... lose her the race. EMILY's List is poison. Hillary better be as careful of them as other successful Democratic women have been, keeping them at arm's length from her core campaign.

And Clinton's false, ugly charges about sexism, pissed off Bernie and his campaign in a big way.

“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.”

...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.

And, if you would like to see someone in the White House governing by principle... give Bernie-- and the congressional candidates who have endorsed him-- a hand.




UPDATE: Tim Ryan, Hillary, Guns...

I noticed that Hillary's surrogate in New Hampshire today is Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan. Ryan has a good record on trade and some other economic issues. There are some issues though, where he and Hillary haven't been in sync. She would love the primary to be about how much better she is than Bernie on gun safety. Her score from the NRA is an admirable F. Bernie is an admirable D-minus. Ryan is no where near as good on guns as Hillary-- or Bernie. He got an A from the Buckeye Firearms Association and, although he's been better lately, as recently as 2009 the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence gave Ryan (Tim, not Paul) a ZERO score. The NRA has given him an A and the last rating I could find from them for him was an 83% in 2012.

Ryan has also come around on Choice lately. As recently as 2006 NARAL rated him a zero and a 50% in 2009. Since then, NARAL has given him top ratings and Planned Parenthood's PAC gave him a 78% for the years 2009 thru 2014. Maybe Hillary is going to make him as good a Democrat as Bernie is on those issues. But I doubt it.