What do you do when your opponent starts beating you in national polls? When he goes on a winning streak through a stretch of primaries and caucuses, many of them landslide victories?
From the Clinton Campaign themselves: you try to disqualify your opponent. Go for their very core.
And for Bernie Sanders, that’s his honesty and integrity.
Here’s the latest outrage from the Hillary Clinton campaign: Bernie’s gone negative, what a shame. He’s not fit to lead! He promised not to say any bad words about Hillary Clinton, but he did. He broke his promises — clearly, he’s just a lying old man who has fallen from grace. We cannot trust him.
Hillary and her supporters are now trying to paint Bernie Sanders as a slimy politician.
Is this the truth? Or simply a false narrative and a campaign strategy?
In Teacherken’s post, “Bernie Sanders's Campaign Past Reveals Willingness to Play Hardball,” he points to a few times in the past when Bernie appears to have had a personal opinion about someone, and then made a negative public comment (context not so important) toward his opponent. The implication is that Bernie is a man who plays dirty too, even though he says otherwise. Teacherken also sums up the position of what seems to be a large swath of Hillary supporters: that Bernie’s “fall from grace” in the 2016 cycle is his “insinuations” of Hillary being corrupt. This is Bernie’s newly “negative” campaign.
We cannot trust him, Ken whispers lightly. And other Hillary supporters scream it loudly.
The problem here is not Bernie Sanders, or even his supporters. The problem is what Bernie and his supporters are pointing to: Hillary's very own actions, which suggest that she is not beyond the influence of lobbyists and corporate interests. The problem is that Hillary is a shining example of our corrupt campaign finance system, the very thing the Sanders movement is trying to overcome.
Hillary is immersed in the root of the problem. So, attacks on her campaign finance methods are going to be perceived by her supporters as “negative attacks” on her. Really, the attacks on Hillary are her own doing. Highlighting her record, and her methods, is simply her own philosophy and actions coming back to haunt her.
Just as much a problem is that Hillary supporters will not even acknowledge that her donors even may — just maybe — have some sway over her. This is, after all, what big donors expect when they fund her campaign and coffers. Are they giving altruistically? Logically and historically, no.
Hillary supporters, we Sanders supporters rationally wonder why you won’t even admit that it is shady for Hillary to not release the transcripts! Or if so, it’s not a big deal at all. That’s quite a leap of faith to be defending so strongly.
Hillary supporters, we logically wonder why you say it’s a necessary evil to fund a campaign this way — even though Bernie Sanders is literally proving otherwise. We wonder why Hillary’s supporters claim the corrupt finance system is a necessary evil, and then simultaneously denounce that it is corrupt or that it is evil.
You can call it negative to bring that up. But to not say it would be to let the people be fooled.
Here’s the thing. It must be pointed out that our political system is corrupt, and what makes it corrupt is the very thing that Hillary is doing. Bernie is saying: listen everyone, don’t be naive here. Our political system is broken, and whether Hillary is a great person or not, Hillary is doing the very thing that makes our politics broken. I am different. This is why I am a better choice. See for yourself.
Hillary certainly doesn’t want people saying this about her. Hillary supporters are going to see this as negative. But really, Hillary just represents everything we are fighting against: political bribery.
No, we’re not going to skirt the issue, and Bernie Sanders shouldn’t have to. Even if you can find instances of him saying something truly negative, one or two of these instances will not mean he’s gone negative. It is not reasonable to claim: “Bernie is not being the perfect angel he said he would be, and therefore he’s a liar and a bad person.”
That’s a part of the strategy, to paint him that way.
Doesn’t make it true. Look at what Bernie Sanders is saying in light of what we’re trying to accomplish, and how we’re trying to distinguish our approach. We are trying to distinguish by bringing up the realities of political bribery. We couldn’t care less about Hillary Clinton except that she and her supporters are trying to deny this very likely reality, and they are standing in the way of what we believe is a much better, more democratic system. Do you really think we just want a political punching bag? No, we want to save our political system and our democracy, and there is so much evidence saying that Hillary is part of the problem — and that you don’t readily fix the problem that you’ve become, or even just personally benefit so much from.
Hillary and her supporters can now claim Bernie has “gone negative,” and therefore, it is OK for them to do the same. They will paint Bernie as a liar, a hypocrite, and a bad person — the same thing that Hillary is being so perpetually accused of. And you know, negative or not, I will tell you what Bernie has not been doing to Hillary. He has not been misrepresenting her views. But that’s Hillary’s entire way of attacking Bernie, by red-baiting, distorting his views, his votes, and his character. NRA-loving-Bernie and healthcare-starting-from-scratch-Bernie are the most obvious evidence of this deceptive strategy. Hillary knows these things aren’t true. She is simply being a part of the old politics: a politics of dishonesty.
It’s a ruse. It’s just another political deception, and ultimately, a distraction from the issues.
Thankfully, very few Sanders supporters are buying into the distraction.