Watching 68-year-old former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton take an 11-hour beating Oct. 22 in the House Select Benghazi Hearing, 74-year old Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) tried to pointedly contrast himself with Hillary. Hillary stole all the headlines thanks to the Benghazi committee, giving her, for all-intents-and-purposes, an unprecedented audition for the Oval Office. Sanders watched Hillary suck all the oxygen out of the Democratic race, especially because she took the GOP’s best shots and came out smelling like a rose. Speaking at the Jefferson-Jefferson dinner in Des Moines, Iowa Oct. 24, Sanders pointed to Hillary’s inconsistencies on the Iraq War and various trade agreements, especially the recent Trans-Pacific-Partnership [TPP]. Sanders likes to rub it in Hillary’s face that she backed former President George W. Bush’s Oct. 2, 2002 Iraq War resolution.
Hillary’s publicly acknowledged she made a mistake, along with 76 other Democratic and Republican U.S. Senators, faced with a post-Sept. 11 world where members of the House and Senate were consumed with national security after Osama bin Laden hijacked and flew three jetliners into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and nearly the White House or Capitol. Sanders, and other politicians, including GOP front runner real estate mogul Donald Trump, like to criticize Hillary’s choice but she, like the others that voted in the House [297-133], got their national security assessments from Bush-43’s White House and Pentagon. After the CIA, FBI and NSA failures of Sept. 11, no one knew what to believe about the next terrorist attack. Pointing fingers at Iraq’s Saddam Hussein seemed to some a logical next step. With the benefit of hindsight, most agree the Iraq War was a disaster.
With Hillary dominating the headlines and coming away unscathed from the Benghazi hearing, Sanders lost precious momentum. Hillary’s professional demeanor left little doubt among Democrats who would end up with the Democratic nomination. Sanders’ Press Secretary Symone Sanders tried to soften Bernie’s pointed attacks on Hillary, the Democratic front-runner. “I saw some of the reports saying, you know, ‘Oh, the senator like smacked Hilary, slapped Hillary, attacked her,’” said Symone, denying that Bernie went negative. Sanders insists that Bernie only wants to contrast the differences with Hillary, not go negative. “The senator has a really strong record to stand on, so he’s going to stand on it,” said Sanders, proving the Vermont independents was right on most issues, especially Iraq. Bernie wants to paint Hillary to voters as a flip-flopper, not a model of consistency.
Hillary has said her positions on various issues have “evolved” over the years, accounting for changes in position. Sanders likes to point to Hillary’s past opposition to same-sex marriage, sitting on the fence until the Supreme Court ruled June 26 [5-4] to require all states to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. Bernie criticizes Hillary for her fence-sitting on the Keystone XL pipeline, something President Barack Ovbama has vetoed twice. Sanders opposed Keystone XL because of strong lobbying against the measure by the Sierra Club, claiming environment damage. Opponents, like Sanders, have a difficult time explaining how a hermetically-sealed pipeline is worst for the environment than trucking dirty oil shale from Alberta, Canada to Houston, Texas. None of the Keystone XL opponents, including Obama, can explain the pipeline’s adverse environmental impact.
Calling himself a “Democratic socialist,” Sanders turns off a lot of independent voters, looking for an alternative to the GOP’s right-wing views, including opposing to same-sex marriage and abortion, and trying, by whatever means, to repeal Obamacare. When you ask GOP candidates what they’d do to replace Obamacare, they talk of health care vouchers or tax breaks. None of the GOP’s Obmacare opponents have an alternative to Obamacare, only turning back the clock. Most mainstream voters like the idea of the government subsidizing health care, especially offering insurance to individuals with preexisting medical conditions. Hillary and Sanders hold similar views on health care, both backing a single-payer system like Medicare for all. Drawing contrast with Hillary isn’t that easy for Bernie because there aren’t to many degrees of separation between the two Democrat candidates.
Hillary and Bernie agree on most issues, especially climate change, where Republicans often take a position against the scientific community. Mainstream Republicans view climate change as artificially created by liberals to implement tougher environmental laws. Sanders said at CNN’s Oct. 13 debate, “I believe climate change is the greatest threat to our national security, so it doesn’t take me four years to get a position on Keystone,” said Sanders, still not explaining how Keystone XL harms the environment more than trucking shale oil from Canada to the Gulf. Unlike Hillary’s strong positions on foreign policy, Sanders stays focused on domestic issues, especially the ones that concern the economy and middle class. Calling climate the biggest threat to U.S. national security, Bernie shows he’s not in Hillary’s league when dealing with foreign policy.
