On the Democratic candidates and the credibility gap

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/01/21/panic-grips-clinton-campaign-real-question-whats-wrong-hillary

The Democratic frontrunner, writes Borosage, is "sinking rapidly against a 73-year-old political maverick who is still just introducing himself to the American people."

Panic now grips the Clinton campaign. Polls show Bernie Sanders surging to a dramatic lead in New Hampshire and closing in Iowa. The Washington Post reports that Hillary's national numbers are dropping faster now than they did in 2008. The Clinton campaign has started throwing everything and the kitchen sink at Sanders, with the gutter award captured, thus far, by Senator Claire McCaskill who smeared him with the "hammer and sickle," transparently attributing the red-baiting to future Republican attacks of her own imagination.

But the question isn't what's wrong with Bernie -- he's soaring beyond all expectations. The question is what's wrong with Hillary? She has universal name recognition, unparalleled experience, the support of the big money and the political gatekeepers, the Hollywood glitz, the best political operatives, the pollsters, the ad makers, the establishment policy mavens, and political press coverage. Having learned from 2008, she's got the best ground operation in the history of Iowa caucuses that still may rescue her there. But she's sinking rapidly against a 73-year-old political maverick who is still just introducing himself to the American people.

"What is plaguing the Clinton campaign are less the sins of the past than the strategic choices of the present -- particularly her decision to be the candidate of big money."

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The result is corrosive. When Clinton insists that her Wall Street reforms are far tougher than those of Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley, it rings false. She attacks Sanders for supporting Medicare for All which naturally is the bête noire of the private health insurance and drug companies.

"When Clinton insists that her Wall Street reforms are far tougher than those of Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley, it rings false. She attacks Sanders for supporting Medicare for All which naturally is the bête noire of the private health insurance and drug companies."

When Sanders invoked the $600,000 Clinton received from Goldman Sachs alone in speaking fees (a bank that just agreed to pay $5 billion essentially for mortgage fraud) in the last debate, her only defense was to suggest that a similar criticism would apply to Barack Obama who also raised money from Wall Street. Democrats like President Obama, but the defense is pretty lame given that fact that he will leave office with the big banks bigger and more concentrated than they were when their excesses blew up the economy, and with no major banker going to jail for what the FBI describes as an "epidemic of fraud."

Moreover, Sanders has demonstrated that it is possible to generate enough true popular excitement to raise enough money from small donations to be financially competitive at a presidential level. He didn't "unilaterally disarm;" he armed himself in a manner consistent with his program. And every attack by the Clinton camp only rouses his committed and growing army of small donors to ante up again.