Ken Berwitz
How desperate is Hillary Clinton\’s campaign becoming?
Desperate enough to trot out daughter Chelsea Clinton to attack her opponent/left-wing favorite Bernard “Bernie” Sanders – to the chagrin of a good many Democrats.
Chelsea Clinton is stepping onto the 2016 battlefieldagainst Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a shift that some Democrats areinterpreting as a sign of trouble for her mother’s presidential campaign.
Making her first solo appearance on the stump, ChelseaClinton late Tuesday ripped Sanders over his proposals on healthcare andcollege affordability, arguing the White House hopeful wants to “dismantle” ObamaCare and Medicare.
Democrats have almostuniversally panned the attack, believing it to be ineffective and a misuse ofher talents.
“The thing that tells you as much as anything about [theClinton campaign\’s] current state of mind is Chelsea going on the attack. Ittells you everything you need to know,” said one Democratic strategist. “Thatthis [challenge from Sanders] is real and they\’ve got to be freaking out.”
The Democrat strategist cited above has got it right…but is either not seeing, or not telling, the complete story.
The most significant issue here is not just that Bernie Sanders himself is a challenge. The most significant issue is that someone like Bernie Sanders – a nondescript, far-left career politician from a small state – is a challenge.
If Bernie Sanders can be this much of a threat to Ms. Clinton, what happens if/when someone else – a far more formidable someone else – belatedly jumps in “to save the party”? Say, someone who declined to run months ago for familial reasons, but regrets doing so every day?
I doubt very much that Bernie Sanders can ever get a sniff of this nomination. But I don\’t doubt for a second that a more viable alternative can – like, for example, Joe Biden. And he may not be the only one either.
That Ms. Clinton has to devalue her own family with the sorry spectacle of her daughter – whose qualifications begin and end with being her daughter – being sent out to do the hatchet-job of a James Carville or Sidney Blumenthal, tells you how deeply in trouble this candidacy really is.
