Her husband was elected president on the slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Hillary Clinton hopes to at least win the Democratic nomination by arguing the country has bigger problems than just economics.
That’s the subtext of Clinton’s recent characterization of Bernie Sanders, her surprisingly strong primary opponent, as a “single-issue” candidate. “I do not believe we live in a single-issue country,” has been her catchphrase since the Democratic debate in Milwaukee.
Clinton argues that Sanders focuses on Wall Street to the exclusion of Main Street economic issues, particularly those of interest to communities of color. “Flint reminds us there is a lot more in our country that we should be concerned about,” she said in New York.
“Too big to fail,” for instance, isn’t the primary driver of high black unemployment. “It’s not enough for your economic plan to be ‘break up the banks,’ ” Clinton maintained. “You’ve got to have an economic plan to help areas where unemployment is stubbornly high.”
Even confronting income inequality isn’t enough, Clinton says, because there are racial injustices that are greater than economic unfairness. “We have to begin by facing up to the reality of systemic racism,” she said. “These are not just problems of equality, they are problems of racial inequality.”
Clinton is trying to hold on to her lead among black voters by contrasting her new, more race-conscious liberalism with the more class-conscious variety favored by Sanders. This is important ahead of the South Carolina primary, where she is poised to post her first convincing win of the Democratic nomination contest on the strength of the African-American vote. This is the same bloc that cost her South Carolina in 2008.
Keeping the minority vote away from Sanders helps Clinton after South Carolina as well. The only way Sanders can capitalize on his strong showing in Iowa and landslide victory in New Hampshire is by making inroads among black and Hispanic Democrats. Without diversifying his base, Sanders can still make Clinton’s path to the nomination more difficult, but he cannot truly endanger it.
Clinton can beat a 2016 version of Howard Dean. But she will have a much harder time against someone who can recreate the multiracial Obama coalition fusing young, heavily white progressives with a supermajority of the black vote.
Sanders has tried to expand his repertoire to include issues of race, poverty and inequality, citing his involvement in the civil-rights movement during the 1960s, supporting the “black lives matter” movement and advocating criminal justice reform. But Clinton has a response to Sanders on this as well.
“Any view of black America that focuses exclusively on crime or poverty is missing so much,” she said this month. “Missing the pride and achievement that is so evident on every street here.”
If Sanders addresses economic concerns without mentioning racism, he is deemed a single-issue candidate. When he tries to tie his signature issue together with a discussion of racism, he is described as racially insensitive.
Sanders’ campaign has rubbed some black Democrats the wrong way. Several African-American Democratic strategists panned Sanders’ “America” ad for featuring few nonwhite faces. “The lack of diversity in Sanders’ ad leaves me with the impression that he doesn’t completely understand the party he is working so hard to represent,” strategist Doug Thornell told the Washington Examiner.
“When people don’t see themselves in the picture they don’t see themselves in the action,” concurred fellow Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons.
The Sanders ad ran before the votes in Iowa and New Hampshire, both states with small minority populations. In 2008, 55 percent of South Carolina’s Democratic primary voters were black.
Clinton hopes to hammer home the message that the Democratic Party’s diversity is a single issue Sanders hasn’t come to terms with yet.
Ariel Cohen contributed to this report.
