On Fox News’s Special Report this week, Steve Hayes suggested Hillary Clinton is vulnerable in her march to the Democratic nomination for president and that Vermont senator Bernie Sanders could be the one to cut into her support.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if Bernie Sanders has a moment now,” said Hayes. “He’s not going to be the Democratic nominee. But could he have some enthusiasm?” Hayes cited a recent Wisconsin Democratic party straw poll that showed Sanders with 41 percent support to Clinton’s 49 percent support. And two polls of New Hampshire Democratic primary voters show Sanders within striking distance while Clinton is beneath 50 percent support.
“Could he be a placeholder for somebody else to come in and take on, challenge a vulnerable Hillary Clinton in a serious way? I think that’s an open question,” Hayes said. Watch the video below:
Is this really a moment for Bernie? After all, Clinton stills leads him and the various other Democratic candidates in the national primary and early primary state polls. Clinton’s lead nationally, according to RealClearPolitics average of polls, is 47 points, and she’s ahead by 43 points and 42 points in Iowa and South Carolina, respectively. Sanders could be having a better-than-average showing in New Hampshire, his home state of Vermont’s next-door neighbor, that doesn’t reflect much of anything in the wider field.
But these polls might just as well be lagging indicators of dimming enthusiasm for a Clinton coronation within the Democratic primary process. In his speeches, Sanders touches on a number of concerns the party’s liberals have after what many consider a frustrating tenure for President Obama. Sanders has a progressive message—he focuses on income inequality, the security state, the pernicious influence of money on politics, and more spending on social programs—with a populist tone:
There’s a moral element, too. “In my view, there is something profoundly wrong when the top one-tenth of one percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom ninety percent. There is something profoundly wrong when ninety-nine percent of all new income generated in this country goes to the top one percent today,” said Sanders. “Are you comfortable with that?”
For Sanders, the gross wealth inequality means the rich have not only corrupted our culture and society but our government and politics as well. We don’t talk about these inequality issues, he said, because “the folks who essentially own the country would prefer us not to discuss” it. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which removed limits on donations to outside political groups and which Sanders calls “one of the worst” in U.S. history, has opened the floodgates for moneyed interests in politics. In fact, Sanders said, he would consider support for overturning Citizens United as a “litmus test” for any Supreme Court nominees he would name as president.
More in tune with the party faithful on policy and in tone, Sanders has jumped into the space many progressives hoped Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren might occupy. The self-described socialist comes across as a true believer where Clinton’s feints to the left look transparently transactional. Consider the most divisive issue within the Democratic party: trade. Sanders’s opposition to trade promotion authority aligns him with the House Democratic caucus. Clinton, meanwhile, was unwilling to take a firm position on the issue before or after last week’s vote. That’s a vulnerability Sanders could exploit in debates and on the campaign trail.
Speaking of the trail, don’t discount the retail politics element in a place like New Hampshire. In person, Sanders is funny and oddly endearing, a much more affable candidate than the one Barack Obama once called “likable enough.” Since the beginning of the year, he’s visited New Hampshire 13 times, more than any other Democratic candidate or near-candidate.
If Sanders is willing to actually campaign against Clinton—and he looks to be doing so half-heartedly so far—the New Hampshire polls won’t be outliers. They’ll be harbingers of a much more difficult primary fight than Clinton, or anyone for that matter, imagined.
