Why Hillary Clinton’s Democratic Opponents Only Throw Softballs

Republican presidential candidates are already running hard against Hillary Clinton. Hours before she announced her campaign for president, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul released an online video accusing Clinton of “corruption and cover-up, conflicts of interest,” calling her “the worst of the Washington machine.” Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush challenged her on her use of a personal email account while she was Secretary of State. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz asked a crowd, “How can the American people trust her with another position of power?”

In the Democratic primary, things are very different.

Clinton’s three top likely challengers — former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb — have notably refused to criticize Clinton’s ethics. All three have avoided mentioning her private email account, her handling of the Benghazi attacks in 2012 or the controversy surrounding the Clinton Foundation fundraising, among other popular GOP lines of attack. Aides from several of the emerging campaigns told TIME they don’t plan to do so, either.

“We’re not going down that road,” said Tad Devine, a top advisor for Sanders’ campaign. “We’re not going to run a negative campaign.”

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The other candidates have chimed in on policy occasionally, too. Before he announced his candidacy, Sanders suggested that Clinton isn’t ready to confront the “billionaire class.” Webb said earlier this month after Clinton gave a speech about criminal justice reform that that he had been talking about those issues “for nine years.”

More here: http://time.com/3851301/hillary-clinton-democratic-primary/