Bernie Sanders
Related: About this forumBernie Sanders’s Vision Makes Hillary Clinton Camp See Red
Republican presidential candidates dominated television sets in Iowa and New Hampshire this past week, but a commercial for Senator Bernie Sanders, Two Visions, captured the most attention, largely because of how Hillary Clintons campaign responded to it.
Mr. Sanders addresses the camera to the sort of plunking xylophone music often heard in pharmaceutical or insurance ads. There are two Democratic visions for regulating Wall Street, he says, over a snails-eye shot of soaring Manhattan office towers. One says its O.K. to take millions from big banks and then tell them what to do. Animated pictograms show a faceless banker in a suit handing over a bag of cash to a couple with two children and a stroller, beneficiaries of the plan he bluntly sums up: Break up the big banks, close the tax loopholes and make them pay their fair share to fund health care for all and universal college education.
Message
A direct contrast with Mrs. Clinton, though she is not named, who is criticizing Mr. Sanders on health care and gun control. Hitting back, he paints Mrs. Clintons promises to regulate Wall Street as disingenuous, reminding astute listeners of her millions of dollars in financial-industry donations and paid speaking fees over the years.
Response
As the ad was beamed into homes in Iowa and New Hampshire, the Clinton campaign cried foul, calling it a negative attack and a violation of Mr. Sanderss high-minded pledge never to run such an ad, ever. Mr. Sanders and his team denied this characterization. Instead, they pointed to a Clinton commercial a day earlier that, without naming Mr. Sanders, suggested that he stood with the firearms industry and against both Mrs. Clinton and President Obama on the subject of expanded gun control laws.
Impact
The Clinton campaigns outrage, real or feigned, was a gift to Mr. Sanders. His ad drew extra news attention as a result, perhaps the most valuable currency in this presidential cycle. And the caterwauling from Mrs. Clintons headquarters only amplified the growing sense that her campaign was suddenly in a dogfight.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/us/politics/from-bernie-sanders-the-negative-ad-that-wasnt-or-was-it.html?_r=0
Proserpina
(2,352 posts)The "sudden" part is the MSM finally taking notice, mere weeks before Iowa.
thesquanderer
(11,955 posts)It's being linked in tons of articles about Clinton's response. Tons of free ad time for the Sanders campaign.
By all means, please proceed, Madame Secretary.