Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) were forced to watch each other’s campaign videos last night, with Clinton profusely declaring that the Simon & Garfunkel spot that’s light years away from the tone of her ads was “fabulous.”
Top Clinton ally David Brock, who’s behind the Correct the Record super PAC, snarked last week that Bernie’s ad is too white: “From this ad it seems black lives don’t matter much to Bernie Sanders,” Brock told the Associated Press.
Sanders, meanwhile, had to watch Hillary’s ad highlighting problems around the globe and arguing “she’s the one leader who has what it takes to get every part of the job done.”
Bernie stood up to give his response. “All right, let me shock everybody here. This is true. I’ve known Hillary Clinton for 25 years,” he said. “You know what? I like Hillary Clinton and I respect Hillary Clinton. And Hillary Clinton has devoted her life to public service and I have tried, as I hope you all know, not to run a negative campaign, not to be attacking every other day, to keep this discussion on a high level, where we debate the issues facing this country.”
Then he went into ripping Clinton’s Iraq war vote in the Senate. “In other words, yes, I do think I have the background and the judgment to take this very, very difficult job of being president of the United States,” Sanders said.
During Clinton’s time at the CNN town hall in Iowa, she was shown his sunny “America” ad that some pundits are calling the best campaign spot of 2016 so far.
“I think that’s great. I think that’s fabulous. I loved it,” Clinton gushed after watching the ad.
“You know, look, you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose. And we need a lot more poetry in this campaign and in our country. So, I applaud that. I love the feeling. I love the energy,” she continued. “I obviously respect Senator Sanders greatly and appreciate what he has done in this campaign.”
“But I believe that I’m the better person to be the Democratic nominee, and to be the president and commander-in-chief of the country because…”
At this point, moderator Chris Cuomo cut Clinton off for the next question.
Hillary’s night kicked off with a young Bernie supporter questioning her honesty.
“It feels like there is a lot of young people like myself who are very passionate supporters of Bernie Sanders,” the guy asked. “And, I just don’t see the same enthusiasm from younger people for you. In fact, I’ve heard from quite a few people my age that they think you’re dishonest, but I’d like to hear from you on why you feel the enthusiasm isn’t there.”
“Well, I think it really depends on who you’re seeing and talking to, you know?” Clinton shot back. “…You know look, I’ve been around a long time. People have thrown all kinds of things at me. And you know I can’t keep up with it. I just keep going forward. They fall by the wayside. They come up with these outlandish things. They make these charges. I just keep going forward because there’s nothing to it. They throw all this stuff at me and I’m still standing.”
“But if you’re new to politics, if it’s the first time you really paid attention, you go oh my gosh, look at all of this. And you have to say to yourself, why are they throwing all of that? Well, I’ll tell you why. Because I’ve been on the front lines of change and progress since I was your age.”
She told the young man to not “get discouraged.”
“It’s hard. If it were easy, hey, there wouldn’t be any contest. But it’s not easy,” Clinton said. “There are very different visions, different values, different forces at work. And you have to have somebody who is a proven, proven fighter. Somebody who has taken them on and won and kept going, and will do that as president. That’s why I hope you’ll reconsider.”
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