When Hillary Clinton decided to run for President again, it is safe to assume that she didn’t spend much time (if any) worrying about whether or not a 74 year old Senator from Vermont named Bernie Sanders was going to get in her way. The polished ex-First Lady and her camp must have thought her nomination to represent the Democratic Party in the upcoming election was a mere formality. However, the road to her nomination has been anything but, and now that she has lost the last five consecutive states, she’s starting to get nervous.
As AP reports, Clinton has become increasingly irritated that Sanders’ surprising resilience is costing her time, money, and political capital. The differences are well documented between the two, and the man hell bent on exposing just how broken and dislocated Wall Street and Washington have become from normal Americans has finally struck a nerve with Clinton and her campaign. Sanders is doing exactly what he said he was going to do, which is tell the truth about the realities of crony capitalism, and how it impacts the everyday American. He has finally brought this fight directly to Hillary by bringing up the massive amounts of money she makes giving reassurance speeches to Wall Street. She is, therefore, quite vexed.
Per AP:
Her aides complain about Sanders' rhetoric, claiming he's broken his pledge to avoid character attacks by going after her paid speeches and ties to Wall Street
Hillary leads in the race to 2,383 delegates, but her concern has certainly shifted. It’s no longer Donald Trump that is the focus of the Clinton campaign, it’s simply whether or not Hillary can even win her self-proclaimed “home state” of New York on April 19th.
For Bernie Sanders however, the road to the nomination has gone exactly how he has wanted it to. The momentum has swung his way, and his first rally in New York, the state causing Hillary to chew all of her fingernails wondering if she can win or not, had an estimated 15,000 person turnout. Sanders noted at the rally in the Bronx: “If we win here in New York, we are going to make it to the White House”.
While we’re not sure about that, we are sure about this: Bernie’s support is growing, and he is breaking new ground in online campaign funding. He took in $44 million in March alone, surpassing a healthy $43.5 million dollar February. Sanders has raised $184 million dollars thus far, and according to The Hill, 97 percent of that was raised online. Sanders is having a great deal of success keeping himself funded through non-traditional methods, as he prides himself on not taking money from the wealthy and super-PACs.
And while Sanders is focused on upsetting Hillary, he does have a shot or two to send Donald Trump’s way. According to the Washington Post, at a rally in Wisconsin, after referencing a poll that showed him beating Donald Trump in a head to head match-up, Sanders said the following: "And that’s before he really began to expose what a nutcase he really is."
The problem for Bernie: this is precisely the rhetoric that Trump thrives upon, because while the conventional gameplay may work, and even succeed against Hillary, the Vermont senator will need to dramatically overturn his strategy if and when he ends up facing the real estate mogul.