Dirty trick saved for desperate times
It’s the classic political dirty trick from a desperate candidate — leak a damaging tidbit about your opponent to a friendly media outlet, wait for the fireworks to explode, then act like you’re the one who’s been wronged.
And it should come as no surprise that the dirty trick is coming from U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren. She comes from a state with a long history of campaign hijinks and smears.
The best part for Warren is that in this case, she is playing the victim while making her opponent, Bernie Sanders, look like he was the one who did the smearing. And Sanders is falling for it, hook line and sinker.
Warren, ever the phony, is now exploiting the dustup for all it’s worth — which could be a lot considering how much she needs a boost in the polls.
Sanders strongly denied telling Warren a woman couldn’t be elected president in Tuesday night’s debate, but the damage was done.
“I am not here to try and fight with Bernie,” Warren insisted.
Yes, you are.
With less than three weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses, the Massachusetts Democrat’s gambit could pay off — derailing Sanders’ momentum and forcing him on the defense right before a crucial debate.
Sanders is now in the nowin position of insisting he’s not a sexist pig. And he has no way of backing up his defense, since he and Warren were the only ones in the room when he allegedly told her that a woman like her couldn’t win the presidency. The best part for Warren is that it has the whiff of truth — coming four years after female staffers on Sanders’ campaign complained of being treated badly.
It’s really a one-two punch from Warren, since it comes just a day after her campaign leaked out talking points from the Sanders campaign alleging that Warren’s supporters are elitist and wealthy.
Warren is now using the tried and true method of turning around her attack on Sanders to make it seem as if she’s been attacked by the “disappointing” behavior of her opponent.
This may be Warren’s failsafe button — one she’s kept under wraps until she needed it.
And boy does she need it. Warren is dangerously close to losing both Iowa and New Hampshire, which would deal a severe blow to her campaign.
Sanders had consolidated his strong base of support from the progressive wing, and if he succeeds in beating Warren in the early contests, it’s curtains for her.
Enter the sexist card. It may be the only thing that saves her.
Liberal groups of course are wringing their hands at the Warren-Sanders scuffle, afraid it splits the two candidates’ support and ends up, gulp, benefiting Joe Biden.
We’ll see. If Sanders can’t recover from this fairly standard dirty trick, he deserves to lose.