Sanders should say sorry for “qualified” attack

Bernie Sanders says he prides himself on never having run a negative TV ad, and of campaigning on the issues instead of disparaging his opponent.

But the crucible of the presidential campaign is testing those limits, and cracks are starting to show.

I’m not one to suggest Sanders frequent recitation of Hillary Clinton’s record constitutes a negative attack, by the way. Clinton did vote for the Iraq War (Sanders opposed it), she doesn’t support a government-sponsored, single-payer, universal health care system (Sanders does) and she did support a bevy of free-trade agreements, all of which Sanders opposed.

That’s all fair game.

This week, Sanders showed up at the New York Daily News and gave an interview that pointed up some flaws in his platform. Under questioning from staffers, it quickly became apparent that he wasn’t sure how the government would go about breaking up the “too big to fail” banks.

It should be noted that Sanders said quite a few good things during that interview. He called for a moral economy in which people care about each other more than making a buck, an impossibility for soulless, non-corporeal legal fictions recognized in law as corporations. He defined fair trade as dealing with nations where wages and environmental regulations were roughly equivalent to those of the United States. And he showed how a grass-roots political revolution could create change, using the $15-per-hour minimum wage laws as an example.

“My major job is to mobilize the American people to demand that Congress listen to them and their needs rather than just the big money interests,” Sanders told the Daily News. “That’s how you make change take place.”

Amen.

But when the Clinton campaign predictably, understandably and fairly picked up on Sanders’ bank-breakup fumble, things got nasty. The secretary dismissed Sanders ambitious agenda, saying his ideas won’t work because the numbers just don’t add up. A campaign aide underscored the surprising fact that Sanders couldn’t detail how he’d go about accomplishing one of his most oft-repeated campaign promises. And reporters — who love conflict more than issues — wrote that Clinton and her campaign were saying Sanders wasn’t qualified to be president.

Only she never said that. (The Washington Post and Politifact examined the claim and concluded that Clinton had not made it, at least not directly.) And the things Clinton did say were fair and within the bounds of a campaign, albeit a tough one.

Sanders, however, picked up on reporters’ characterizations and reversed the charge, saying that it was Clinton who was unqualified to be president. That’s simply laughable. Whatever may be said about Clinton — that she’s overly cautious, too pragmatic, too given to incrementalism, too friendly with special interests and that she nurtures a penchant for secrecy that has more than once caused her trouble — it may not in any way be said she’s unqualified to be president. In fact, an argument could easily be made that she’s got the best resume of anybody currently running.

And why is Clinton unqualified, according to Sanders? Because she’s accepted money from Wall Street, from super PACs, her Iraq War vote and her support of free trade deals. Under that logic, we’ve never had a qualified president, and probably never will!

In that Daily News interview, Sanders said, “I’ve tried to run a campaign which is an issue-oriented campaign. … I have not attacked her personally.” Only now, he has, and not for anything Clinton said, but for how it was portrayed by reporters. It was a mistake, but one Sanders can easily fix, with a sincere apology, and a renewed commitment to return to campaigning exclusively on the issues.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and co-host of the show “PoliticsNOW,” airing at 5:30 p.m. Sundays on 8NewsNow. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at 702-387-5276 or SSebelius@reviewjournal.com.