[A]fter his first clear loss of the presidential primary season in Nevada, Bernie Sanders and his team have entered a more combative phase of the campaign, rolling out beefed-up policy defenses, sharper attacks and a hectic travel schedule intended to blunt Hillary Clinton’s momentum.
At a Wednesday morning news conference in South Carolina on poverty, Sanders criticized Clinton’s support of a 1996 welfare reform bill, passed under her husband’s administration, that limited benefits and, some argue, increased poverty.
Sanders assailed the bill as “an assault on the poor, women and children, minorities and immigrants.”
“During that period, I spoke out against so-called welfare reform because I thought it was scapegoating people who were helpless, people who were very, very vulnerable,” Sanders said, flanked by South Carolina state Reps. Justin Bamberg and Joe Neal. “Secretary Clinton at that time had a very different position on ‘welfare reform.’”
A few hours later, his campaign held a conference call with economists defending a rosy analysis of Sanders’ health care and economic reforms from Gerald Friedman, an economist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
The analysis was questioned last week in a letter from four former members of the presidential Council of Economic Advisers who served during the Clinton and Obama administrations.
Looking to strike back, the Sanders campaign gathered four economic experts of its own, including Robert Reich, a Sanders supporter who was labor secretary under President Bill Clinton.
Reich said the economic projections of Sanders’ plans — which include shrinking poverty, low unemployment and annual economic growth of 5.3 percent — were all reasonable and achievable.
“There’s nothing unrealistic about it,” Reich said. “In fact, I fear that if we stay on the path we are now on — with a shrinking middle class, more and more income, wealth and political power going to the very top — we will have an economy that grows very, very slowly, because there’s not enough purchasing power in the middle and among the poor to keep the economy going.”
“If we don’t aim high,” Reich added, “then what’s the use of aiming at all?”
The Vermont senator has also begun assembling a team of experts who can advise him on national security matters, according to a Wednesday report from Foreign Policy magazine.
The campaign has tapped Bill French, who has testified in Congress about the threats of the Islamic State group, and who often writes broadly about U.S. policy, according to the magazine.
On the heels of a loss, Sanders is inserting the results of two new national polls into his stump speech — the first two that have the Vermont senator topping Clinton.
A Reuters poll released Wednesday has Sanders beating Clinton by 6 points, 42 percent to 36 percent. A separate Fox News poll released last week gives Sanders a 3-point lead over Clinton, 47 percent to 44 percent.
One place where Clinton remains the favorite is South Carolina, where the next primary contest is set for Saturday. A Real Clear Politics polling average gives Clinton a 24-point advantage over Sanders in the state.
Clinton is campaigning heavily in South Carolina for the rest of the week, holding multiple events and bringing in surrogates in the state’s population centers.
After Sanders talked poverty Wednesday morning in the Palmetto State, he jetted to Missouri for afternoon rallies. He is scheduled to speak in Ohio on Thursday morning before ending the day in Chicago for a rally.
Although the Vermont senator will be out of the South for a while, he has staffers coordinating get-out-the-vote efforts and has been enlisting surrogates, including actor Danny Glover.
He also has a new radio ad playing in South Carolina that features film director and activist Spike Lee.
“I’m officially endorsing my brother Bernie Sanders,” Lee says in the ad. “Bernie takes no money from corporations. Nada. Which means he’s not on the take. And when Bernie gets into the White House, he will do the right thing.”
Although Sanders is zig-zagging from the South to various points in the Midwest, he’ll return north for Super Tuesday, holding a party in Vermont to watch the results.
