Hillary Clinton shifts fire from Sanders to GOP ahead of Super Tuesday
FAIRFAX, Va. — Hillary Clinton’s main target is Sen. Bernie Sanders no more.
Fresh off a resounding victory in the South Carolina primary, the former secretary of State is lambasting the Republican primary field on everything from health care to “hateful rhetoric” and gun control as she prepares for a series of Tuesday contests expected to help tighten her grip on the Democratic presidential nomination.
Massachusetts to the North and Georgia to the South demonstrate the diverse combination of primary races she’s favored to win on Super Tuesday. She’s also leading in larger, delegate-rich states that come later in the month, including Florida. Given the favorable landscape, Clinton appears to have decided it's time to turn her fire on Republicans.
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“Republicans want to sell the same snake oil, they want to go back to trickle-down economics,” Clinton said during a rally at George Mason University in Fairfax, including loosening regulations on Wall Street and turning an eye from the mortgage market. That resulted in the loss of $13 trillion in U.S. family wealth, Clinton said: “I’m not going to let them forget."
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In an earlier appearance in Springfield, Mass., she said Republicans have blamed President Obama for a weak U.S. recovery. “That takes a lot of nerve,” said Clinton. “Why would we need to recover if they hadn’t messed up the economy in the first place?”
Clinton’s assault on Republicans included Social Security (they want to privatize it and “give the trust fund to Wall Street," she said); resistance to investments such as manufacturing, infrastructure and green energy; opposition to increasing the minimum wage; and their plan to end Obamacare.
“They never tell you what they’ll put it in its place because you won’t like it,” she said, including ending restrictions on insurance company discrimination against individuals with pre-existing medical conditions and kicking adult children off their parents’ health insurance plans. During a later stop in Boston, she said labor union collective bargaining rights are also under siege. “I’m going to go to bat for unions and workers because that helped build the middle class in the first place," said Clinton.
According to a new Suffolk University poll, Clinton leads in Massachusetts, one of 11 states holding Democratic contests Tuesday, 50% to 42%. And nationally, in a new CNN/ORC poll she tops Sanders 55% to 38%, a slightly wider margin than she held in late January before nominating contests. Yet Sanders remains strong financially — his campaign announced he’s raised more than $36 million this month — giving him every incentive to fight on for the larger delegate prizes in March, such as Michigan. He also hopes to do well on Tuesday in Colorado, Minnesota and Oklahoma and should win his home state of Vermont handily.
Poll: Clinton leads in Sanders' target state of Massachusetts
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Clinton will spend Super Tuesday night in Florida, which hosts a pivotal contest on March 15.
It appears Clinton is doing exactly what Republicans strategists have feared she would do. She’s begun to campaign more like a general election candidate as the GOP is mired in a hotly contested battle with increasingly personal attacks between front-runner Donald Trump and rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.
Clinton also on Monday highlighted the need to protect abortion rights, gay marriage and voter rights that “are under attack,” she said. “It doesn’t seem like the Republicans respect anybody’s rights” except the “wealthy and well-connected,” said Clinton.
Early on, she took a shot at Donald Trump's proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country, as well as plans to deport millions of undocumented immigrants from the U.S.
Perhaps most tellingly, Clinton softened her most potent line of attack against Sanders this primary season, on gun control. She’s continually blasted his congressional record on guns, including a 2005 vote to grant gun makers and sellers immunity from lawsuits.
In Springfield, she held back on a direct attack. In Boston she noted guns is an area of difference with Sanders, while keeping the focus on the gun lobby itself. Clinton said it has an extreme position that includes opposition to barring suspected terrorists, or those on the federal no-fly list, from legally purchasing guns.
"They literally order people how to vote," said Clinton, "and they go after people and try to beat them if they dare stand up for common-sense gun safety measures.”