As Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton duke it out ahead of the New York primary, Sanders is defending his decision to label Clinton “unqualified” to run for President.
The bad news for Bernie is that Clinton can point to an extensive resume, much of it earned as a result of marrying the right, powerful man, but earned nonetheless. Bernie Sanders, however, does lack the kind of real-world experience Americans generally expect from their elected leaders.
While Hillary Clinton was knee-deep in multiple savings and loan scandals, juggling motherhood and the management of several questionable businesses and investments, Bernie Sanders was still living in a shack with a dirt floor, having yet to make his first actual paycheck (he didn’t earn one until he was nearly 40). Had Bernie Sanders not won accidental political victory in 2006, he’d likely be that guy who sells wind chimes at art fairs.
As a Presidential candidate, Sanders has not fared much better, sounding more like Donald Trump than Presidential material in his New York Daily News editorial board interview, where he struggled to provide depth to his classic, bumper sticker answers. He may be running on a platform of breaking up investment banks and leveling the playing field for working Americans, but he’s loathe to provide specifics on exactly how he plans to do that. And the Trump comparisons don’t end there: Clinton surrogates like Claire McCaskill are already condemning Sanders’s comments as sexist.
Bernie Sanders’s supporters, unlike their candidate, were able to make an eloquent case against Clinton when her campaign responded to Bernie’s critique with the hashtag, #HillarySoQualified. Sanders’s social media legions quickly hijacked the term, flooding her timeline with examples of Hillary’s “real” qualifications: supporting investment bankers, operating secret email servers, endorsing the Iraq War and losing Presidential elections.
Fortunately for Republicans, Clinton and Sanders seem to be fighting a battle neither can win—and that neither needs to fight. The last Democratic candidate to win the White House was a junior Senator from Illinois who had less than a single term of national governance under his belt before taking on the globe’s most powerful position.
