In a shift of strategy hours before the third Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton’s campaign went for Bernie Sanders’ jugular, accusing his team of stealing valuable campaign data, misrepresenting what happened and inflicting “damage here that cannot be undone.”
The offensive came after the Sanders camp admitted its staffers reviewed, searched and saved data from Clinton’s voter file made accessible briefly Wednesday because of a data breach -- and it represented a complete shift of tone in the Democratic race where the hits have remained impersonal and focused on the issues.
“This was not an inadvertent glimpse into our data,” campaign manager Robby Mook charged on a conference call with reporters Friday night. “The staffers did not make a mistake -- they made 25 intentional searches of our data.” He said the breach struck at the heart of the campaign’s data “that took millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours to build. The voter file...is the fundamental basis of our strategy.”
And Clinton’s team was angry that Sanders tried to fundraise off the incident by acting like he was a victim of the Democratic National Committee. “Stop politicizing and work to ensure that what took place is remedied,” Mook said, even dropping that Sanders campaign may have broken the law.
The offensive play didn’t end there.
Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon followed with more personal attacks, accusing Sanders’ team of undertaking a “deliberate effort to muddy the waters as to what is going on here” and said their top campaign officials were leaving “wiggle room in their answers” as to whether they have retained any data that was accessed during the 40-minute breach.
The attacks from Clinton’s top campaign officials represented a rare moment of punching down against a candidate who is trailing them in national polls by more than 20 points, and foreshadowed an about-face in her debate strategy.
Until Friday, Clinton aimed to push Sanders aside by diminishing him as one-note candidate incapable of handling the demands of a crisis-a-day presidency. Clinton insiders had pointed with alarm to a recent campaign trip to Baltimore, where a Sanders spokeswoman warned reporters “don’t ask about ISIS today.”
“Compared to the other candidates, her bandwidth on the issues is extraordinary,” said Terry Shumaker, a loyal Clinton ally who chaired Bill Clinton’s two presidential campaigns in New Hampshire. “She’s done 18 town halls in New Hampshire and I think I’ve been to all of them. I have not seen a question yet that she hasn’t been able to master.”
The proposals Clinton highlighted in the walk-up to the debate had no binding theme other than showing off her ability to handle multiple issues simultaneously.
On Monday, she announced a plan to cut fees for immigrants seeking citizenship at a national immigration conference in Brooklyn. In Minneapolis Tuesday, the former secretary of state gave a foreign policy address building out her three-part plan to defeat ISIL. Less than 24 hours later, Clinton arrived in Omaha to campaign with billionaire Warren Buffett and talk tax reform, backing the Buffett Rule that would make individuals earning over $1 million pay 30 percent of their income in federal taxes.
“That’s the sort of thing that someone should be able to count on from the president, and that’s the sort of thing she can do,” campaign spokeswoman Christina Reynolds said, referring to Clinton’s ease in toggling between national and international issues. She declined to comment on Sanders.
Sanders’ campaign dismissed Clinton’s policy tour leading up to the Manchester debate as the moves of a candidate lacking an overarching message. “Is this the attempt to be spontaneous this week?” said Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs, scoffing at the implication that Sanders is a one-dimensional candidate.
“He’s answered questions on ISIS over and over and over again, and frankly has a better answer than some other people do,” Briggs said. “He’s been out there talking about the Middle East, regime change, terrorism, and judgment in foreign policy. Is her vote for the Iraq War the foreign policy they want to talk about?” Sanders has repeatedly charged that Clinton’s 2002 vote in favor of the invasion of Iraq led to the rise of ISIL and Al Qaeda in the region.
But when his spokeswoman warned reporters “don’t ask about ISIS today” as Sanders toured the neighborhood where Freddie Gray was killed in police custody, Clinton’s allies pounced.
Campaign surrogate Jennifer Cunningham, a partner at the consulting firm SKDKnickerbocker who sits on Clinton’s New York leadership council, posted a Washington Post article about Sanders’ “one-dimensional campaign” on Twitter, and wrote, “Great guy. Wrong office. Wrong time.”
Until the data breach ramped up tension, Cunningham’s comment was a rare direct shot at Sanders by a Clinton ally. Indeed, her campaign sees no upside in overtly targeting a liberal popular with the party’s base.
But the ghosts of 2008 also have them on high alert about being taken by surprise by Sanders’ near-native son status in New Hampshire, where he is currently leading by double digits in the polls, and his war chest of $26.2 million. In Iowa, Sanders remains within striking distance -- Clinton leads by just 9 points.
“The goal for her is to continue to do what she’s done: be strong on foreign policy, be strong on domestic policy and don’t let them land any punches,” said South Carolina Democratic Party chair Jaime Harrison, whose state will host the next debate in January. “It is up to Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley to land something. She can be above the fray, in a defensive posture, and use some of her time to beat up on the Republicans.”
With the energy of the race on the Republican side, however, Democrats have low expectations about the enthusiasm level for a Donald Trump-less debate showdown on the Saturday night before Christmas -- even with the drama of a major data breach unfolding as the candidates and their staffers traveled to Manchester.
“There’s a Democratic debate on Saturday?” political strategist and longtime Clinton ally James Carville half-joked. “You’ve got people at Trump rallies saying, ‘light someone on fire.’ It’s hard to get attention. There’s so much over there that’s so compelling.”
