Too liberal for whom?

Claire McCaskill is a big Hillary Clinton supporter and often appears on TV in a surrogate capacity on Clinton’s behalf. That’s fine; whatever floats your boat. Hillary Clinton is polling 50 points ahead of her closest competition, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and I know everybody points to her flame-out in 2008 as evidence that no lead is safe, but at this point in the 2008 cycle she was 13 points ahead of Obama in the same RCP poll of polls, and Sanders doesn’t have the support of minority voters the way Obama did, to say the least. Clinton’s one challenge in the primary is going to be convincing core Democratic voters, including the folks who still call themselves “liberal,” that she’ll be their candidate and not just the candidate of the DLC/Third Way/center-right types.

So you have to ask why Claire McCaskill went on “Morning Joe” this morning (I know; at least nobody was watching) to essentially red-bait Bernie Sanders, a guy her candidate is soundly thrashing in both national polls and in Iowa and New Hampshire polls. No, really:

“I think that the media is giving Bernie a pass right now,” McCaskill told MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski. “I very rarely read in any coverage of Bernie that he’s a socialist.”

She argued Clinton’s poll numbers are so high that it’s hard to understand the media’s attitude of, “oh, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie!”

“I think Bernie is too liberal to gather enough votes in this country to become President, and I think Hillary Clinton is gonna be a fantastic President,” she said.

Here’s the thing: if Clinton’s poll numbers are that high, and it certainly seems like they are, why does Claire McCaskill (and, by extension, Hillary Clinton) care what the media is saying about Sanders? And why, dear God why, would McCaskill (who, again, is basically acting as a Clinton for President spokesperson here) attack Sanders for being “too liberal” in a campaign where Clinton needs to court liberal voters? It’s true that Sanders has closed slightly with Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire, but a) that was inevitable, given how low Sanders’ name recognition was when he started running, and b) Clinton was starting from a ~40 point advantage, so it’s not like she can’t afford to give a few points. Attacking Sanders personally actually gives the media new grist for the “Democratic primary fight” narrative that McCaskill was complaining about in the first place, and attacking him from the right like this is just strategically idiotic for the Clinton campaign.

I understand why Martin O’Malley’s campaign is targeting Sanders; O’Malley wants to be positioned where Sanders is now, as the top alternative to Clinton, plus he’s found one area — gun control — where it’s possible to come at Sanders from the left, in a way that’s likely to appeal to, rather than repel, Democratic primary voters. Whatever Clinton’s campaign is thinking is beyond me.

My favorite part of McCaskill’s rant was when she got asked to name the specific positions Sanders has that put him too far out on the lefty fringe:

But then the senator got into a little trouble. Asked to name three specific positions Sanders holds that make him unelectable, McCaskill, a moderate Democrat, was put in the awkward position of criticizing policies supported by many in her party.

“He would like to see Medicare for all in this country,” McCaskill said, adding that Sanders “would like to see expansion of entitlement.” She further argued that Sanders is “not worried about a debt at all. He is somebody who is, I think, frankly, against trade. Against a lot of things in this day and age.”

So here we have Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, acting as a surrogate for Hillary Clinton, dinging Bernie Sanders for supporting robust healthcare reform and entitlement expansion while (mildly) pushing a center-right debt hysteria narrative. That’s smart positioning. Better yet, it turns out that Sanders’ “too radical” Medicare for all idea is actually favored by a majority of Americans, and, say, about expanding entitlements? Funny story:

Under Sanders’ legislation, Social Security benefits would be untouched. The system would be fully funded by making the wealthiest Americans pay the same payroll tax already assessed on those with incomes up to $106,800 a year. The idea follows through on a proposal that President Obama made when he was running for office in 2008.

Current Co-Sponsors

Sen. Bernie Sanders
Sen. Claire McCaskill
Sen. Barbara Boxer
Sen. Daniel Akaka
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse
Sen. Richard Blumenthal

Huh.

If the goal here is to pound on the left for the next year to shore up Clinton’s centrist cred, and then expect that pounded left to suddenly energize itself and work tirelessly toward Clinton’s victory next fall, well, good luck with that. But if the plan is to position Clinton during the primary as an ally of workers and the middle class, then trashing Bernie Sanders for holding positions that genuinely appeal to a lot of, well, workers and middle class folks, that seems pretty dumb.