When Hillary Clinton faced a surging Barack Obama in 2008, her argument against him was that his speeches were inspiring, but his leadership wouldn’t be.
On Friday, Clinton used a similar argument against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has surged in early state polls and is drawing large numbers to his rallies and speeches across the country.
“I think you can come with your own ideas and you can wave your arms and give a speech,” Clinton said in response to a question from NBC’s Andrea Mitchell about Sanders and Donald Trump. “But are you connecting with and really hearing what people are either saying to you or wishing that you would say to them?”
Clinton argued that her campaign is listening to the issues that matter to Americans and that she feels “very, very good about where” her campaign is.
Later in the interview, Clinton said candidates for president should “not just give a speech for them, not just appeal to their emotions.”
In February 2008, she used similar lines against Obama.
“There’s a big difference between us — speeches versus solutions, talk versus action,” Clinton said at a General Motors plant in Youngstown, Ohio. “Speeches don’t put food on the table. Speeches don’t fill up your tank or fill your prescriptions or do anything about that stack of bills that keeps you up at night.”
That same month, Clinton told an audience, “Enough with the speeches and the big rallies.”
The line Clinton used on Friday could be as close to an attack as she will get early in the Democratic nomination process. To date, Clinton has not mentioned Sanders or other Democratic challengers by name in interviews or on the stump.
Her campaign, however, told reporters on a conference call this week that they see obvious differences between Clinton and her Democratic challengers.
“I think the ideas that she has put out contrast well with the other Democrats,” said John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, pointing specifically to her plans on education, debt and the economy.
“There are differences,” Podesta said.
But Michael Briggs, Sanders’ campaign spokesman, said people were responding to the Vermont senator’s policy proposals, not his rhetoric.
“Bernie is doing more than attracting large crowds. He has a concrete set of proposals to take on the billionaire class and rebuild the disappearing middle class. That’s what people are responding to,” Briggs said.
Clinton still leads national opinion polls, but a series of state wide polls in Iowa and New Hampshire — the first two states in the nominating process — show Sanders closing in, if not passing, Clinton.
Joel Benenson, Clinton’s top pollster, dismissed that the campaign was panicking over the polling. This race, he said, is “fundamentally unchanged” from months ago.
