Clinton Spox Dodges Question on McCaskill’s ‘Hammer and Sickle’ Attack Ad Against Sanders

MITCHELL: “Some people are suggesting that the Clinton campaign is so worried, that’s why you are seeing Clinton supporters, like Claire McCaskill, talk about hammer and sickle and going after him for being a socialist. What is your polling telling you? Is that driving what we’re hearing now about how Bernie Sanders could not be the nominee, could not win in Pennsylvania and Missouri and places like that?”
BENENSON: “Look, I think with Democrats, they are speaking out about the fact that they see the evidence from the top of the Republican national committee that they are trying to prop up Bernie Sanders and would rather run against him. You see in Karl Rove with a Super PAC attacking Hillary Clinton. I think what Democrats are saying is, the Republicans are just licking their chops here to get a shot at Bernie Sanders in November. I think Democrats will either factor that in to the calculus as we go down to the wire or not, but I certainly think the Democratic people who are speaking out on it are reacting to that. There is a reason why the Republican communications director from the RNC is saying that they would rather run against Bernie Sanders. So, all we can do is keep talking and all we’re going to do is keep talking to voters in the Democratic primaries and the Democratic caucuses about how you get changes to make a real difference in their lives. Senator Clinton has real plans to do that. Her health care plan and her approach on building on the progress of ObamaCare has broad appeal. The sea change, the 180-degree pivot Senator Sanders made the other night and put out a new plan, you even have progressives like Paul Krugman and Ezra Klein talking about what the consequences of this would be, the notion that we would plunge the country back into [indecipherable] a contentious debate when we just got more than 90 percent of Americans covered  and moving to universal care through ObamaCare. To go back and start over is just not a recipe for success and improvement. It’s a recipe for more gridlock.”