US Election 2016: Clintons try to turn the tables with claim Bernie Sanders accepted Goldman Sachs cash

Up against a wall in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton showed her hackles on Monday, rejecting the claims of Senator Bernie Sanders that she had been bought by Wall Street, telling supporters at a rally that he had himself benefited from money from Goldman Sachs.

“There is nothing wrong with that, it didn’t change his views. Well it didn’t change my view or my vote either,” she declared, claiming that $200,000 given by Goldman Sachs to Democrats on Capitol Hill had made its way to Mr Sanders. “I haven’t just talked the talk, I haven’t just made speeches, I’ve called them out,” she said of her own efforts to end malfaisance in the financial community.

“No special interests, no powerful interests are going to be able to call the shots,” when she is president, Ms Clinton pledged to a throng inside a community college here, trying to blunt the main spear of her rival’s campaign, that she is part of the system that has rigged the economy against ordinary Americans.

With polls pointing to an easy win for Senator Sanders in today’s crucial primary election and his drawing almost level with her nationally in two recent polls, Ms Clinton’s campaign has taken on an angry whiff. Former President Bill Clinton has similarly let loose against Mr Sanders. “If you disagree, you are just part of the establishment,” he said while introducing his wife last night, a sarcastic jibe at Mr Sanders.

He followed a similar theme campaigning solo on her behalf at the weekend. “Hillary’s opponent has a different view. It’s a hermetically sealed box… ‘The system is rigged against you by the big banks, and both parties are in the thrall of the big banks. Anybody who takes money from Goldman Sachs couldn’t possibly be president’,” he said at one event. “He may have to tweak that answer a little bit”.

He also asserted that the “political revolution” promised by Mr Sanders couldn’t be paid for. “When you’re making a revolution you can’t be too careful with the facts,” he intoned in the small town of Milford.

“The New Hampshire I campaigned in really cared that you knew what you were doing and how it was paid for,” he declared, harking back to 1992, when he was hailed as the “comeback kid” for taking an unexpected second place here, a surge that sent him eventually to the White House. It was a comeback that was to a very large extent thanks to Ms Clinton standing by his side.

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It is deeply galling to Mr Clinton that the state that essentially saved him then may not do the same for his wife.

So angry are both Clintons with the performance of her campaign so far, they are looking for both a strategy revamp and possibly a shake-up of top staff, Politico reported last night. “The Clintons are not happy, and have been letting all of us know that,” one Democratic official told the site. “The idea is that we need a more forward-looking message, for the primary – but also for the general election too… there’s no sense of panic, but there is an urgency to fix these problems right now.”

In Milford, Mr Clinton took particular aim at Mr Sanders’ proposals to nationalise health care insurance and replace Obamacare. “Is it good for America? I don’t think so. Is it good for New Hampshire? I don’t think so,” he said. “The New Hampshire I knew would not have voted for me if I had done that.”

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He also accused Mr Sanders’ backers of online “trolling” and “sexism”, suggesting that one female blogger backing his wife had taken to writing under a pseudonym to protect herself. “She and other people who have gone online to defend Hillary, to explain why they supported her, have been subject to vicious trolling and attacks,” he said.

A sour conversation has also erupted over the duty – or otherwise – of women to support Ms Clinton. It was spurred partly by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright musing that there was a “special place in Hell” for women who don’t help women, while Gloria Steinem, the iconic feminist, said young women backing Mr Sanders were looking for boys – a remark she has since apologised for.

An especially malodorous piece of Clinton baggage meanwhile emerged as Kathleen Willey, a former White House volunteer who has alleged she was groped by Mr Clinton in the Oval Office when he was president, was named as the national spokesperson for an outside political action group that will be launched in the event that Ms Clinton wins the Democratic nomination.

“This gives me more of an opportunity to get this message out to young voters who weren’t even born or don’t even remember what happened and to the women who have suffered,” Ms Willey told Reuters. “They’re going to be confronted every day, on radio, on television, on billboards,” Roger Stone, a conservative activist behind the putative group, added.

Ms Clinton’s plight has many of her fans anguished. “I think people are forgetting the requirements of the job, all the experience she has does nothing but qualify her and prepare her,” said Teresa McInerny, 56, an advertising executive, who skipped work to attend yesterday’s rally.

“I am 110 per cent for Hillary and I think she can still win here, but it’s been a surprisingly bumpy ride with Bernie.”