MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Hillary Clinton had no public events on Thursday before the Democratic debate, but her campaign operatives were busy setting the stage for a new appeal to female voters by floating the idea that rival Bernie Sanders is engaging in implicitly sexist attacks.

One day before Clinton is set to fly the woman banner high Friday – she will campaign in Manchester with an all-female cast of surrogates by her side, including Lilly Ledbetter, EMILY’s List president Stephanie Schriock, as well as Senators Jeanne Shaheen, Kirsten Gillibrand, Barbara Mikulski, Amy Klobuchar and Debbie Stabenow – campaign manager Robby Mook accused Sanders of launching a “personal, diminishing attack” by claiming Clinton could only be labeled a progressive “sometimes.”


When pressed by reporters on whether he was implying there was sexism at play in the way Sanders was attempting to apply a purity test to Clinton’s progressiveness, Mook let the "S" word dangle in the air.

“I’m going to leave you guys to judge that,” Mook said, over an early morning breakfast of eggs and French toast hosted by Bloomberg Politics.

The dog-whistle to female supporters in a state famous for electing women to higher office comes as Clinton -- who in recent appearances here has shown off a softer, more spiritual side -- ramps up her gender-based appeal here.

It was hard to miss the point on Thursday, whether on the debate stage in Durham in the evening or at the breakfast in Manchester. For the first time Thursday morning, Clinton’s top campaign officials addressed the “Bernie Bro” phenomenon that has been raging online -- the contingent of male Sanders supporters who troll pro-Clinton women on the Internet and accuse them of “voting with their vagina” or call them “bitches.”





“There is a support base for Senator Sanders' candidacy that has been shorthanded as the so-called ‘Bernie Bros,’” said Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon. “It can be nasty. It can be vitriolic. And I think that the Sanders campaign needs to beware the extent to which, in an effort to mobilize and galvanize their supporters, they start to let the mentality or the crudeness seep into their own words and criticisms that they hurl at Secretary Clinton.”

Fallon offered no examples of how the official campaign -- which is aware of the “Bernie Bro” problem and has encouraged its online supporters to police themselves -- has incorporated the misogynistic attacks into the campaign.

A Sanders spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. But the loaded charge of “crudeness” appeared uniquely targeted to resonate in a state that was first in the country to send an all-female congressional delegation to Washington, D.C., and whose voters were the first in the country to elect a state legislature made up of more women than men.

Clinton has been playing up Sanders’ near-home state advantage in New Hampshire as she tries to lower expectations here -- but the state is also uniquely friendly terrain for a candidate seeking to make history as the first woman President.

It was in Portsmouth last summer that she launched “Women for Hillary,” with the first woman elected both governor and senator of her state, Jeanne Shaheen, by her side. In 2008, women helped power her victory here: Exit polls showed a Democratic New Hampshire electorate that was comprised of 57 percent women, and among them Clinton won 46 percent to Obama’s 34 percent.

“Look at the number of women that are in government in New Hampshire,” warned Shaheen’s husband, Bill, who co-chaired Clinton’s New Hampshire campaign here eight years ago. “It would not be wise to attack her because of her gender.”

On Thursday night, Clinton doubled down on the gender card play during the fifth Democratic debate. Defending herself from Sanders’ critique that she’s part of the establishment, Clinton pointed to the historical nature of her run. “Honestly, Sen. Sanders is the only person who would characterize me -- a woman running to be the first woman resident -- as exemplifying the establishment,” she said.

And then she repeatedly referred to the powerful Wall Street interests she vows to stand up to colloquially as “these guys."

It was an apparent appeal to female voters to see the debate in “us” versus “them” terms, despite the fact that Clinton is the one fighting off charges that she's too close to Wall Street because of the donors funding her campaign and super PAC, as well as the paid speeches she delivered before re-entering domestic politics.

Clinton failed again to give a clear explanation of why she accepted over $600,000 from Goldman Sachs for a series of paid speeches. But her language made it seem like she was separated -- thanks to her gender -- from the powerful interests that are political poison in a Democratic primary where the candidates in recent days have been fighting over the definition of progressivism.

“Hedge fund billionaire, Karl Rove, another billionaire jumped in,” she said of the groups spending money to attack her campaign. “Why are they doing that? These are guys that try to make smart investments.”

And then later: “Part of the reason the Wall Street guys are trying so hard to stop me -- the hedge fund guys, the shadow banking guys -- is because I've got their number on all of that.”

Clinton invoked “these guys” two more times before she finished with her Wall Street defense: “We've got to be prepared to stop these guys if they ever try to use their economic power once again to hurt the economy and to hurt so many Americans. My plan, Barney Frank, a lot of experts who understand what the new challenges might be, have said I am exactly on point, and the Wall Street guys actually know that.”

Clinton allies were in lockstep messaging with the campaign Thursday, speaking about the “Bernie bro” problem that they contended was a real and concerning phenomenon that speaks to a “double standard that men and women running in the progressive movement face,” according to Jess McIntosh, spokeswoman for EMILY’s List. "As thoughtful progressive voters look at these candidates, if we're going to keep reducing it to head versus heart -- some of the ‘heart stuff’ like shouting, like being rumpled and grumpy, like calling for a revolution, just isn't available to her [as a woman].”

Clinton’s own campaign officials implied as much. “Senator Sanders is a very skilled and deft politician, despite efforts to hone and cultivate an image to the contrary, and he knows what he is doing when he does these little hip checks,” Fallon said, referring to the “progressive” dig. “There is an intent there that is diminishing and is demeaning and is cutting.”

Clinton picked up on that defense Thursday night, saying she did not believe that Sanders’ “attacks by insinuation are worthy of you….I think it’s time to end the very artful smear that you and your campaign have been carrying out.”

Part of the dog-whistle strategy appears to be driven by the Clinton campaign’s struggle to formulate an effective line of attack on a rival who is not aggressively going negative, but still managing to infuse the debate with questions about Clinton's political character.

For instance, Fallon accused Sanders of “trying to deprive [Clinton] of the compliment that it is to be called a progressive” – a featherweight offense compared to the brutal attacks under way in the GOP field, or even to the more personal attacks that defined the Democratic primary between Clinton and Barack Obama eight years ago.

Mook said that a Sanders campaign ad that attacks Goldman Sachs and Wall Street contributions counted as a breach of the senator’s “no negative ads” pledge -- but that television spot never even mentions Clinton by name.

Clinton officials said they’re only holding Sanders to his own high standards. “Sanders is trying to act like he's adhering to his own pledge to be a different type of politician,” Fallon said. “He's never run a negative ad, he's so folksy and charming. You got to live by that day in and day out if that's the standard you're going to set for yourself.”