Kathie Obradovich

kobradov@dmreg.com

Hillary Clinton told The Des Moines Register’s editorial board last fall that she thought voters’ fixation on political outsiders was a passing fancy.

“And the idea that Americans are looking for somebody who has never been elected to anything, who has never had to deal with the Congress, who has never negotiated with a foreign country on matters of, you know, life or death, I do not think that it has staying power, but I think right now it has a lot of energy behind it because of people’s frustration,” she said during the Sept. 22 meeting about the Republican field.

Now, with the never-elected Donald Trump in what increasingly looks like a two-man race against one-term senator Ted Cruz, perhaps there’s more staying power than Clinton anticipated.

I thought about Clinton’s comments during Sunday’s Democratic presidential debate in Flint, Mich., as she once again demonstrated how easy it is to twist an opponent’s legislative record. Clinton used the setting to savage Sanders’ vote in 2009 against the release of $350 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Clinton voted for the bill. About $80 billion of that money eventually went to bail out the auto industry.

Clinton characterized Sanders’ vote as opposition to the auto bailout. Her statement was released as part of a 30-second radio ad in Michigan on Monday morning: "When it came down to it, you were either for saving the auto industry or you were against it. I voted to save the auto industry."

Sanders responded that he opposed the Wall Street bailout, a position that’s been central to his campaign. “When billionaires on Wall Street destroyed this economy, they went to Congress and they said, ‘Please, we’ll be good boys, bail us out.’ You know what I said? I said let the billionaires themselves bail out Wall Street. It shouldn’t be the middle class of this country.”

Sanders and Clinton were talking about the same bill. President Barack Obama also directed tens of billions of dollars from TARP toward financial-industry giants. Sanders indicated, although not very clearly, that he had voiced support for a smaller package of aid for the auto industry. Instead of explaining his position, he just counter attacked by bringing up Clinton’s paid speeches on Wall Street.

So was Sanders actually against the auto bailout because he voted against a bill to release money used for that purpose? Not necessarily — he was voting against what he considered the greater evil of using taxpayer money to save huge banks. But his record is easier to attack than to defend. In politics, that’s a losing position.

That's why it's a tried-and-true political tactic. Many bills and amendments in Congress exist for no other reason than to get political opponents on the record with a bad vote. Even noncontroversial legislation often passes only after majority party members fend off amendments containing measures that they would support in a different context. Elected officials end up opposing measures before they support them and they look like flip-floppers.

I’m not saying the TARP bill was designed to trap members of Congress. But it would have been awfully difficult for Sanders to justify his anti-Wall Street agenda had he voted for it, even if he declared his motive was to save the auto industry.

Clinton has also successfully attacked Sanders’ 2005 vote to give the gun industry greater protection against lawsuits. I would argue there is far more basis for that attack, as Sanders clearly intended to provide immunity under certain circumstances. A politician’s voting record is of course fair game, but distorting that record may backfire.

What Clinton is doing by arguing that Sanders’ vote equals opposition to the auto bailout is making it just that little bit harder for experienced legislators — including herself — to run for president. If Clinton succeeds and ends up running against Trump, she’ll be the only candidate with a voting record. We are rapidly approaching the day when “experience” is just another word for “unelectable.”