While Hillary Clinton touted her reputation as a progressive, Bernie Sanders countered that she is and has been a moderate. | AP Photo No more Mr. Nice Bernie

DERRY, N.H. — Bernie Sanders is on the attack.

Unamused by Hillary Clinton's campaign celebrating victory in Iowa despite a razor-thin win, and unimpressed with the front-runner’s repeated claim that New Hampshire voters love him only because he lives next door, the Vermont senator came out swinging on all fronts Wednesday. His message over every medium: Clinton's no progressive.


Asked whether he agreed that Clinton is a "progressive with a plan" on Tuesday, Sanders pounced. "Some days, yes ... Except when she announces she's a proud moderate."

Then his campaign took the attack to Twitter, enumerating Clinton's centrist sins.

"You know, I get accused of being kind of moderate and center... I plead guilty." - @HillaryClinton, Sept. 10, 2015. https://t.co/0OoGWW0xDH — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 3, 2016

The push continued throughout the day, as Sanders scheduled a string of interviews and continue to rip Clinton's record.

It's all a break from the norm for Sanders, whose campaign has thus far been fueled by a near myopic focus on economic inequality and the influence of money in politics, with occasional references to Clinton's vote to authorize the war in Iraq. While he has been escalating his contrasts with her in recent months, Wednesday's volleys were a marked step up.

The attacks come just hours before Sanders and Clinton are set to appear back-to-back at a CNN forum, and a day before the pair will engage in their first one-on-one debate.

Sanders insists that any perception he's "gone negative" is a product of Clinton camp spin, saying he's simply stating policy differences between the candidates. But for Sanders, the typical "compare and contrast" attacks have been about the things he had done that Clinton hasn't. On Wednesday, that script flipped, focusing first and foremost on where Clinton has been out of step with progressives.

Wednesday's abrupt change in tone came a day after Iowa's results landed and the Vermont senator's team found itself on the defensive despite the tiny margin.

Sanders and his aides bristled when Clinton’s team forcefully declared victory in Iowa relatively early on Monday, and as the candidate flew to New Hampshire, his campaign manager Jeff Weaver even accused the front-runner’s staff of aiming to manipulate the media into calling the contest for her early. Now that Clinton and her allies have re-intensified efforts to spread their argument that Sanders is performing well in New Hampshire because he’s a neighbor, Sanders found himself suddenly struggling to reclaim an offensive posture in the state.

Top aides to Clinton have been saying for months that Sanders’ neighborly advantage made the state tough terrain for her despite her having won it in 2008 and her husband’s having come in second here in 1992. The fact that Burlington, Vermont’s media market only overlaps slightly with New Hampshire hasn’t stopped high-level Clinton staffers from pushing the line — including in a memo from campaign manager Robby Mook to donors on Tuesday — and Clinton herself has been increasing the frequency with which she reminds voters of Sanders’ proximity.

“I know that they tend to favor their neighbors. That’s the pattern, the history of the primary,” she said on CNN Tuesday. “And Senator Sanders is a neighbor."

This argument hasn’t been sitting well with top Sanders staffers in Washington and Burlington — many of whom have worked in New Hampshire during previous presidential primaries, and who note that the New England advantage tends to fall to Massachusetts pols, not Vermonters — and his campaign called the repeated suggestions “insults” while punching back on Wednesday.

“Whether it’s equal pay, more secure retirement or affordable health care, the people of New Hampshire will go to the polls Tuesday and vote for the candidate they believe will fight for them," Sanders’ state director, Julia Barnes, said in a statement. "To repeatedly suggest otherwise is an insult to the voters in the Granite State."

And Sanders' campaign unleashed a long series of tweets outlining areas where Clinton is out of step with progressives, starting with a clip of his Tuesday answer in Keene, N.H. questioning the front-runner's liberal credentials, and finishing with the long graphic pointing to her policy stances.

(Sanders actually co-sponsored a resolution that backed regime change in Libya and has voted to increase border security.)

Most progressives I know were against the war in Iraq. One of the worst foreign policy blunders in the history of the United States. — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 3, 2016

Most progressives that I know were opposed to the Keystone pipeline from day one. Honestly, it wasn’t that complicated. — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 3, 2016

Most progressives I know are firm from day 1 in opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. They didn't have to think about it a whole lot. — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 3, 2016

Most progressives that I know don't raise millions of dollars from Wall Street. — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 3, 2016

You can be a moderate. You can be a progressive. But you cannot be a moderate and a progressive. — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 3, 2016

Not to be outdone, Clinton's camp answered with a tweet-storm of its own, getting some support from California Sen. Barbara Boxer.

1) This shouldn't be a debate about who gets to define "progressive"—it should be about who will get real results for American families. — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 3, 2016

2) Now, if you do want to make it about who's a "real progressive," @BernieSanders, what were you on these days? pic.twitter.com/8Q6hANYPhh — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 3, 2016

3) An important part of being a progressive is making progress. From health care to fighting inequality, Hillary's record speaks for itself. — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 3, 2016

4) Hillary's not running to make a point—she's running to make a difference. She'll keep doing that. Please feel free to keep tweeting. — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 3, 2016

Hillary is a progressive EVERY day. Bernie is a Democrat "some days." https://t.co/GP6TpUyjEK — Barbara Boxer (@BarbaraBoxer) February 3, 2016

The back-and-forth was the starkest exchange between the two since voting in Iowa, and Sanders seemed offended by the notion that he was going negative when asked about the discussion by reporters in Concord. He was simply pointing out Clinton's own past description of herself as a moderate, he insisted.

But it’s still not a personal attack, he said: "There’s nothing wrong with being a moderate. Some of my best friends are moderate."

This article tagged under: 2016 Elections