So far, Clinton’s campaign has spent roughly $14 million for air space in Iowa and New Hampshire.
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The Agenda Project, founded by veteran Democratic consultant Erica Payne, wants the House Ethics Committee to investigate what the organization calls the new “witch-hunt[ing]” Benghazi select committee.
She asked Nicole Hockley, an audience member whose 6-year-old son Dylan was killed along with 19 other children and 6 adults in a 2012 shooting at a Connecticut school, to speak briefly.
During a campaign appearance, she veered between sadness and anger, accusing Republicans of “surrender” to a hard political problem. Just a few days ago, one of the Republicans trying to be the next Speaker of the House made a comment that the Clinton Campaign is trying to capitalize on.
In 2013, following the Sandy Hook shooting, the Senate tried and failed to pass stricter background screenings, closing the gun-show loophole and restricting Internet sales.
By highlighting her gun control plans here, Clinton is making plain she sees the issue as timely and broadly politically palatable for Democrats and independent voters.
“If she’s not going to put up a firewall, Democrats will continue to question whether something is there”, said Scott Ferson, a Democratic operative.
Although it should be obvious that a murderer who passed a background check could not have been stopped by a background check, such simple logic seems to elude advocates of “common sense gun safety laws”.
Clinton’s website states that if Congress refused to act, she would “take administrative action to require that any person attempting to sell a significant number of guns be deemed “in the business” of selling firearms.”
Her leading rival is Sen. Bernie Sanders. While Sanders has wooed the Democratic base with his liberal positions on issues of income inequality, he’s struggled to defend a more mixed record on gun legislation that reflects his rural, gun-friendly home state of Vermont. Sanders was endorsed by the National Nurses United, which represents about 185,000 workers but many large unions have yet to signal their support, including the Service Employees global Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
“I think that would be about as stupid a thing as you could possibly do”, said Mr Bloomberg, who threw his political weight and philanthropical wallet behind gun control as a co-founder of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
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“We live, and I hope most of you know this, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world”, Sanders said.
