The Problem With Hillary Clinton Using a Progressive Hero to Attack Bernie Sanders

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/07/the-problem-with-hillary-clinton-using-gary-gensler-to-attack-bernie-sanders/ Hillary Clinton is using a prominent surrogate to attack Bernie Sanders’ emphatic proposals for reforming Wall Street: Gary Gensler, former chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Gensler, who is the Clinton campaign’s chief financial officer, has enormous credibility among financial reformers after his aggressive (and lonely) efforts to rein in banks during the early years of the Obama administration. As a result, the Clinton campaign has tapped him to fend off Sanders and make the difficult case that Clinton is genuinely interested in cleaning up Wall Street. Gensler, for instance, delivered a pre-buttal before Sanders’ speech on Tuesday, and deemed it insufficient afterward. But Gensler’s attacks on Sanders come across as hollow given that the Clinton campaign has been largely silent on the issue that defined Gensler’s legacy – the regulation of derivatives – and the undermining of that legacy by the man Obama chose to succeed him.