Sanders took it from there, with a powerful speech that riffed through every issue of the campaign. But there was a new edge to this address. Fresh off of his landslide 14%-margin win over Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin, Sanders ripped into his opponent, who had just that day (citing a cheap-shot sandbagging interview of him by editors at the New York Daily News that news organizations from the Washington Post to CNN had been shamelessly misquoting and partially quoting ) called Sanders unqualified for the White House.
Sanders, who until that point has been restrained in his attacks on Clinton, continuing to suggest that he would support her if she were to win the nomination, in a blistering counter-attack, told the wildly cheering crowd at the Liacouras Center, "She has been saying lately that she thinks I am quote, unquote 'not qualified' to be president. I don't believe that she is qualified ... if she is, through her super PAC, taking tens of millions of dollars in special interests funds."
He didn't stop there, but went on to say, "I don't think that you are 'qualified' if you get $15 million from Wall Street through your super PAC. I don't think you are 'qualified' if you have voted for the disastrous war in Iraq. I don't think you are 'qualified' if you have supported virtually every disastrous trade agreement."
This wasn't a one-off attack either. The following morning at a press conference in Philadelphia, flanked by labor leaders supporting his presidential bid who were in the city for the AFL-CIO's national convention, he said, "If you want to question my qualifications, then let me suggest this: Maybe the American people might wonder about your qualifications, Madam Secretary, when you voted for the war in Iraq--the most disastrous foreign policy blunder in the history of modern America. They might want to wonder about your qualifications, when you supported virtually every trade agreement--trade agreements which are costing the American worker millions of decent paying jobs. The American people may want to wonder about your qualifications when you're spending an enormous amount of time raising money for your super PAC from some of the wealthiest people in this country and from the most outrageous special interests."
What makes all this interesting is that Sanders, in calling Clinton unqualified for the presidency, is setting up a situation where it would be absurd for him to turn around and endorse her later should she win the nomination (how do you support someone you consider unqualified for the office?).
But it's not just Sanders' harder line against Clinton. There's a righteous rage and an enthusiasm among his backers that is new, too. A recent poll shows that attitudes are hardening among Sanders' growing army of idealistic supporters, at least 25% of whom now say that they could never vote for Clinton. (That poll, released Wednesday, was taken before Clinton began calling Sanders "unqualified.")
There is also starting to be a change in how the Sanders campaign is getting covered in the corporate media. In Pennsylvania, the state's main newspaper, thePhiladelphia Inquirer, has been consistently dismissive of the Sanders campaign, but the morning after the Temple rally, the paper's front page featured a large photo showing a crush of young supports struggling to shake Sanders' hand over a headline that read "Sanders stirs a frenzy in visit to Temple."
As the Sanders campaign continues to surge (he's now won seven of the last eight primary contests, all by landslides or even by tsunami margins), and as polls in states like Pennsylvania and New York where he was once down by 30-40 points, narrow to low single digits weeks before the next round of primaries, Clinton's team, increasingly desperate to turn things around, is reportedly shifting to a campaign strategy of "disqualify him, defeat him, and unify the party later."
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