It is ridiculous for someone to say that Hillary Clinton is running an establishment campaign, if only because no other woman in either party has run for President. That, by definition, makes her campaign an outsider campaign.
It's also no secret that Republicans think Bernie Sanders would be the better candidate for them to run their lunatic nominee against. I don't happen to agree with that assessment, but that's their story and they're sticking to it.
But watch Castellanos basically call her an old crone running a Nixonian campaign and anyone who says otherwise is an idiot. Oh, and the comparison to Charles Barkley with a golf club was precious, too.
Clinton and Sanders are both outsider candidates for different reasons. One's a Socialist; one's a woman. Neither have aspired to the Presidency. And yes, gender matters just like race mattered in Obama's campaign.
Transcript below, via ABC News:
CASTELLANOS: -- and that's Hillary's problem, by the way, the hard part for Hillary, she's trying to murder the '60s. She's running Richard Nixon's campaign against the Democratic --
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: -- Matthew Dowd, of the last campaign, clearly in Iowa this time around, much more organized than in 2008.
DOWD: Well, she's -- absolutely. She saw that loss, it all caught up to her in a surprise at the end of what President Obama had done in the course of that campaign. But I still think Hillary Clinton is a status quo politician in the course of this. And I -- that's why I actually think Bernie Sanders may be a stronger general election candidate than Hillary Clinton because I think Hillary Clinton, her campaign, just like Jeb Bush's campaign, who is not doing well, as we know, at all, but she still hasn’t let go of that status quo, I'm going to do everything I can and not say anything that's going to offend anybody, not a time when people want passion. They want a sense of what's the mission and they want aspiration.
Bernie Sanders right now is the only one on the Democratic side that is aspirational and Donald Trump right now is the only one on the Republican side that basically says I'll take on anybody.
BRAZILE: You know, I've been fascinated by this whole conversation that somehow or another she doesn’t represent -- she represents the establishment because she's run before, et cetera.
I mean, the notion that --
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: She served in Washington for 20 years.
BRAZILE: Well, Bernie has served in Washington for 25 years. That's not the point.
I think he is running the kind of campaign that Democrats are comfortable with. They're comfortable with a candidate who can put out both policy ideas, that has an opportunity of passing Congress. And she knows how to do it. But look, again, this is a non-traditional year. Nobody --
(CROSSTALK)
CASTELLANOS: -- Hillary Clinton run as anti-establishment candidate it's like watching Charles Barkley swing a golf club. It does not come naturally to her. She is what the Democratic Party is -- that's why Bernie Sanders sends a message to Hillary --
