Bill Clinton RIPS Bernie Supporters

Former President Bill Clinton is fed up with the cultists who worship Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Clinton made the following remarks at a campaign event in Florida, via RealClearPolitics:

It’s not altogether mysterious that there are a lot of people that say, well, the Republican party rewarded the Tea Party. Just tell people what they want to hear, move them to the right, and we’ll be rewarded, except they didn’t get anything done.

Then that’s going on now in our party. If you don’t deal with the fact that we are too politically polarized and we keep rewarding people who tell us things we know they can’t do because it pushes our hot button, we can’t go forward together.

The “that’s going on now in our party” is an obvious reference to Sanders, and Clinton is essentially labeling the Sanders surge as the Democrat Party’s version of the Tea Party. Leftist rag Rolling Stone magazine has made a similar comparison, declaring that a “March for Bernie” as “an Occupy Wall Street homecoming.” Except the Tea Party was never as violent or disgusting as the Occupy movement.

Regardless, Clinton’s slamming of Sanders supporters reflects the growing anxiety in the Clinton campaign about Sanders. Clinton still has a massive lead in South Carolina, but Sanders has whittled it down somewhat. But even more disconcerting for Clinton is that Nevada, once thought to be an integral part of the Clinton firewall, is no longer a surefire win for her. Longtime Nevada journalist Jon Ralston writes in The Washington Post:

The new year brought new energy to Team Sanders as he used his fundraising prowess to start funneling resources into the state, opening offices, reaching out to Latinos, preparing for post-New Hampshire momentum. And now, buoyed by his landslide victory in New Hampshire, Sanders believes what would previously have been unthinkable: He could win here.

The Clinton panic is palpable.

Her staff repeatedly claimed that Nevada was as white as the first two early states. This was not only risibly false, but a clear sign that she wasn’t just lowering expectations but showing real fear she could lose Nevada.

Ralston asserts later on in his piece that a Sanders win in Nevada “could raise serious questions about Clinton’s ability to fend off his insurgent challenge that was once considered a lark.”

Expect more attacks from Clinton toward Sanders supporters if Sanders continues to surge.