Bernie Has Benefitted More From Super-PACs Than Hillary

(These caricatures of Sanders and Clinton are by DonkeyHotey.)

I have always liked Bernie Sanders (and even donated to his last senate campaign), but I am starting to be disappointed in him. That's because he has been very dishonest in his talk about super-PACs. He continues to claim that he's the only candidate who doesn't have a super-PAC. That is a lie.

The truth is that no candidate "has" a super-PAC. If they did, they would be violating federal election law. The law prohibits any candidate from having a connection with (or even coordinating with) a super-PAC. His inference, of course, is that Hillary Clinton has a super-PAC. She does not. She has super-PAC support, but so does Sanders (a fact that he omits when talking about this).

He also charges that Hillary Clinton has raised money for a super-PAC. That is true. Clinton has helped the Priorities USA Action super-PAC to raise money. That is a progressive super-PAC founded to support the election of Barack Obama, and now supports the election of a progressive to be elected president in 2016. Priorities USA Action has spent very little in the primaries -- preferring instead to save their money to fight for the Democratic nominee in the general election (which, ironically, would be Sanders if he could win the nomination).

The impression Sanders is trying to give Democratic voters is that he is not getting super-PAC help, while his opponent (Clinton) is getting massive super-PAC help. Is that true. No. That turns out to also be a lie. The money spent to help the Clinton campaign in the primaries by all outside groups (Priorities Action USA, Correct The Record, Planned Parenthood, and the League of Conservation Voters) is $847,000. Those groups together don't equal the super-PAC support Sanders has received from the National Nurses United super-PAC, which has spent about $1,000,000 to support Sanders.

And that doesn't count the conservative super-PACs, that have spent $4.3 in attacking Clinton this campaign season -- including American Crossroads spending on ads attacking Clinton for Wall Street speaking fees (a favorite Sanders campaign theme), and the Ending Spending group that ran ads in Iowa (supposedly attacking Sanders, but in a way that seemed to encourage Democrats to support him). These groups have decided that would much rather have their GOP nominee run against Sanders than Clinton.

Suffice it to say that when Sanders gets on his patented super-PAC rant, he is being disingenuous at best and is outright lying at worst. Since he's not a stupid man, I think he is just lying. Sanders supporters like to say that Clinton can't be trusted. It looks like that same charge can be leveled at their own candidate.