Bernie Sanders Starts to Name Names to Set Himself Apart From Hillary Clinton

— -- The first event of Bernie Sanders’s swing through New Hampshire this weekend was uncharacteristically small. No large, chanting crowds commonplace to his campaign. Instead the Vermont senator visited a senior center in Manchester and spoke to a thoughtful group of about 20 people before taking their questions.

But it was not just the setting that was unusual for Sanders, something had changed in his remarks too. Just minutes into his speech, he said her name.

“Let me tell you a word about Social Security. I understand Secretary Clinton was here the other day. I think she and I have a strong disagreement on this,” he began, going on to talk about his proposal for maintaining and expanding Social Security by “scrapping the cap” on taxable income. By comparison, Clinton has only said she would consider such an idea.

For months, unless specifically asked about his primary opponent, Sanders did not mention Clinton while campaigning. Her name only came up in passing during Sanders’ stump speech. “This campaign is not about Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton. ... This campaign is about you,” he often said.

That all changed with a pivotal night for Sanders at Iowa Democratic Party’s famed Jefferson Jackson Dinner last week. At the event, Sanders delivered his most cutting critique of Clinton to date, albeit without naming her name. Rather, he ticked through a series of past, key political moments when the two of them differed -- from the Iraq War to the signing of the Defense of Marriage Act -- in order to argue that he was the true progressive. In the days immediately following the dinner, he told reporters it was important to show voters the differences between himself and Clinton.

According to Sanders’s senior staff, they had begun a second phase of their campaign: the “persuasion” phase. Instead of simply rallying his core supporters and boosting his name recognition, Sanders would actively seek to win over undecided Democratic and independent voters, by precisely articulating a contrast with Hillary Clinton.

What exactly that would look like in person, with voters, remained a mystery.

The two-day campaign stop in New Hampshire was the first time he had been back on the trail in an early voting state since his surprising speech in Iowa. Friday afternoon, at his second campaign stop of the day, he again made a point of drawing a comparison with Clinton -- using her name directly. Speaking about the fact that his campaign does not have a super PAC, he told volunteers at his new field office in Nashua, New Hampshire, “Our path in this campaign is much harder than virtually all the other campaigns, including Secretary Clinton’s campaign, which does have a super PAC.”

That evening though, at an event more typical of his campaign, with several hundred people filling the floor of a high school auditorium, Sanders shied away from using her name while addressing the crowd from his podium. “I am told through polls we have an excellent chance to win here in New Hampshire,” he said. “We have not yet put out our first TV ad, our major opponent has spent many, many millions of dollars and you may have seen one or two of her ads.” The line drew a laugh.

He continued with pointed references to the her and her husband, though he did not say the word “Clinton.”

“I was there when NAFTA was written. I know who wrote it, I know who pushed it,” he said. According to the campaign, Sanders was referring broadly to Wall Street and corporations, but the trade deal was backed and signed by President Bill Clinton.

Sanders also reminded the crowd of the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act -- that repeal allowed commercial banks to engage in investment banking. “I was in Congress at the time fighting against the deregulation of Wall Street. ... You had a Democratic president [President Bill Clinton], a Republican Congress. ... You had all these guys saying it was a great idea."

“I didn’t believe it for a second and helped lead the effort against it. Wasn’t successful," Sanders said.

It was not as though Sanders went out of his way or took every opportunity to say Clinton’s name while talking to voters. The second day of the trip, he did not mention his opponent during his remarks at either of his first two events. At the final rally of the weekend, Sanders instead landed on her husband’s name, again in reference to Wall Street regulations.

“I took on Alan Greenspan and Bill Clinton and the Republican parties -- trying to fight that deregulation [of banks]. Well, we lost that, and 15 years later as a result of the greed and illegal behavior on Wall Street, our economy crashed,” he said.

In the end, the line sounded very typical of Sanders’s campaign speeches, with one extra “Clinton” added.