Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are both saying the other would be a disaster in the general election by Maxwell Tani on Jan 31, 2016, 11:50 AM Advertisement
 On the final day before the Iowa caucuses, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) traded blows over who has a better chance to defeat the Republican presidential nominee in a general election. In a Sunday ABC interview, Clinton suggested she agreed with Democratic leaders like Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri). She has said Republicans "can't wait to run an ad with a hammer and sickle" against Sanders, an avowed "democratic socialist." "That certainly is what a lot of Democratic leaders are saying, and I take them at their word," Clinton said when asked about concerns about how Sanders would affect Democrats down the ballot. "They know their states. They know the country. They know we have to take back the Senate," she continued. "They want to make some advances in the House as well as at governor and legislature levels across the country." Sanders fired back, claiming his potential nomination would generate excitement from first-time voters seeking a populist, anti-establishment candidate. "I think in fact, Hillary Clinton will be the problem," Sanders told NBC's Chuck Todd on "Meet the Press." "Because I think our campaign is the campaign that is generating excitement and energy that will result in a high voter turnout. Republicans win when voter turnout is low. Democrats win when voter turnout is high," he continued. "I think our campaign is raising issue about a rigged economy, a corrupt campaign finance system." As Sanders has gained on Clinton nationally and in key early states, both candidates have attempted to position themselves as the more electable option in November. Clinton's campaign released a television ad earlier this month making the case that the former secretary of state was the best candidate to take on possible Republican presidential nominees like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) or Donald Trump. “They’re backward, even dangerous," the ad's narrator said. "So ask yourself, who is the one candidate who can stop them?” The answer: “Hillary Clinton, tested and tough. To stop them, stand with her.” Sanders has aggressively rebutted Clinton's questions about his electability, repeatedly touting that he fares better in some polls against Republican presidential candidates like Trump in hypothetical head-to-head matchups. "I would urge those voters, the voters all over this country, to take a look at recent polls in which Bernie Sanders is matched with Republican candidates," Sanders said during a recent ABC interview. He added: "If people are concerned about electability — and Democrats should be very concerned, because we certainly do not want to see some right-wing extremist in the White House — I think Bernie Sanders is the candidate." 
For their part, some Republican candidates have already started to cast Sanders as a far-left, radical candidate. During last week's Republican presidential debate, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) garnered one of the biggest applause lines of the night by knocking Sanders' democratic-socialist beliefs. "Bernie Sanders is a socialist. I think Bernie Sanders is a good candidate for president — of Sweden," Rubio quipped, in a line he often repeats on the campaign trail. "We don't want to be Sweden, we want to be the United States of America." And last week, Trump suggested he wants to run against Sanders so much that he won't criticize the Democratic candidate — so as not to weaken him in the polls. "I mean here's a guy who's a — they say socialist, but some people say he's a communist," Trump said. "I shouldn't hit him too hard though, because if I hit him too hard then he'll go down, and it'll be a fight with Hillary, and maybe we want a fight for a while. So I'll say, 'Isn't he a wonderful guy?'" SEE ALSO: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are locked in a razor-thin race, according to the most respected poll in Iowa
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