Back in February, I offered some unsolicited advice to the Bernie Sanders campaign: if they want to double-down on tying Hillary Clinton to corporate interests, they should shed as much light as they can on her ties to the pharmaceutical industry. However, the discourse on the Democratic side of the presidential primaries was a tad less rancorous than it has currently become.
For instance, even in February the Democrats were still riding a sort of wave of solidarity exemplified by Sanders’ pronouncement that everyone was tired of “hearing about her [Clinton’s] damn emails” back in the fall. All of my Democratic friends cheered because the moment demonstrated how much more adult the Democratic nominees were than the Republican nominees, who were (and still are) being pulled into the mud by Donald Trump’s rhetoric.
Ironically it is in the very state which held Woodstock nearly one-half century ago (the ultimate gathering of guitar-strumming, Kumbaya humanism and harmony) where the Democratic Party is seeing itself torn into two factions. Fittingly enough, New York also houses Wall Street which is the embodiment of everything that is evil in the world for the proto-Socialist faction of the party. The Sanders campaign is finally hitting the Clinton campaign in a way that will resonate with his base, but recent events where his surrogate called Hillary Clinton (indirectly) a “corporate whore” was probably not the best way to go about it.
Since my pointing out the Clinton campaign’s “Pharma Bro” problem two months ago, things have actually managed to get worse. Since February more Big Pharma money has been donated (mostly to Clinton), and more pharmaceutical CEO’s have gotten into trouble.
Enter Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes.
Theranos is a blood-testing startup that has been under fire since October of last year after the Wall Street Journal reported that Theranos’ blood-testing technology is not as successful as Theranos was touting. Back in mid-March, the Center for Medicare/Medicaid Services sent Theranos a letter recommending the revocation of the company’s federal laboratory license, as well as prohibiting both Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani from “owning or running any other lab for at least two years.”
Ms. Holmes’ series of unfortunate events didn’t stop the Clinton campaign from working with her to host a fundraiser in Theranos’ Palo Alto headquarters on March 21st, which included a host-reception with Chelsea Clinton for a small sum of $2,700.
Here’s Chelsea Clinton w/ Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of Theranos, at the campaign’s San Francisco fundraiser today: pic.twitter.com/YHvY4HH2QP
— Ruby Cramer (@rubycramer) March 21, 2016
Here is an excellent example of Hillary Clinton living up to the Sanders’ campaign criticisms, only Sanders may not be able to act on it. The idea of ads and emails going out showing an image of Hillary Clinton and embattled CEO Elizabeth Holmes, and a Hillary “H”-arrow pointing to Holmes with the statement, “when Hillary Clinton has to choose between the people, and her corrupt pharmaceutical friends on Wall Street, Hillary says #ImWithHer” would be great for rallying base. Unfortunately for Sanders, it might be too soon after his surrogate’s “corporate whores” gaffe to make that sort of a connection which means another missed opportunity.