Clinton revives attacks on Sanders’s auto bailout vote

Hillary Clinton revived her attack against Bernie Sanders’s 2008 bailout vote to accuse him of failing to stand up for the auto industry ahead of the primary in the manufacturing-heavy state of Indiana.

{mosads}“I voted to provide the money to the American auto industry to get it through that terrible point … I don’t know where we would be if we walked away from the auto industry as many were urging the government to do,” she said at the AM General manufacturing plant in Mishawaka. “My esteemed opponent in this primary voted not to provide the funding that the auto industry needed.”

 Manufacturing is a major industry in Indiana, which holds its primary next week. A 2015 report by the Economic Policy Institute found that manufacturing makes up a larger share of Indiana’s total employment than in any other state.

It’s an attack Clinton leveraged ahead of the early March Michigan primary, a state where she ended up losing by just 1 percentage point.

But it’s a criticism that’s drawn the ire of the Sanders campaign, who furiously pointed out that Sanders’s vote was against the entire bailout package — which included billions for the financial sector. He had previously said he’d support a specific bailout for the auto industry.