Candidates Step Up Attacks as Iowa Fight Comes Down to Hours

(Bloomberg) -- Tensions among the Democratic presidential candidates are building as they enter the final days before the crucial Iowa caucuses.

Former Vice President Joe Biden seized an opportunity to to highlight opponent Bernie Sanders’ history of votes in favor of the gun lobby Thursday, an issue that’s one of Sanders’s biggest vulnerabilities with progressive voters.

And former mayor Pete Buttigieg called out Biden and Bernie Sanders by name as he sought to draw explicit contrasts with the two top candidates.

“I think Bernie has made his verbal amends for his record on guns,” Biden said of the Vermont senator who has opened a sizable lead in recent Iowa polls.

“I think, you know, the fact he gave the gun manufacturers an exemption that no other industry in the world -- in the United States has, I think he regrets having done that,” Biden said. “It was in a campaign in Vermont, in a tough race for the Senate although, anyway,” stopping himself before digging deeper into the dynamics of decades-old state politics.

Sanders has a mixed record on gun laws, sometimes siding with most Democrats in supporting tighter restrictions but at times voting with Republicans and the National Rifle Association. He voted against five versions of what ultimately became the 1993 Brady Bill and in 2005, he voted in favor of granting gun manufacturers immunity in lawsuits involving violent crimes committed with guns. Sanders has also cast several votes in favor of the assault weapons ban and other gun laws.

Sanders’ campaign shot back that Biden’s words were unseemly.

“Last-minute, cheap barbs of desperation aren’t a good look for a candidate who proclaims his desire to unite the party,” said campaign manager Faiz Shakir.

Thursday marked the first time Buttigieg, who at only 38 has staked a claim as the candidate of “generational change,” criticized his older rivals so directly.

“I hear Senator Sanders calling for a kind of politics that says you got to go all the way here and nothing else counts,” Buttigieg said. “And it’s coming at the very moment when we actually have a historic majority, not just aligned around what it is we’re against, but agreeing on what it is we’re for.”

He also took a dig at Biden, who leads in national polls, at an event in Decorah, Iowa.

“I hear Vice President Biden saying that this is no time to take a risk on someone new,” he said. “But history has shown us that the biggest risk we could take with a very important election coming up is to look to the same Washington playbook and recycle the same arguments and expect that to work against a president like Donald Trump.”

Biden responded by dismissing the critique and like Sanders did with Biden, suggesting it was an act of desperation.

“I don’t know what Pete’s talking about. He’s a good guy and I’m not going to get into it. He must be deciding things are getting a little tight, so ... Washington playbook, I’m not sure what he means. I’m advocating for the middle class and giving people a shot,” Biden said.

Politically, Buttigieg has sought to thread the needle between Sanders and Biden, presenting himself as a candidate who can appeal to both progressives and moderates. The sharper criticism, though, comes as Buttigieg has slipped in Iowa polls. In November, Buttigieg jumped out to a 9-point lead in the the Des Moines Register/CNN poll. The last poll from January showed Buttigieg in third place behind Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

The most recent polling average from RealClearPolitics, has Buttigieg in third place in Iowa.

(DISCLAIMER: Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic nomination for president. He is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)

To contact the reporters on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Pella, Iowa at jepstein32@bloomberg.net;Tyler Pager in Des Moines at tpager1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Magan Crane at mcrane19@bloomberg.net;Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net

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