Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, and Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton spar during a Democratic presidential primary debate hosted by MSNBC at the University of New Hampshire Thur…
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Sanders allowed that while Clinton had been secretary of state, “experience is not the only point”.
Privately, Clinton’s supporters say that while being a youth icon has its advantages, the support of middle-aged and older voters is enough for her to capture the nomination.
“Except when she announces that she is a proud moderate, and then I guess she is not a progressive”, Sanders said.
“A progressive is someone who makes progress”.
“Just for the record, are you a progressive, or are you a moderate?”Anderson Cooper asked Clinton”.
On Thursday, Clinton played up what she sees as her greater electablity in a general-election contest in November.
“You being the self-proclaimed gatekeeper for progressivism, I don’t know anyone else who fits that definition, but I know a lot of really hard-fighting progressives”, she said. “We can go back and forth like this”.
Sanders didn’t hit Clinton directly when he responded, but he didn’t shrink, either. Sanders pledged to change that.
Clinton, Sanders argues, is not progressive because she voted for the Iraq war, accepted millions of dollars in campaign contributions from Wall Street and took speaking fees of $675,000 from Goldman Sachs. Sanders attacked her as being part of a political “establishment” in the pocket of big Wall Street donors. “By moving forward, rallying the American people, I do believe we should have health care for all”.
The one thing that makes a quick Clinton win uncertain is money. He’s taken in money at a faster pace than Barack Obama did in 2008 and in January outraised Clinton. Red was everywhere, reflected in the thick glasses of Bernie Sanders and in the garish red lipstick around Hillary Clinton’s orifice of lies, and in their clamorous rants about Wall Street and the evils of capitalism that could have come from a back alley Communist pamphleteer in the 50s. He said if he’s elected president, companies like that “are going to pay their fair share of taxes”.
Clinton said, “If we’re going to get into labels, I don’t think it was particularly progressive to vote against the Brady Bill five times”.
Clinton remained ahead of Sanders in a Real Clear Politics average of recent national surveys by about 13 points.
Clinton said the issue was cooked up by Republicans, and amounts to nothing. He pointed out he voted against the war, which he said had led to the rise of the Islamic State militant group.
Sanders held the former secretary of state to a whisper-thin margin of victory in Iowa’s leadoff caucuses, and polls show he has a big lead in New Hampshire. The candidates agreed to add four more debates to the primary season schedule, including Thursday’s face-off in Durham. Her finance director called the numbers “a very loud wake-up call”.
Sanders said he would not dismantle Obamacare but would expand it, pointing to the many other countries that provide universal health care.
The poll also finds that Sanders matches up better with top Republican primary candidates than Clinton.
Clinton, unwilling to cede the issue to Sanders, insisted that her regulatory policies would be tougher on Wall Street than his.
Sanders has said that as president he would order his Treasury secretary to compile a list of financial firms that are “too big to fail”. Clinton has apologized for that vote. “That’s what leadership is about, not having to apologize for what’s right”.
However resigned Clinton’s team may be to a loss here Tuesday, it thinks the electoral terrain will turn in her favor afterward, as the campaign moves to states with more diverse populations.
The two campaigns have even skirmished this week over why Sanders is doing so well in New Hampshire polls.
And he denied that Sanders was guilty of an underhand smear against Clinton. Sanders countered that the ads didn’t say he’d been endorsed but merely passed along “nice” words that newspapers had written about him.
Clinton cast herself as a “progressive who gets things done”.
A few days ago, a Trump v. Clinton race seemed certain. Now?
“I will look into it”, she told moderator Chuck Todd. She says she would impose broader changes than Sanders by placing new restrictions on “shadow banks”, including hedge funds and high-frequency traders. “The difference for young voters and for all voters is the ability to get something done”, Robby Mook, her campaign manager said in an interview with MSNBC this week.
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Associated Press writers Laurie Kellman in Washington, D.C. and Scott Bauer contributed from Madison, Wisconsin.
