But during the almost two-hour debate, the bigger question loomed: What about the legacy of President Obama.
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Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders battled for the crucial support of black and Hispanic voters in a Democratic debate, a polite but pointed contest that marked a shift in the primary toward states with more minority voters. In both Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders trounced Clinton among independents. Except when they didn’t.
In the spring and summer of 2011, as Obama was gearing up for reelection, Sanders wondered to the media about how it might be good for someone to challenge Obama to push the president to the left.
Sanders responded by noting that Clinton ran against Obama in the 2008 presidential race.
“The kind of criticism I hear from Senator Sanders, I expect from Republicans”, Mrs Clinton said.
“Madam Secretary, that is a low blow one of us ran against Barack Obama”.
Clinton, who noted her role in shaping last year’s sanctions relief for nuclear rollback deal between Iran and six major powers, said Iran must first end backing for terrorism before any normalization process is launched.
It was a discussion that did more to highlight the differences between the two parties than those between Sanders and Clinton.
The fundraiser comes as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are in a heated race for the party’s nomination.
Seeking to boost his support with minorities, Sanders called for reforms to a “broken criminal justice system” that incarcerates a disproportionate number of minorities. “I don’t think they understood that sufficiently”, Clyburn said.
Democrat of NY and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus political action committee, which has endorsed Hillary Clinton. The debate focused on topics surrounding the needs of minority voters in a clear nod to the next states on the primary calendar: Voters in SC and Nevada will pick their favorite candidate in the next few weeks.
“In my case, whether it’s health care, or getting us to debt-free tuition, or moving us toward paid family leave, I have been very specific about where I would raise the money, how much it would cost, and how I would move this agenda forward”, Clinton said.
In a bid to perhaps draw more young voters to her side, Clinton embraced one of his trademark lines.
Two of the top GOP leaders in national polls – Donald Trump and Sen.
Clinton invoked Obama or his administration 21 times during the debate and used the president, who remains popular with rank-and-file Democrats, as a shield to push back against Sanders’ critiques. There have only been 47 women to have served in our country’s United States Senate since the founding of our country. She has to work on making sure everyone feels part of that.
Sanders didn’t put a price on his policies, but neither did he shy away from the notion that he wants to expand the size of government.
“Rich get richer and poor get poorer…in America today whole lot of this poor people are African-American”, said Sanders.
Clinton, calling that “a promise that can’t be kept”, said, “Based on every analysis that I can find by people who are sympathetic to the goal, the numbers don’t add up, and many people will actually be worse off than they are right now”.
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“The world a president has to grapple with, sometimes you can’t even imagine”, an announcer declares at the ad’s beginning.
