Still, the war of words that escalated between the party committee and the Sanders and Clinton camps opened up a newly personal side in the Democratic race, with most of the rancor so far happening within the crowded GOP field. The campaign had argued that the loss of access to the database was costing it $600,000 per day in contributions, which it was unable to solicit without the DNC’s voter contact information.
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A data breach in Democratic database system NGP VAN temporarily allowed members of Sanders’ and presidential competitor Hillary Clinton’s teams to access each others’ voter files, according to Reuters.
“We probably let our lust for regime toppling get ahead of the practical considerations for stability in that region”, O’Malley said.
The DNC previously cut off the campaign’s access to the database, saying it inappropriately accessed Hillary Clinton’s campaign data during a security failure in the database software, which the Sanders campaign somewhat admitted to.
The Sanders campaign also suspended two staffers in connection with the breach, a campaign spokesman said after the ABC debate, following the firing of its top data director after reports of the incident surfaced late on Thursday. Asked if he wished to apologize, Sanders did, to Clinton and to his own supporters.
“I believe that I took appropriate steps to audit and assess the security breach and that nothing I did was done in a way that it would give the Sanders campaign a competitive advantage”, he said in an email to The Associated Press.
Now, that the issue has largely been resolved, she said she hopes the Democratic candidates can move on. Tim Scott, both of whom represent the Palmetto State, introduced him at campaign events, though they have not revealed who they are endorsing for president.
Republicans are eager to tie Clinton to the unpopular foreign policy agenda of her former boss, President Barack Obama.
In the first debate of the Democratic presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders dismissed concerns about Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account and server while she served as secretary of state, saying Americans were exhausted of talking about her “damn emails”.
The third candidate onstage besides Clinton and Sanders will be Martin O’Malley.
“This is a moment when Bernie Sanders has to decide if he’s a protest candidate or an alternative to Secretary Clinton”, said Steve McMahon, co-founder of Purple Strategies, a political consulting firm.
And when she described the need to build a coalition of Arab nations to fight the Islamic State, she said: “Bringing Donald Trump back into it, if you’re going to put together a coalition in the region to take on the threat of ISIS, you don’t want to alienate the very countries and people you need to be part of the coalition”.
What was once a wild and unpredictable Democratic race, now, at times, feels like a one-woman show against the Republican Party.
Saturday’s debate was the first for Democrats since the shooting in San Bernardino, California, where 14 people were killed by a married couple that authorities say had been radicalized.
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An independent running as a Democrat, Sanders has deeply loyal supporters who are drawn to his economic- and inequality-focused campaign. Sanders has often led Clinton in polls in this state neighboring his own.
