“I was not that candidate”, Sanders retorted.
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The debate grew testy after the pair competed over who would do better meeting the needs of poor African Americans, Latinos and achieving immigration reform. Clinton didn’t have a bad debate but it’s hard for her to not come across as the establishment candidate and that’s not what voters seem to want – at least this week.
Presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders squared off in a key Democratic debate Thursday night at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
“I don’t think he gets the credit he deserves for being a president who got us out of that ditch, put us on firm ground, and sent us into the future”, Clinton said, noting that Obama came into office in the midst of a deep recession. Voters in the Badger State will have all that time to mull over what Clinton and Sanders said Thursday night.
“I feel like we have to level with people”, she said. “So I have voiced criticism…” “But I think it is really unfair to suggest that I have not been supportive of the president”. He called President Obama a good friend, hailed the job that Obama has done as president, and said that a senator has the right to disagree with the president.
Clinton referenced past comments from Sanders in which he called Obama “weak”. “I do not expect from someone running for the Democratic nomination to succeed President Obama”, she added.
In preparation for South Carolina’s February 27 Democratic primary, Clinton has increasingly been highlighting her ties to Obama. Walker said, “If, in the end, Hillary Clinton prevails, but a lot of particularly young voters feel disenfranchised because of the whole superdelegate process, they may not vote for a Republican, but they may vote for a third party or not vote at all”. But his opening statement also assailed a “broken” criminal justice system, with “more people in jail in the United States of America than any other country on earth, 2.2 million”.
Sanders said he was simply moving to provide what most industrialized countries have – healthcare coverage for all. Long believed to be her base, women went with Sanders, 55-44 percent.
As before, though, Sanders deftly raised the trust issue about Clinton. “And that’s a promise that can’t be kept….” “Obviously, telling someone to read a book doesn’t mean you agree with everything that’s in the book”. Part of that is thanks to the questions asked by the PBS moderators, Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff.
The candidates laid out sharp differences – largely without the kind of bitter attacks that marked their last debate before New Hampshire.
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Clinton has distanced herself from Sanders by presenting herself as the pragmatist who can get things done in Washington, including addressing issues in income inequality and campaign finance reform – the core of Sanders’s message. “I have talked to some of the young kids with tears rolling down their cheeks, (who) are scared to death that today they may or their parents may be deported”, Sanders said. Sanders challenged her judgment by raising her support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a war he voted against.
