The former Secretary of State is seeking to associate herself with the most popular Democrat in the country, President Barack Obama, and trying to disassociate her opponent, Bernie Sanders, from him. Sanders about our president, I expect from Republicans.
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Civil rights leader John Lewis on Thursday dismissed Sanders’ claims of his 1960s work on racial equality, saying, “I never saw him”. “Last I heard, a United States senator had the right to disagree with the president, including a president who has done such an extraordinary job”.
“You know, senator, what I am concerned about is not disagreement on issues – saying that this is what I would rather do, I don’t agree with the president on that”, Clinton said. Sanders, she writes, “was oddly on the defensive despite what has been momentum in his favor, starting out the night more combative than Clinton and wasting his time on petty one-liners”.
Even so, the restrained exchange yesterday was unlikely to change the trajectory of a race that has intensified dramatically over two weeks.
Sanders called Clinton out for advocating the return of the children who poured across the southern border in 2014. She said his proposal for a single-payer, Medicare-for-all healthcare plan would mean dismantling the program known as Obamacare and triggering another intense political struggle. “I have worked for his re-election, his first election and his re-election”, Sanders said.
But on the issue of college affordability, she accused the Vermont senator of “making promises we can’t keep”.
While Sanders has drawn significant grassroots support across the region, local Hillary Clinton supporters stand firmly behind a candidate they say has the experience and electability advantage.
Sanders got in his own jibe when Clinton alluded to his criticism of fellow Democrat, Obama. “I’m not asking people to support me because I’m a woman”, she said at one point, as the questioning turned to the historical nature of her candidacy.
Sanders likely had some thoughts when Clinton discussed her individual campaign contributions in comparison to his.
Thursday night in Milwaukee, she used the Wisconsin governor to take a swipe at Bernie Sanders. “What we have got to do is make it clear that any police officer who breaks the law will, in fact, be held accountable”.
Mrs Clinton criticised what she called “systemic racism” in education, housing and employment.
Clinton pointed out that Sanders had voted against an ultimately failed bid to pass comprehensive immigration reform in Congress in 2007 while she voted for it. Sanders explained that he had done so because guest worker provisions under the legislation were described by one legal advocacy group as “akin to slavery”.
The debate was the first time the rivals met since Sanders won the New Hampshire primary in a 20 point victory on Tuesday.
“Both the African-American community and the white community do marijuana at about equal rates”, Sanders said. “People are not dumb”. “I guess just for the fun of it; they want to throw money around”. She peppered her comments on the Islamic State and Russian Federation with reminders of her four years serving as Obama’s secretary of state. Right now he hasn’t, and I think that’s going to catch up with him down the line. “But it doesn’t change my view that we need to empower everyone, women and men, to make the best decisions in their minds that they can make”, she said.
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None delivered the knockout blow that Clinton needs to fend off Sanders, who has proved surprisingly competitive in a number of states that were once assumed to be easy wins for the former secretary of state. The first one came when, after Clinton spoke about her role in advising President Obama to go ahead with the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Sanders criticized her for seeking the foreign-policy advice of Henry Kissinger.
