For the first time, the two leading 2016 Democratic presidential candidates will face off one-on-one in a debate, hosted by MSNBC at 9 p.m. ET Thursday in New Hampshire, just days before the state’s first-in-the-nation primary.
Advertisement
“If he’s going to raise the spectre of contributions that have been made to her from the financial industry, he should have to complete the thought, and lay out exactly what he’s accusing her of”, press secretary Brian Fallon said at Bloomberg Politics breakfast briefing in Manchester, New Hampshire.
President Clinton campaigned for his wife Wednesday in SC, where African-American voters are expected to give Hillary Clinton a lift on February 27. He worked to tar her with Wall Street connections.
Clinton called his remarks an attack and said that “every step along the way I have stood up to fight, and have scars to prove it”. Sanders’ campaign accused Clinton’s of insulting New Hampshire voters by suggesting that they only support the Vermont senator because he’s from a neighboring state.
Sanders leads the former first lady among voters aged 18-29 by 76 to 24 per cent, the poll found.
“I think the American people will know it’s an absurdity”.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) during Thursday’s Democratic debate by questioning whether any Democrats could meet his definition of a progressive.
“I don’t think it was particularly progressive to vote against the Brady bill five times”, Clinton said, referring to past votes by Sanders on gun control.
Sanders, though, is the heavy favorite on his home turf in New England and not willing to let the former secretary of state chalk up a victory in New Hampshire as she did in 2008.
On the Republican side, Trump is firmly ahead in New Hampshire, with the telegenic Rubio moving into second place ahead of Cruz, according to the latest University of Massachusetts/Lowell poll.
One of Clinton’s most forceful remarks came in response to a suggestion by Sanders that she could be influenced by political donations by Wall Street.
Sanders will likely seek to capitalize on Clinton’s uneven performance at the town hall.
Clinton shot back from the campaign stage that the charge was a “low blow”, saying she’s been “fighting the progressive fight” for years, including her drive to expand children’s health insurance.
“I want to go after the pharmaceutical companies like Valeant and Turing that are increasing prices without any regard to the impact on people’s health”, Clinton said. “I plead guilty”, she’s said before.
“Just for the record, are you a progressive, or are you a moderate?”Anderson Cooper asked Clinton”.
For all of the disagreeable talk, the two Democrats’ agreed against committing ground combat troops back to the Middle East to address the terrorist threat. He’s said if you voted for the Iraq War, if in favor of the death penalty, if you wobbled on things like the Keystone Pipeline or TPP, if you said single-payer health care could never happen then you’re too far to the right of the Democratic Party to be the party’s standard bearer. “Yes, I do”, Sanders said, though he added that he disagreed with the President on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact.
Advertisement
Clinton, 68, acknowledges she faces an uphill battle in winning over the younger vote, which polls show identifies strongly with Sanders’ poverty-busting agenda and free tuition at public colleges. But once again he offered his oft-repeated point: She may have the experience, but I had the judgment to vote against the Iraq War.
