Former USA secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday emerged unscathed from the Democratic Party’s first debate for next year’s presidential campaign, cutting a calm and confident figure as she sparred with her rivals for the White House. “Big surprise. And that’s what they have attempted to do”. Bernie Sanders did fine, although his past gun stances may have been news to a few viewers. And she continues to grapple with questions about her email practices at the State Department.
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She said when she served as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, she had hoped the Pacific Rim trade agreement would be “the gold standard”, but in the end she said “it didn’t meet my standard”. Sanders described the invasion as “the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of the country”.
The crowd applauded, and I cringed, when Sanders defended Clinton against Emailgate, in which she used a private email account maintained on a server in her personal home for thousands of classified communications as secretary of state between 2009 and 2013.
Clinton thanked Sanders, shaking his hand. Chafee said he was proud to make an enemy of poor coal miners.
As opposed to the Republicans, the Democrats did not demonize any ethnic or racial group in America and did not insult each other.
Republican front-runner Donald Trump, for example, has explicitly cast aside decades to centuries of scientific research on this issue.
The gun control portion of the debate was the most instructive.
Both Clinton and Sanders camps declared the debate a success.
Clinton showed why she remains the favorite for the Democratic nomination. I got an email from a Hillary fan this morning telling me she’ll “pray” I get leukemia.
“NONE of them talked about or were asked about the most important ISSUES we face as a Nation …” Or the money question: You have accepted a hundred million dollars mostly from millionaires and billionaires, what role will all that dark money play in your administration? “What Democratic Socialism is about is saying that it is immoral and wrong that the top one-tenth of 1 percent own 90 percent”. Already Clinton is being undermined by insinuations that she somehow had an unfair advantage, insinuations that frequently emit a strong whiff of sexism.
Adding to the uncertainty surrounding the debate was the question of whether Vice President Biden will decide to join the race. “The vision for America that he has is something that would be welcomed in the presidential race”.
Biden is expected to make a decision within days about whether to run.
“The debate was largely a contest between the two front-runners”. And Lincoln Chafee, one of the three longshot hopefuls on the stage, blasted Ms Clinton’s “poor judgment calls” in voting as senator to authorise the use of force in Iraq.
“I have been very consistent over the course of my entire life. We need a tough, strong leader”, the ad’s voiceover says before declaring, “and it’s not this guy”. “Because what I worry about is what will happen with ISIS gaining more territory, having more reach, and, frankly, posing a threat to our friends and neighbors in the region and far beyond”.
Cooper did ask her about changing positions on issues such as the TPP and the Keystone XL pipeline. Bernie Sanders, an Independent by label, “democratic socialist” by self-description, and non-believer in capitalism, has come the closest. She put on a command performance in a substance-heavy debate free from the “Can you address what the other candidate called you?” questions that have been a hallmark of the Republican ones. “I did my homework”.
“That’s what they have attempted to do”, she said.
On guns, Sanders found himself on the defensive from both Clinton and O’Malley. “And it changes depending on years and centuries, but I am not a believer, and we have much bigger problems”.
Earlier in the debate, Clinton and Sanders did square off over gun control, but that was one of the only times the two frontrunners approached a direct and tense confrontation. “I didn’t leave anybody at the altar, ” he said, citing the poor working conditions of many of those workers. His record shows “I’ve always been willing” to take on complicated and unpopular issues, including criminal justice reform.
Yet Clinton left no doubt that she’s setting her sights on the GOP field.
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“Let me say something that may not be great politics”, he said. The next Democratic debate will be held November 14 in Iowa.
