Race tightens: Clinton, Sanders clash on guns, health care

The debate followed a week of rising tension between the two leading candidates. “Bernie Sanders on issues from gun control to health care and fealty to President Obama at a presidential debate Sunday as she sought to puncture Sanders’s insurgent appeal and regain her footing after a hard stretch”.

“Your profusion of comments about your feelings towards President Obama are a little odd given what you said about him in 2011”, Clinton quipped at one point.

Could history repeat itself in 2016? “Guess what? In Iowa, New Hampshire, the race is very, very close”.

With only two weeks until the Iowa Caucuses the vast majority of Democrats already know if they’re Feeling the Bern or on #TeamHillary anyway, so these debates aren’t driving the decisions in the way that they still do for Republicans.

There was no mystery what Clinton’s debate strategy would be.

“I believe, within 35 years, our country can, and should, be 100% powered by clean energy, supported by millions of new jobs”.

Clinton may have been overstating Sanders’ 2011 remarks.

Clinton, meanwhile, noted that Democrats had fought for a “public option” in Congress before Obamacare was passed – but, to liberals’ disappointment, hadn’t succeeded. One day after the phony Medicare dust-up, Clinton surrogates demanded that the 74-year-old Vermont senator release his medical records to prove his good health.

Hillary Clinton had been drawing attention to Sanders’ past critiques of the president. Clinton listed votes Sanders has made that she said were in line with the NRA: against the Brady Bill five times, for allowing guns on Amtrak and in national parks, among others.

But none of Clinton’s attacks did serious damage to Sanders and he was strikingly effective with counterattacks of his own.

Sanders, who had described Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky as “totally, totally disgraceful and unacceptable”, reiterated he is running against Hillary and not Bill Clinton even as he again called the former president’s behavior “deplorable”. “I don’t get personal speaking fees from Goldman Sachs”, the US senator from Vermont said, adding, “I have huge doubts when people receive money from Wall Street”.

Finally, on the question of whether gun sellers should be held liable for violence caused by guns they’ve sold, Sanders explained that he did not want to put legal gun sellers at risk.

Sanders had his Clinton critiques ready to go as well, alluding to her ties to Wall Street and super PAC backing on more than one occasion throughout the evening.

He said: “I don’t take money from big banks”.

Sanders, on the other hand, has tried to turn back questions about his foreign policy knowledge by pivoting to judgment.

The best news for Clinton is that the debate flew under the national radar screen. Many, including the Clinton campaign, have attributed Dylann Roof’s ability to get a gun to this loophole.

But the fact that the Democratic frontrunner is leery of debates should trouble the party’s rank-and-file.

“You called Bill Clinton’s past transgressions ‘totally, totally, totally disgraceful and unacceptable, ‘” she said.

Sanders’ answer was equally troubling, as he laments that it’s only because of meddling voters that he was critical of Clinton. And the businessman-turned-politician has won over Republican voters looking for a strong leader on their most important issues: Quinipiac’s poll in Iowa found Trump broadly ahead of his competitors as more trusted to handle the economy, immigration and terrorism.

That prompted Clinton to reply that he’d criticized Obama for doing the same. The costs to businesses are somewhat less in what he is proposing as a presidential candidate.

Instead, Clinton praised the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature healthcare law. But after that contest on February 9, the race shifts to South Carolina, Nevada and a wide swath of southern states that vote on March 1.

The Palmetto State is a must-win for Clinton. In December, Clinton’s lead was 19 points.