‘Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump lead nationally, face dead heat in Iowa Caucus’

Hillary Clinton used the last debate prior to voting in Iowa and New Hampshire as a way to make her case to supporters of President Obama, who some allies of Clinton worry could be shifting toward Sanders.

Sunday night’s NBC face-off between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders was watched by 10.2 million viewers, making it the most-watched Democratic primary debate since October.

Hillary is using fear just like the GOP puppet Donald Trump to force voters to work against their own interests.

“She is trying to live within the realm of the possible and not become a fantasist the way that Bernie has”, said Matt Bennett, a Democratic consultant in Washington who worked on both Clintons’ campaigns. “Democrats have gotten things done and they’ve done it under a Democratic president who happens to be named Barack Obama”.

Sanders dismissed the idea that he’d endanger hard-won victories, insisting: “No one is tearing this up; we’re going to go forward”.

Clinton then pivoted to a critique of one of Sanders’ votes on a 2000 bill that loosened regulations on commodities trading (shepherded in by, yes, the Clinton administration) and ended with a reminder that the Republicans are far worse. He’s continued to hold that position throughout the campaign, with his campaign manager saying last June that Sanders would vote for the law again.

Clinton reacted by saying that Sander’s comments about Wall Street and big banks do not effect her, but what she did not like was his aggravation toward President Obama for taking donations from Wall Street. In reality, it’s extremely unlikely that a President Clinton or a President Sanders will have a Democratic Congress to pass new health care legislation any time soon. Perhaps most effectively, she made the argument that Sanders’s program to radically reform health-care reform risked playing into Republican hands in repealing Obamacare.

He acknowledged that his plan would incur a tax on the average American, and Mrs Clinton pounced: “I want to raise incomes, not taxes”.

Defending Obama as a Moses-like figure under attack from Sanders, Clinton painted the Vermont Senator as just the guy you want to avoid on a train ride. The senator further noted that 29 million Americans still lack health care. Her reasoning? Because Obama has led the country “out of the great recession”.

Sanders advocates for a “Medicare for all” health care system where everyone would receive health care from the government. For Clinton, that meant a return to Iowa where Sanders is now running neck-and-neck with her, with just two weeks until the caucuses.

The two candidates – the third on the stage, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, is barely registering – have combined to give Democrats in the early primary states a pretty clear choice, between a candidate offering only modest change and calculated pragmatism and a populist firebrand.

“Guess what: In Iowa, New Hampshire, the race is (now) very, very close”, Sanders said. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow asked Clinton during an interview on Monday.

“It is whether we have the guts to stand up to the private insurance companies and all of their money, and the pharmaceutical industry”, said Sanders “That’s what this debate should be about”.

Clinton said: Sanders support of limiting the amount of time for background checks to three days led to the murder of nine African-American churchgoers in Charleston.

“She obviously has the most experience on the issues, she’s obviously the most comfortable talking about the complexity of these issues and the consequences of them”, Hudak said.

Sanders has pulled into a statistical tie with Clinton in recent polls in Iowa, whose caucuses are the first contest in the race to pick a nominee for the November election.

Sanders got a couple of the biggest cheers Sunday night, but for most of the evening the crowd seemed to be on Clinton’s side.