Clinton, Sanders clash over minorities, money, Obama

As the Democratic race moves to states with large minority populations, both candidates openly courted black and Hispanic votes during a debate that was far more restrained and cordial than last week’s contentious debate in New Hampshire.

Bernie Sanders, who beat Clinton single-handedly in the New Hampshire primary two days ago.

PBS elevated this question from a random Facebook person: “Can you name two leaders, one American and one foreign, who would influence your policy decisions?”

“One of us ran against Barack Obama, I was not that candidate”, Sanders said in response to Clinton attacking him for his criticisms of Obama. She was looking to gain back lost ground after a discouraging 20-point defeat in New Hampshire. “I am proud to say Kissinger is not my friend. And for good cause”.

Clinton sought to co-opt the language that Sanders has been using to refer to an economy he says rewards the rich at the expense of the middle class.

Asked point blank if race relations would be better under a Sanders administration, he did not hesitate, “Yes”.

Clinton accused Sanders of calling Obama “weak” and “disappointing” and even said he tried to find a primary opponent for him in 2012. Sanders called Kissinger “one of the most destructive secretaries of state”.

“The kind of criticism we’ve heard from Sen”. “If we engage and get involved, yeah, we can have health care for all people”, and free college tuition, etc. Then he cited Winston Churchill, though “[his] politics were not my politics”, for rallying the British people. “I will not take advice from Henry Kissinger”, Sanders said. Sanders about our president, I expect from Republicans.

She said she listens to a “wide variety” of advisers in various areas: “It’s a big complicated world out there”, she said.

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton took of the gloves and duked it out over immigration reform and other issues during Thursday night’s PBS/Facebook debate. Sec. “African-Americans who face discrimination in the job market, education, housing, and the criminal justice system”, she said. “I think we welcome them into this country and do the best we can to help them get their lives together”.

He called for “fundamental police reform”, and said Americans are “sick and tired” of seeing unarmed African Americans killed by police officers. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) as insufficiently supportive of the nation’s first black president. Last year’s fundraising reports show that Sanders raised fully 72 percent of his campaign money from people who gave $200 or less, while for Clinton those donors accounted for just 16 percent of her funds. “They are voting for the commander in chief”, she said. As she delivered it, her supporters in the room, of whom there were many, burst into loud cheers. “I guess just for the fun of it”.

Clinton dodged an opportunity to distance herself from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s recent controversial comments that there was “a special place in hell” for women who don’t support other women.

Rather than pushing back, however, Mr Sanders responded with defiance.

“What we have to do is end over-policing in African- American neighborhoods”, he said.

“Yeah, it’s rigged”, he said, speaking of the financial system, “because you don’t have a president who’s a change-maker, who has a Congress who will work with him”.

Meanwhile, Gov. John Kasich is counting on his home state to boost his chances of securing the Republican presidential nomination on the GOP side of the March 15 ballot.

Sanders countered that Clinton was not being accurate, casting the fight for universal health care as a matter of courage.

Eager to share Bernie Sanders’s claim to the grass roots, Hillary Clinton is having trouble owning up to the deep pockets helping her campaign. He criticized Clinton’s 2002 vote to authorize the war in Iraq, her push to oust Col. Moammar Gadhafi in Libya and her consulting of Kissinger.