Clinton, Sanders Debate: “Obviously We’ve Hit A Nerve”
But before then, there will be at least two more debates between these two surviving candidates for the 2016 Democratic nomination.
Just five days before New Hampshire voters will have their say in their state’s first-in-the-nation primary, there was another first in the Granite State: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders went toe-to-toe on a debate stage, just the two of them.
Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders listens to a point made by rival candidate Hillary Clinton during a presidential primary debate hosted by MSNBC in Durham, N.H., February 4, 2016.
Later that day at a canvassing kickoff, Clinton did not shy away from talking about Sanders, whom she trails by 9 percent in a new Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll.
“So I think it’s time to end the very artful smear that you and your campaign have been carrying out”, she added, saying “let’s talk about the issues”. “She has the entire establishment or nearly the entire establishment behind her”, Sanders said before touting his support from “ordinary Americans”.
Until this week, Clinton’s Wall Street ties were a nuisance; her key strategy against Sanders was to try to show she could match his liberalism.
“There is a reason why these people are putting huge amounts of money into our political system”, Mr. Sanders said.
But when asked at the debate to release the transcripts of those speeches, she said: “I’ll look into it”, a response that could give a new line of attack to Republicans who have been hammering her about the release of emails from her private email server as secretary of State. “That’s what they offered”, she said. Are you willing to release the transcripts that were under your control?
Unless Sanders can build confidence in his ability to handle foreign policy (or convince Democrats that the economic issues which form the centerpiece of his electoral platform are the most pressing facing the country) his efforts to reach the White House may well be in trouble.
Sanders, meanwhile, would wallop Trump by a resounding 49% to 39% and beat Cruz by 46% to 42%, Quinnipiac said.
Hours before Sanders arrived, a line of people waited in a Friday morning snowstorm to see the Vermonter, whose voice was raspier than usual as he spoke about defending women’s rights, raising the minimum wage, lifting children out of poverty, and making public universities and colleges tuition free. In December, Clinton lead Sanders nationwide 61 to 30, but as national media attention has finally honed in on the fired up contest on the Democratic side, Sanders has seen his support jump to 42 percent while Clinton retains 44 percent support. “A vote in 2002 is not a plan to defeat ISIS”, she said, referring to Sanders’ critique of her Iraq War support.
The former Secretary of State lags far behind Vermont Sen. Her answer has been pretty standard: This is what former top officials do; they go on the speaking circuit and make a lot of money giving the wealthy a behind-the-scenes look at major world events.
Sanders allowed that while Clinton had been secretary of state, “experience is not the only point”.
CLINTON: No, I’m not. “I think everybody knows it”.
Instead, she used the question as an opportunity to tout her foreign policy credentials. “And I just absolutely reject that, senator”.