Clinton, Sanders square off
LAS VEGAS — Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders clashed over U.S. involvement in the Middle East, gun control and economic policy in the first Democratic presidential debate Tuesday night, vigorously outlining competing visions for a party seeking to keep the White House for a third straight term.
Yet in a moment of political unity — and levity — Sanders leaped to Clinton’s defense on the issue of her controversial e-mail practices as secretary of state.
“The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn e-mails,” Sanders exclaimed as the crowd in Las Vegas roared with applause. A smiling Clinton reached over to shake his hand and said, “Thank you.”
While the five candidates onstage took issue with each other, they also repeatedly sounded traditional Democratic themes — such as fighting income inequality — that are sure to carry over to the general election campaign against the Republicans. And they sought to cast the GOP as a party focused on sowing division and denigrating minorities and women.
Before they face the Republicans, the Democrats must choose their own candidate. And throughout most of the two-hour debate Clinton played the role of aggressor, an unexpected shift for a candidate who had barely mentioned her Democratic rivals since launching her campaign six months ago. Until Tuesday night, Clinton and Sanders — who has surprisingly emerged as her toughest competition — had circled each other cautiously and avoided direct attacks.
After Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, derided “a casino capitalist process by which so few have so much,” Clinton said it would be a “big mistake” for the U.S. to turn its back on the system that built the American middle class. Asked whether she thought Sanders, who has a mixed record on gun control legislation, had been tough enough on the issue, she said simply,” No, I do not.”
Sanders is drawing big crowds on the campaign trail and challenging Clinton’s fundraising prowess, but he’s largely unknown to many Americans. The debate offered him a high-profile opportunity to cast himself as an electable alternative to Clinton and appeal for support beyond his liberal base.
Sanders has sought in particular to distinguish himself from Clinton over foreign policy, an issue where she is often more hawkish than others in the Democratic Party. The former secretary of state reiterated her call for more robust U.S. action to stop the Syrian civil war and defended her judgment on international issues, despite having voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Sanders called the Iraq war “the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of our country” and said he would not support sending American combat troops back to the Middle East to fight terrorism.
“Nobody does, Senator Sanders,” Clinton interjected.
The only woman on stage, Clinton also highlighted the prospect of becoming the nation’s first female president multiple times. When asked how her administration would differ from President Barack Obama’s, she said with a smile, “Being the first woman president would be quite a change.”
Joining Clinton and Sanders on stage in Las Vegas was a trio of low-polling candidates looking for a breakthrough moment: former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley; Jim Webb, a former Navy secretary and U.S. senator from Virginia, and Lincoln Chafee, the Republican-turned independent-turned Democrat from Rhode Island.
