With terrorism fears rising and the U.S. getting deeper into yet another conflict in Iraq, Bernie Sanders picked at an old political wound for Hillary Clinton in a Democratic presidential debate Saturday night.
“I voted against the War in Iraq because I thought unilateral military action would not produce the results that were necessary and would lead to the kind of unraveling and instability that we saw in the Middle East,” Sanders said, referencing the 2002 vote.
Clinton voted for the war authorization, and Barack Obama harped on the issue in 2008 to help defeat her in a presidential primary.
Running again in 2016, Clinton faces an upstart in Sanders who staked out less-interventionist ground in repeated clashes Saturday, while Clinton played the experience card from her time as secretary of state.
“I know how hard it is to build coalitions,” Clinton said.
Though Sanders, the Vermont senator, has based his challenge to Clinton mostly on pocketbook issues, taking on banks and billionaires, he has had to pivot in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. So his attack in the third Democratic presidential debate on the campus of Saint Anselm’s College in Manchester indirectly pinned the blame for the rise of the Islamic State on Clinton’s policies.
He declared Clinton too enamored with “regime change,” and said the U.S. should work with Russia to take out the Islamic State and not worry about removing Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, at least for now.
Clinton countered that anti-Islamic State fighters will not work with the U.S. unless it is trying to push out Assad simultaneously.
She added to Sanders: “With all due respect, senator, you voted for regime change with respect to Libya.”
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley tried to elbow his way into the conversation by interjecting “a different generation’s perspective,” taking ideas from the African Union and others around the world to build “new alliances.” The guitar-playing 52-year-old does strike a contrast with Clinton, 68, and Sanders, 74. But O’Malley has struggled mightily in polls in New Hampshire and around the country.
On domestic issues, both O’Malley and Sanders struck out ground to Clinton’s left on the financial sector, saying they wanted to break up the big banks and reinstate a law repealed by Clinton’s husband, President Bill Clinton, to separate commercial and investment banks.
Sanders also touted more liberal plans than Clinton on healthcare (a single-payer system) and college tuition (free for all). Clinton said Sanders’ plans disregard “a way to pay for it,” while Sanders said middle class families’ spending on those areas now far outweigh the tax increases that would be needed to fund the programs.
“Now this is getting fun,” Sanders said after an exchange on domestic turf more comfortable to him.
On gun control, O’Malley tried to get to the candidates’ left, drawing both Sanders’ and Clinton’s ire.
“Look, what we need on this issue is not more polls. We need more principle,” said O’Malley, who cracked down on guns in his state and accused Sanders and Clinton of being too pro-gun during previous races.
The debate took place against a backdrop of unrest involving the Democratic National Committee, after the Sanders campaign sued the party Friday.
The dispute started when Sanders staffers took advantage of a screw up by a data vendor that handles Democrats’ voter file. Sanders’ staff looked at and saved Clinton’s proprietary voter targeting data, a critical resource the campaign spent millions of dollars developing.
The DNC responded by yanking Sanders’ access to all the data, essentially shutting down a major tool of his campaign. Sanders fired his data director and took the DNC to court. They reached a deal overnight Friday to allow Sanders’ campaign to use the data as an investigation moves forward.
Early in the debate, Sanders apologized to Clinton for the incident, adding: “This is not the type of campaign that we run, and if I find anybody else involved in this they will also be fired.”
But the DNC’s reaction has played into concerns among Sanders’ team and his activist liberal supporters that the party is in the tank for Clinton. She has party heavyweights’ support throughout the country – including Georgia state party chairman DuBose Porter – while Sanders relies more on grassroots types.
The kerfuffle worked for Sanders. The Washington Post reported that his campaign raised $1 million Friday alone after playing up the controversy to its donors.
DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz did not back down Saturday in Manchester, telling reporters the Sanders campaign had only itself to blame for having its voter file access temporarily halted.
“We’re certainly not in any candidate’s pocket,” Wasserman Schultz said.
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