The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Clinton, Sanders spar at N.Y. debate
Democratic candidates question each other’s judgment.
NEW YORK — Deepening their increasingly bitter feud, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders challenged each other’s judgment in Thursday night’s Democratic debate, a showdown at a pivotal moment in the party’s presidential primary campaign.
Sanders cited Clinton’s support for the unpopular Iraq war and for free trade agreements, as well as her willingness to accept money through a super PAC, as evidence that she lacks the needed judgment. Still, he backed away from previous statements questioning her qualifications for the highest office, saying the former secretary of state does have the “experience and intelligence” to be president.
Clinton made little effort to hide her irritation with Sanders’ challenge to her qualifications, saying that while she has been “called a lot of things in my life, that was a first.” She also cast Sanders as unprepared to implement his signature policy proposals, including breaking up big Wall Street banks.
“I think you need to have the judgment on day one to be commander in chief,” she said.
Debating in Brooklyn, not far from Wall Street, Clinton said her approach would rely on the provisions of the existing Dodd-Frank financial reform law, passed
during the Great Recession, that mandate the break-up of banks that fail to pass stress tests or submit adequate “living wills” describing how they would unwind their affairs in an orderly way if they faced bankruptcy.
She said she would name regulators who “are tough enough and ready enough to break up” any bank that fails to meet the law’s requirements. She said she also wants to expand those standards to apply to hedge funds and insurance companies.
Sanders responded that he doesn’t need Dodd-Frank’s guidelines to tell him the banks are too big.
“They are just too big — too much concentration of wealth and power,” he said.
But he wasn’t as sure of himself when challenged to demonstrate how Clinton was influenced in her policies by donations from Wall Street, as he has often alleged. He accused Clinton of being busy giving highpaid speeches to Goldman Sachs while he was introducing legislation to break up fraudulent operators.
Clinton said Sanders couldn’t come up with an example because there isn’t one. But she quickly went on the defensive again when pushed on when she would release transcripts of her paid speeches to Wall Street firms, reiterating her insistence that she will do so only when other presidential candidates do.
Sanders said he would happily release all his speeches because “there were no speeches.”
The candidates also sparred over raising the federal minimum wage, with Sanders expressing surprise as Clinton voiced support for efforts to set the hourly pay rate at $15, the level he has long backed.
“I don’t know how you’re there for the fight for 15 when you say you want a $12 minimum wage,” he said.
Clinton then clarified that while she does support a $12 hourly minimum wage, she would sign legislation raising that level to $15.
The debate was the first for the Democratic candidates in five weeks. It came ahead of Tuesday’s primary in New York, a high-stakes contest with a huge cache of delegates at stake.
For Clinton, a win in her adopted home state would blunt Sanders’ recent momentum and put his pursuit of the nomination further out of reach. A Sanders upset over Clinton would shake up the race, raising fresh concerns about her candidacy and breathing new life into the Vermont senator’s campaign.
Sanders has won a string of recent primary contests, including a big victory earlier this month in Wisconsin. But because Democrats award their delegates proportionally, he’s struggled to cut into the lead Clinton took earlier in the voting. He’s also failed to persuade superdelegates — the party insiders who can back the candidate of their choice regardless of how their states vote — to switch their loyalties from Clinton.
Clinton has accumulated 1,289 pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses while Sanders has 1,038. Her lead grows significantly when the superdelegates are added in: 1,758 for Clinton and 1,069 for Sanders.
It takes 2,383 to clinch the Democratic nomination. Sanders would need to win 68 percent of the remaining delegates and uncommitted superdelegates to reach that figure.
Despite his long mathematical odds, Sanders has vowed to stay in the race through the party’s convention in July. Backed by legions of loyal supporters, he’s amassed impressive fundraising totals that give him the financial wherewithal to do just that.