Thursday night at the Democratic debate in Milwaukee, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both had their best debate performance yet. Unfortunately, this doesn’t give viewers an idea of a clear winner — but what the heck, a resounding Democratic primary win doesn’t even count as a win these days.
With only two in the race, Hillary had a clear goal: put a dent in Bernie’s momentum without being insulting. She tried to show Democratic voters she is a progressive, yet a pragmatist. As the only true progressive still running, Bernie’s argument is you can’t be a “progressive” and a moderate. Vermin Supreme’s free pony plan may not have helped him attract voters in New Hampshire, but Bernie’s free college proposal sure did.
Clinton took this opportunity to suggest that this is not a realistic plan:
Pointing out the unrealistic nature of Bernie’s proposals is a tough line to walk, and Clinton had to straddle this line of attack all evening. Go too far and you sound like a Republican naysayer, flub it and you look weak or insufficiently progressive.
Clinton and Sanders also sparred over the financial restructuring laws Glass-Steagall and Dodd Frank, both taking their respective corners: Sanders said the status quo is not enough while Hillary wrapped herself in the cloak of Obama, the natural heir to a third term.
Near the end of the debate, Hillary tried a different way of getting under Bernie’s skin: disagreement with the president.
It backfired. Bernie came across as genuine and honest, and that’s a department where Clinton suffers.
For his closing statement, Bernie came back and dropped the mic, saying: “One of us ran against Barack Obama. I was not that candidate.”
It was an odd open to begin a closing statement with, but it was a response to another jab from Clinton:
The Sanders one-liner had a Trumpian “linguistic kill shot” feel to it.
It decimated Clinton’s kumbayah line of attack on Sanders because not only did he point out she has done the same thing (criticize Obama), she did it while running against him. And it reminded viewers that she lost, and she did so from Obama’s right … arguing all along she was the pragmatic one.
