Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton at the PBS NewsHour debate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Feb. 11. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)
MILWAUKEE — Following a more than 20-point drubbing from Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire earlier this week, Hillary Clinton looked on Thursday night to use a nationally televised debate to reposition herself in the Democratic primary and make inroads with potential voters in Nevada and South Carolina, who will vote next.
In some ways, it’s an extraordinarily uphill battle. Sanders and Clinton have already cemented their political archetypes in this race against each other: The Democratic socialist senator from Vermont represents the idealistic wing of the party, and the former secretary of state, the pragmatic middle. Whether it was by intentional strategy or merely an inability to shift their core identities in the primary, the two politicians largely stuck to the same talking points they’ve used throughout the race. But Clinton seemed to redouble her focus on President Obama. For months, Clinton has claimed that she is the best protector of the Obama legacy, an experienced and adept lawmaker who can continue to make incremental changes on big policies, like health care.
Thursday night she made her Obama fight with Sanders a two-front war. Not only was she trying to send a signal to voters that she is the most capable Democrat in the Obama mold, but she also was attempting to paint Sanders as either unable or unwilling to safeguard the Obama legacy because he has, at times, been critical of the administration’s actions, like on extending massive tax breaks to the wealthy or cutting spending on domestic programs in deals with Republicans.
“We have a special obligation to make clear what we stand for, which is why I think we should not make promises we can’t keep, because that will further, I think, alienate Americans from understanding and believing we can together make some real changes in people’s lives,” Clinton said, near the top of the debate, an opening salvo that implied Sanders’ ideas are impossible to execute and might only serve to let down the base. At the same time, she sharpened her argument that Sanders is largely a one-note candidate protesting a government rigged in favor of the wealthy — a proposition she said she agrees with — and lacks the breadth of experience in both domestic and foreign affairs to be president.
Even so, throughout the evening, Clinton tried to shoehorn her political history into a more progressive version of itself, a recognition of Sanders’ inroads with the grassroots left and younger voters who likely cannot remember much of her husband’s administration.
For voters about to hit the polls this week and next, there were a few important takeaways from Thursday’s second one-on-one bout between Sanders and Clinton, and Yahoo News was on the scene to spot them.
1. Obama was the third Democrat onstage: Clinton moved swiftly to try to cast the debate between the two candidates as who liked Obama more: “You know, Senator, what I am concerned about, is not disagreement on issues, saying that this is what I would rather do … calling the president weak, calling him a disappointment, calling several times that he should have a primary opponent when he ran for re-election in 2012, you know, I think that goes further than saying we have our disagreements,” Clinton said.
