New York Times
By Maggie Haberman
March 10, 2016
The
Democrats saved their most raucous debate for what could be their last.
For two hours, Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont
traded sharp attacks in Florida, a crucial
battleground state that votes next week, over immigration policy, the
government bailout of the automobile industry and, inevitably, the
Republican front-runner, Donald J. Trump.
The immigration divide is deep
Immigration
policy has been among the biggest substantive differences between Mr.
Sanders and Mrs. Clinton, and the two attacked each other on the issue
while also struggling to explain their
past positions. Mrs. Clinton criticized Mr. Sanders for opposing the
2007 immigration overhaul, and she pointed to his inconsistent
explanations for doing so.
After
being prodded by a moderator, Mrs. Clinton appeared to promise to end
the White House policy of deporting undocumented immigrant children, a
change from her position in 2014, when she
said those children should be sent back to their countries and reunited
with their families. Mr. Sanders also brought up how Mrs. Clinton
waffled on driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants at a debate in 2007.
But
what was most striking was the Democrats’ contrast on the issue with
the leading Republican candidates, including Mr. Trump and Senator Ted
Cruz of Texas, who have endorsed mass deportations,
which will most likely be a focal point of the general election
campaign.
The Midwest matters
Though
the debate took place in Miami, both candidates devoted much of their
time to the Midwest and the working-class voters who make up large
sections of two of the states that will vote
on Tuesday: Illinois and Ohio. Free trade is not popular with many
voters in that industrial region, and Mr. Sanders’s populist message is
resonating there, demonstrated most forcefully by his upset win over
Mrs. Clinton in Michigan on Tuesday. If his claim
that the immigration legislation would “drive wages down” hurts him
with Hispanic voters in Florida, it could help him with workers in the
Midwest.
Mrs.
Clinton repeatedly attacked Mr. Sanders — as she did in Sunday’s debate
in Flint, Mich. — by claiming he had voted against the auto bailout
that was seen as saving the industry after
the financial crisis of 2008. That attack has been described as partly
true at best: Mrs. Clinton picked out a specific vote that Mr. Sanders
cast because much of the money in question would go to help Wall Street.
But the issue has resonance in places like
Michigan and Ohio, and Mrs. Clinton, unbowed, indicated she would
continue to use it against him going forward.
The Democratic race is getting testy
Both
candidates came prepared for a slash-and-burn debate, fully briefed on
their rivals’ records with attack lines at the ready. Mrs. Clinton came
at Mr. Sanders with kitchen-sink-style
charges from the left but only occasionally mentioned one of her core
criticisms: that he makes pie-in-the-sky promises without any way to get
them done.
Mr.
Sanders, looking to capitalize on his win in Michigan, was ready to
fight, denouncing her criticisms of his votes related to the auto
bailout, insisting she was misrepresenting his record.
He attacked her repeatedly over her speeches to Wall Street firms for
large sums of money, even suggesting that she might be hiding something
by not releasing the transcripts. Mr. Sanders is effective at wielding
the political blade, which he reinforced by
tartly saying, “Madame Secretary, I will match my record against yours
any day of the week.”
Clinton is still trying to connect
For
most of her life in the public eye, Mrs. Clinton has been criticized as
too stiff or too closed off, too dull or too reserved, too inauthentic
or too canned as a politician. She began
road-testing a line a few weeks ago about her deficiencies as a
politician. When she delivered it in the debate, saying that people know
she is not a natural at this like her husband or like President Obama,
it came across as authentic and rang true.
It
was also something of a breakthrough for a candidate who has, over
time, been loath to admit to making a mistake, and who does not like
letting down her guard. With voters still, after
decades, trying to get to know her, it could be a turning point.
Things could get uncomfortable
The
toughest lines of the night were not all from the candidates: Many came
from the moderators. One after the other came questions, most of them
aimed at Mrs. Clinton, that cut to the bone.
A few were downright uncomfortable.
Mrs.
Clinton was asked about how she responds to continuing questions from
voters about her trustworthiness. She was asked about the 2012 attacks
on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya,
which left four Americans dead while she was the secretary of state,
prompting boos from the crowd. She was asked about the investigation
into her use of a private email server as secretary of state, and
whether she would drop out if she was indicted.
That
last question left her exasperated, and she said she would not dignify
it with an answer. But the questions were a glimpse at the lines of
attack she will face in the fall if she is
the Democratic nominee.
Clinton does not want to attack Trump
This
is not to say that Mrs. Clinton does not want to criticize Mr. Trump on
policy: She is all for that. She made mocking reference to the “big,
beautiful wall” that Mr. Trump has pledged
to build along the United States’ border with Mexico and called his
comments about Muslims and other groups “un-American.”
But
Mr. Trump savaged Mrs. Clinton and her husband late last year when she
used the Republican front-runner as a foil in her stump speeches. Both
Clintons dropped their references to Mr.
Trump shortly after that. When pressed at the debate about Mr. Trump’s
character and whether he is “a racist,” Mrs. Clinton replied: “I’m not
going to engage in the kind of language that he uses. I think we can
make the case against him if he is the nominee,
by pointing out what he has said.”
What
to make of Mrs. Clinton’s failure to swing at a pitch right over the
plate? She seemed to be signaling to Mr. Trump that she was not going to
denounce him in personal terms — and to
be hoping that he would respond in kind.
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