Democrats spar over national security, guns and the Islamic State
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Version 0 of 1. MANCHESTER, N.H. — The Democratic presidential candidates presented competing visions for defeating Islamic State terrorists and clashed passionately at a debate here Saturday night over tax policy, the power and wealth of Wall Street, gun control and other domestic issues. In a nomination contest being shaped in part by who would be the toughest champion formiddle-class Americans facing wage stagnation and growing income inequality, front-runner Hillary Clinton was put on the defensive by two challengers who portrayed her as beholden to corporate America. But Clinton pushed back effectively against both her rivals. Saturday’s two-hour debate on ABC zig-zagged from issue to issue but focused heavily on national security, coming in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. The three Democrats sought to show strength and resolve in extinguishing the terrorist threat. Collectively, they drew a sharp contrast with the Republican field, especially front-runner Donald Trump, by saying that they would keep dangerous individuals out of the United States while ensuring that Muslim Americans do not feel marginalized. The debate exchanges revealed few differences among the Democrats in their approaches to terrorism, though Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) accused Clinton of being too quick to reach for a military solution in Syria and not mindful enough of the lessons of Iraq or Libya. He repeatedly noted that he voted against the Iraq war resolution in 2002 while Clinton, then a senator from New York, voted for it. “Our differences are fairly deep on this,” Sanders said. “I worry . . . that Secretary Clinton is too much into regime change and a little too aggressive without knowing what the consequences may be.” Clinton, a former secretary of state who once considered Libya a success story largely of her making, acknowledged the political chaos that now exists there but protested that “we did as much as we could.” Using the debate to showcase her foreign-policy credentials, Clinton said it was a “false choice” to question whether the military and diplomatic prescriptions she has proposed might lead to a wider war. She brought up the most significant policy difference between her position and those of her rivals, calling a no-fly zone both a humanitarian necessity and a diplomatic lever against Russian aggression. All of the Democrats condemned Trump’s controversial proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States. Clinton, more so than her Democratic opponents, showed that she was looking ahead to the general election by training her attention on the Republicans. She accused them repeatedly of stoking bigotry and delivered sweeping indictments of their agendas. Clinton said Trump was becoming “ISIS’s best recruiter” and that the GOP rhetoric about a “clash of civilizations” was fanning the flames of radicalization around the world. The Democrats were careful not to criticize President Obama’s handling of the Islamic State, though the third candidate, former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, suggested that the president had been too timid. “The president had us on the right course, but it’s a lack of battle tempo,” O’Malley said, echoing a regular criticism from Republicans. “We have to bring a modern way of getting things done and forcing the sharing of information and do a much better job of acting on it in order to prevent these sorts of attacks in the future.” The debate opened on an entirely different topic: a fresh controversy in which the Sanders campaign accessed the Clinton campaign’s confidential voter data because of a software glitch. On the debate stage, Sanders vowed to investigate the incident fully and offered an apology to Clinton, which she accepted. Clinton and Sanders needled one another over their approaches to middle-class economic issues, including the cost of college, paid family leave and household taxes. Clinton pledged not to raise taxes on the middle class — defined as those households earning less than $250,000 annually — and suggested that Sanders’s free college plan is unworkable. Sanders made some of his most direct public criticism of Clinton’s relationship to Wall Street, and happily played off Clinton’s joke that “everybody,” including corporate America, should applaud a Clinton presidency. When Sanders was asked whether corporate America would love a President Sanders, he gave a quick answer: “No.” “Hillary and I have a difference,” he added. “The CEOs of large multinationals may like Hillary, but they ain’t going to like me — and Wall Street is going to like me even less.” He added, “Wall Street today has too much political power. It has too much economic power. Wall Street is a threat to the economy. They’ve got to be broken up.” Sanders wants to reinstitute a wall between commercial and complex investment banking; Clinton does not. Clinton said she wants to build an economy that “works for everybody,” but said she would partner with corporate America on economic and other policies. “I want to make sure we rein in the excessive use of political power to feather the nest and support the super-wealthy,” she said, “but I also want to create jobs.” Though many of the debate exchanges centered on Clinton and Sanders, O’Malley was particularly feisty Saturday; at one point he interjected to “offer a different generation’s perspective.” The candidates also traded barbs on the issue of gun safety, which has emerged as a top issue for some Democratic voters, especially here in New Hampshire. O’Malley sought to gain much-needed momentum by aggressively taking on Sanders and Clinton for what he portrayed as weak and politically calculating records on gun control. Nearly shouting, O’Malley rebuffed the ABC moderators by accusing Sanders of voting for gun rights in the past and Clinton of flip-flopping on gun control. “Secretary Clinton changes her position on this every election year, it seems,” O’Malley said. “What we need on this issue is not more polls. We need more principle.” Both Sanders and Clinton angrily accused O’Malley of misrepresenting their records. “Let’s tell the truth, Martin,” Clinton said, noting that she has supported gun control since the assault weapon ban passed during her husband’s administration in the mid-1990s. Sanders said sharply: “Do not tell me that I have not shown courage in standing up to the gun people.” He also called gun ownership a choice and a right exercised by a rough majority of people in Vermont and New Hampshire. All three candidates have vowed to toughen gun restrictions and effectively declared war on the National Rifle Association. Saturday night’s debate, held on the campus of Saint Anselm College, was the third of four sanctioned debates held before the kick-off Iowa caucuses onFeb. 1. Since Sanders’s burst of momentum in the summer, the Democratic contest has been relatively sleepy, lacking the drama and intrigue of the crowded Republican race. Although Clinton has dominated national polls for months, public opinion surveys consistently reveal voter unease over her honesty and trustworthiness. Sanders has exposed another underlying weakness of Clinton’s candidacy with the fervent and sustained grass-roots enthusiasm he enjoys with liberal activists. The race is most competitive here in New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation primary state where Clinton and Sanders are closely matched and have traded the lead through the fall and into the winter. The state represents Sanders’s best chance of an early victory; despite Clinton’s long and deep investments on the ground, Sanders is ahead by about four points, according to a polling average compiled by RealClearPolitics. O’Malley, meanwhile, has trailed far behind and saw Saturday’s debate as an opportunity to make a move going into the Iowa caucuses. Running low on funds, O’Malley is desperate to generate new support that could carry him into the new year. The debate was expected to draw low viewership relative to the 18 million people who watched Tuesday’s Republican debate on CNN, in part because it was scheduled on the last weekend before Christmas and was competing for television viewers with a major NFL game: the New York Jets vs. the Dallas Cowboys. Heading into the debate Saturday, the Democratic race was rocked by scandal over the data breach. Four Sanders staffers accessed confidential voter file data that belonged to the Clinton campaign after a software glitch inadvertently made them available. One of those staffers lost his job, but the Democratic National Committee temporarily cut off the Sanders campaign’s access to the file, a critical component of its grass-roots organization. Meanwhile, a furious Clinton campaign accused Sanders’ team of attempting to steal strategic information. In response, the Sanders campaign has used the incident to accuse the DNC of tipping the scales in Clinton’s favor, and sued the party to regain access to its own data. It was not until early Saturday morning that an agreement was reached to restore the campaign’s access to the data system. In the debate, Sanders said: “Not only do I apologize to Secretary Clinton . . . I want to apologize to my supporters. This is not the type of campaign that we run.” Clinton responded: “We were distressed when we learned of it . . . [but] we should move on because I don’t think the American people are all that interested in this. I think they’re more interested in what we have to say about all the big issues facing us.” Abby Phillip in Manchester, N.H., contributed to this report. |