The surprise rivalry between front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton and insurgent Bernie Sanders was expected to be at the forefront as Democrats took the stage yesterday in Las Vegas for the party’s first debate of the US presidential campaign.
The former US secretary of state and the US senator were to be joined by a trio of candidates who occupy the basement of early polls, each looking to change their fortunes with a breakout moment in prime time.
Clinton has said she always expected tough competition in the Democratic presidential primary. It is likely she did not expect it would come from Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist calling for a “political revolution.”
Photo: Reuters
Clinton, a former first lady and US senator, remains the overwhelming favorite to win the Democratic nomination, holding a double-digit lead over Sanders in national and many state polls. However, Sanders has pulled close to her in polls in Iowa, whose caucuses lead off the state-by-state nominating contests next year, and leads in New Hampshire, which holds the first-in-the-nation presidential primary.
For months, Clinton and Sanders have circled each other cautiously and avoided personal attacks. However, in recent days, both have shown that their preference to focus on policy does not mean they will not find ways to jab at each other.
Sanders, who has filled arenas with crowds in the thousands and matched Clinton’s fundraising take in the past three months, has cast the former secretary of state as a late-comer to the liberal positions he has held for decades on education, the environment and the economy.
After Clinton announced her opposition to a sweeping Pacific Rim trade deal, a pact she had previously called the “gold standard,” Sanders said he was glad she had come to that conclusion.
Then he added: “This is a conclusion I reached on day one.”
Indeed, Clinton has increasingly moved to the left on domestic policy since announcing her campaign this spring, including voicing opposition to the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canadian oil fields to Gulf Coast refineries and support for expansive gun control legislation. While she rarely mentions Sanders by name, she has suggested her proposals are more realistic and well-formed than those espoused by the Vermont senator.
For Clinton, a policy-heavy debate would be a welcome reprieve from the months of focus on her use of personal e-mails and a private server during her four years as secretary of state. The controversy has overshadowed virtually every other aspect of her campaign and contributed to a decline in her favorability rating with voters who increasingly view her as untrustworthy.
Maria Cardona, a Democratic strategist who worked for Clinton’s failed 2008 White House campaign, said that as long as the e-mail issue does not dominate the debate, “this will be a win for her no matter how you look at it.”
Hanging over the debate was the shadow of US Vice President Joe Biden, who is flirting with a late entry into the Democratic field and is expected to announce his decision within days.
While Biden’s political advisers have been talking to potential staff and donors, he is not expected to upend the debate by revealing his political plans in the hours before the candidates take the stage.
Despite the Biden speculation, the Democratic primary has lacked the drama of the Republican contest and the unexpected rise of Donald Trump, the real-estate mogul and reality TV star.
Debate host CNN has already said it expects significantly lower ratings for yesterday’s debate than the Republican contest the cable channel hosted late last month, which drew an audience of 23 million.
The debate was to be broadcast at the same time as key Major League Baseball playoff games.
Still, the debate was to be the largest audience for Democratic candidates since the primary race began. It is one of six debates the Democratic National Committee has sanctioned, a point of contention among some candidates seeking more nationally televised events to generate much needed attention.
Joining the debate are former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, former Senator Jim Webb and former governor and senator Lincoln Chafee.
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