Yesterday in Brooklyn, New York Democrats had their ninth debate of the presidential election season. The night was a slugfest for both candidates as Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sec. Hillary Clinton discussed issues from gun control, minimum wage, and banking regulations. From the first question the audience could see it would be a yelling match between the two candidates as CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked the Senator from Vermont to clarify his statements about Sec. Hillary Clinton not being qualified to be president. Answering that she had the experience based on positions in government but quested her judgement. All of this with the stakes high as we are only five days before the critical primary in New York state that carries a bonanza of 291 delegates out of the 2,383 needed to win, the rhetoric also reached a new intensity.
“Oh my goodness, they must have been really crushed by this,” Sanders said to Clinton earlier on, referring to her claims that she was tough on the big banks. “And was that before or after you received huge sums of money by giving speaking engagements?” he went on, in a tone that went beyond sarcasm into the fringes of disdain.
Clinton was unwilling to take the constant attacks from Sanders that she lashed back by referring to the recent interview Sanders gave to the New York Daily News in which he appeared to struggle over the fine detail of his plan to break up the big banks. “When asked, he could not explain how that would be done and when asked about a number of foreign policy issues, he could not answer about Afghanistan, about Israel, about counter-terrorism … I think you need to have the judgment on day one to be both president and commander-in-chief.”
This back and forth continued throughout the night and perhaps it is the result of this make-or-break stage that the Democratic presidential campaign has reached. Clinton has a strong lead of more than 200 delegates and is 2.4 million votes ahead in the popular vote, but has failed to shrug off the attack of Senator Sanders.
New York could be the opportunity for Clinton to break the grip Sanders has on the contact and the latest polls suggest that she just might accomplish that. Clinton extended her lead in New York with an NBC 4 New York/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll putting her 17 percentage points ahead, on 57% to Sanders’ 40%.
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