The Debate

Yeah.  No.  I didn't watch. Perhaps I should have.

Both candidates seemed unusually well-prepared for combat. Bernie Sanders had combed his normally unruly hair, in perhaps the clearest sign that he is the runaway favorite in New Hampshire.

  Guardian

This is the political importance of a presidential run? Comb your hair.

He also sported an unidentifiable lapel pin, suggesting his status as a sitting member of Congress.

If the pin was unidentifiable, how could it suggest Congressional membership?

Guardian, I am so disappointed in you. Who is this reporter?

Clinton’s preparation was of an entirely different kind: she and her campaign executed several well-planned attacks and counter-attacks on some of Sanders’ best-used debate lines.

Oh, I see, this reporter is a Hillary fan.

 

Or a Republican.

Hillary was all substance, Sanders was all show.

I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case.

In fairness, that was an opinion piece.   Let me try another article.  Guardian again, actual reporter...

In some of the fiercest exchanges of the 2016 presidential race so far, Clinton accused her challenger of “artfully smearing” her with “innuendo and insinuation” by suggesting payments from Wall Street were a sign of corruption.

“If you have something to say, say it,” she demanded, as the absence of the recently-departed third candidate Martin O’Malley left Sanders frequently on the ropes with little pause between volleys from Clinton and MSNBC moderators.

At times looking bruised by the onslaught, Sanders doubled down on his argument that extensive lobbying by the finance, pharmaceutical and energy industries were a major reason they had enjoyed favourable deregulation from Congress.

  Guardian

I hope he did. I have no doubt MSNBC helped Clinton try to keep Sanders "on the ropes," but is that what really happened?

Clinton responded that she was an enemy, not an ally, of Wall Street.

Can she be that certain that debate viewers won't actually be aware of her Wall Street friendship?

“Hedge fund guys are trying so hard to stop me,” she claimed. But a flustered Sanders failed to point out that Clinton had attended a fundraiser in Philadelphia hosted by hedge fund managers only last week.

If so, he missed a big opening.

Apparently, Guardian personnel are not fans of Bernie. "On the ropes." "Looking bruised." "Flustered." The article goes on..."on the defensive." Admitting a failure "to convey his strategy clearly enough."

This reporter repeatedly cites a Sanders grilling by moderator Chuck Todd, but nothing of Rachel Maddow's questions. Rachel Maddow, I have to think, would have been all over Hillary.

Guardian, you disappoint me. You used to be a fine source of reliable information.

Over to Al Jazeera. (I assume you know I'm not citing any US major media for this because I  assume they are all biased toward Hillary, government shills and DC soldiers. In fact, I don't read US major media any more. Not for years, with rare exceptions following links in other places.)

Democrat Hillary Clinton went on the attack against rival Bernie Sanders on Thursday in their most contentious presidential debate yet, questioning whether his ambitious proposals were viable and accusing him of an "artful smear" in suggesting she could be bought by political donations.

Sanders fought back repeatedly, questioning Clinton's progressive credentials and portraying her as a creature of the political establishment in a debate that featured heated exchanges on healthcare, college tuition funding and efforts to rein in Wall Street.

[...]

One of Clinton's most forceful remarks came in response to a suggestion by Sanders that she could be influenced by political donations by Wall Street.

"Enough is enough. If you've got something to say, say it directly," she said Thursday night. "But you will not find that I ever changed a view or a vote because of any donation that I ever received.

"So I think it's time to end the very artful smear that you and your campaign have been carrying out," she said.

  Al Jazeera

Okay, that's the kind of reporting that's helpful. The whole quote. I have no doubt she never "changed" a view or vote because of donations from Wall Street. She's always carried water for Wall Street. She doesn't have to change.

Pointing out that she gets big bucks from Wall Street = "smear campaign".

Asked if she would release transcripts of her paid speeches to Wall Street interests and others, Clinton was noncommittal, saying "I'll look into it."

Heh.

"I am very proud to be the only candidate up here who does not have super PAC, who's not raising huge sums from Wall Street and special interests," he said, referring to outside groups who can receive unlimited funds to support candidates.

Clinton, unwilling to cede the issue to Sanders, insisted her regulatory policies would be tougher on Wall Street than his.

"I've got their number," she said, "the Wall Street guys."

And they've got hers: 24/7 open two-way communication lines.

Where Clinton aimed considerable criticism at Sanders, the Vermont senator focused much of his fire on what he says is a political system rigged against ordinary Americans.

He said that when a "kid gets caught with marijuana, that kid has a police record." But when "a Wall Street executive destroys the economy" and pays a $5 billion settlement, he has "no criminal record."

"That is what power is about, that is what corruption is about. And that is what has to change in the United States of America," he said.

But it won't. Not even if Bernie were president.

Sanders said his proposal for free tuition at public universities would be paid with a tax on Wall Street speculation. "The middle class bailed out Wall Street in their time of need. Now, it is Wall Street's time to help the middle class," he said.

And that won't happen either. But it's a great idea.

In fresh evidence of the tightening race, Clinton reported that her campaign had raised $15 million in January — $5 million less than Sanders and the first time she's been outraised by her opponent. Her finance director called the numbers "a very loud wake-up call" in a fundraising email to supporters.

Heading into the debate, Sanders was eager to lower expectations for his finish in New Hampshire, casting himself as an underdog against "the most powerful political organization in the country."

That's probably a fair point.

[Clinton's] prospects are much stronger in primaries and caucuses after New Hampshire, as the race moves on to states with more diverse electorates that are to her advantage.

That's probably a fair point, too, but then...Iowa.

Clinton offers herself to voters as "a progressive who gets things done," part of her pitch that she's the one with the practical skills to implement a progressive agenda.

Sanders' counter-argument is that it will take a "political revolution" to achieve goals such as universal health care, a fairer tax system and an incorruptible campaign finance system.

Nothing short of a revolution will do it.

I agree. She's hoping that just being a woman doesn't put you will give her a leg up, and it may well attract certain votes. In the polls, however, younger women are showing overwhelmingly in support of Sanders. Just being a woman does not put you outside the establishment. Margaret Thatcher. Madeleine Albright. Any Republican woman.

And, if Bernie Sanders would put Elizabeth Warren on his ticket, while he'd not win over Hillary fans nor upper crust Democratic women, he'd knock down that talking point.  And have the help of one of the most progressive Democrats in the business.

The tone of the back-and-forth between Clinton and Sanders has become increasingly sharp, and the candidates agreed to add four more debates to the primary season schedule, including Thursday's faceoff in Durham.

Will one of them be in New York?

According to these articles, Clinton claimed to prove she was progressive on health care by bringing up her work on a single payer plan when Bill was president.  I didn't read that Sanders countered.  Maybe he did, but if not, he certainly could have.

Hillary Clinton’s record on single-payer dates back to 1993, when she was tasked to help formulate White House policy. According to the notes of former Clinton confidante Diane Blair, Clinton told her husband during a dinner in February 1993 that “managed competition” — a private health insurance market — was “a crock, single payer necessary; maybe add to Medicare.”

She eventually came to believe that the health care industry was too powerful to allow this reform to happen, and the plan she ended up putting together was not single-payer.

  The Intercept

And it mired her in criticism, and ultimately failed.

Also in 1993, two physician advocates for single-payer lobbied her during a meeting at the White House. They said she told them they made a “convincing case, but is there any force on the face of the earth that could counter the hundreds of millions of the dollars the insurance industry would spend fighting that?”

Fast forward...

[I]n the ensuing years, both Clintons have taken millions of dollars in speaking fees from the health care industry. According to public disclosures, Hillary Clinton alone, from 2013 to 2015, made $2,847,000 from 13 paid speeches to the industry.

This means that Clinton brought in almost as much in speech fees from the health care industry as she did from the banking industry. As a matter of perspective, recall that most Americans don’t earn $2.8 million over their lifetimes.

[...]

In 2008, a young medical student named Lisa Goldman queried Clinton about health care during an event she held in New Haven, Connecticut. Goldman told the Boston Globe that Clinton said she believed the plan to be politically unfeasible at the time, however if a bill establishing it reached her desk, she would sign it into law.

Since then, she has shifted to assailing the policy on its merits.

[...]

Hillary Clinton’s paid speech circuit came to an end as her campaign revved up. But for her husband, with whom she shares a bank account, it hasn’t. This summer, he was the keynote speaker at America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the industry group that poured almost $100 million into trying to defeat health care reforms during the fight over the Affordable Care Act.

[...]

[S]he has claimed that his plan, which relies on states to administer the single-payer plan, would turn “over your and my health insurance to governors.”

[...]

If a governor chose not to participate, “citizens would receive coverage from the feds.” It’s actually the Clinton-backed status quo under the Affordable Care Act that is allowing governors to pick and choose who to cover.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.