With fewer than 50 days until presidential voting begins, candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination held their final debate on Saturday as Bernie Sanders tried to close Hillary Clinton’s strong national lead by underscoring their differences.
Well behind in national polls, Sanders used the Manchester, New Hampshire forum to promote areas of disagreement with Clinton. Underscoring those differences are essential for him to succeed as an insurgent candidate. At one point after a discussion about their differences on health care policy, Sanders could barely contain his glee. “Now this is getting fun,” he said as the crowd laughed.
But the differences between Clinton, 67, and Sanders, 73, were often tactical—such as whether the U.S. should battle ISIS and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad simultaneously or in sequence. They agreed on the much larger question that ISIS should be destroyed by an international coalition with American air power but not U.S. troops on the ground.
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When it came to terrorism, Sanders and Clinton both stressed the importance of building an international coalition to fight ISIS. As Sanders put it: “The troops on the ground should be Muslim troops.” Both though have allowed for the deployment of small numbers of special forces. Sanders tried to inflate their differences saying Clinton was “too much into regime change,” citing her past support of the Iraq war and adding that defeating ISIS should take priority over deposing Assad. Clinton replied that Sanders had, in fact, voted for regime change in Libya and said it was essential to fight ISIS and Assad simultaneously.
Middle-class, kitchen-table issues that had dominated the presidential race just a few months got only modest attention. Again, there was considerable agreement among the candidates on issues like the minimum wage and equal pay for equal work. The differences: Sanders supports free college tuition at all public universities, while Clinton supports free tuition for community college and more aid for four year colleges.