Shouting over each other at times, the two leading Democratic presidential candidates engaged in some of their toughest exchanges of the campaign on Sunday night, underscoring the narrowing race between them in the first-to-vote states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
The debate over gun control - an ongoing area of conflict between Clinton and Sanders - took on special import given the setting: The debate took plan just blocks from the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church where nine parishioners were killed during Bible study last summer. Sanders again dismissed Clinton's assertions, calling her comments on his record "very disingenuous".
Sanders said that is "nonsense".
That political difficulty, along with the daunting challenge of blowing up the current system and creating something new in its place, is a big reason Clinton has not endorsed anything as ambitious as Sanders - and has been critical of him lately. "It was more pronounced and much more of a contentious debate than any of the others have been". His single-payer proposal relies heavily on a 6.2 percent payroll tax paid by employers and a 2.2 percent "health care premium" on households.
In a Facebook post Sunday, Robert Reich, a Sanders supporter, economist, and Labor Secretary under President Bill Clinton, called the plan "a huge advance of what we have now".
"We have the Affordable Care Act". Sanders refused to back down, criticizing Clinton's attacks as dishonest, and at one point, even throwing up his hands in frustration at something she said.
Who is satisfied that millions of people have police records for possessing marijuana when the CEO's of Wall Street companies who destroyed our economy have no police records Sen. Sanders has been gaining ground on Clinton in recent polls, and among the his proposals that she sought to weaken was his plan to amend Obama's signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act, but incorporating a single-payer plan.
Clinton's third-term pitch does make political sense.
Clinton, Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley marked Martin Luther King Jr.
Dodd-Frank has also given the government more tools to regulate banks and potentially wind them down if they fail, rather than bail them out. "That is one of the greatest accomplishments of President Obama, of the Democratic Party, and of our country".
Touting his surging poll numbers in the two key early states, Sanders was prepared and in command throughout the two-hour debate sponsored by NBC News and YouTube. That year, Sanders had said many Democrats are "deeply disappointed" in Obama's shifts rightward, and a primary opponent could "begin contrasting what is a progressive agenda as opposed to what Obama is doing".
"We've worked together on many issues". And when the race moves into SC in mid-February and a host of Southern and Midwestern states in March, all will have sizable black and Latino populations, where the president remains hugely popular.
The fourth Democratic debate was as raucous an event as we've seen from the Democrats.
Sanders called Republicans a party so owned by the fossil fuel industry that its candidates did not have the courage to listen to the scientists. He painted Clinton has beholden to monied interests, both because of campaign contributions and personal speaking fees she has collected - including fees to the tune of $600,000 in one year from Goldman-Sachs.
"My relationship with him - it's interesting", Clinton said to laughs in the debate hall. "He voted to let guns go on Amtrak, for guns to go into National Parks", she said. "It's a pretty good deal". "It had a ban on... assault weapons, it included universal background checks... and you know what?" But he opposed longer waiting periods - of five or seven days - which gun control advocates see as a more effective way to flag people who should not be getting a gun.
