Note: this is an opinion piece, based on my own observations as I watched the Democratic Debate (I viewed the entire thing). I do not think every debate Sanders has is amazing but far from it, in fact a lot of the previous ones were not particularly good (mainly repetitions of his stump speech), but I truly think he blew this one out of the water. Make of it what you will.
Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT), down in the polls by 12-14 percentage points against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came to tonight’s New York debate needing a slam dunk against her in one of the few remaining mass appeals to the public he has left before the primary.
He nailed it.
Sanders dominated against Clinton during the debate after a rough first twenty minutes, on almost everything from healthcare, to trade, to the environment, and even to foreign policy while managing to do reasonably well on gun control.
On the economy: Clinton and Sanders traded barbs over the economy with Clinton accusing Sanders of not knowing how to pay for his proposals and asserting that he did not know about laws like Dodd Frank. Sanders responded by repeatedly stating that the big banks must be broken up and that they are dangerous because they have too great “concentrations of wealth”.
On the environment: Sanders slammed Clinton on fracking and her contributions from some 43 industry lobbyists. He compared the threat of climate change to an advancing army and noted, that if we could respond so well to the Nazis by rapidly building our industries up in the 1940’s under FDR, we could do the same to respond to climate change.
On Israel-Palestine: Sanders spoke of the needs and rights of the Palestinian people while acknowledging Israel’s right to security. Clinton virtually refused to acknowledge the rights of the Palestinian people and blamed the collapse of the 2000 Camp David talks between the Israeli-Palestinian leadership on Yasser Arafat, a claim which has already been thoroughly debunked by Naomi Klein in her book The Shock Doctrine. Sanders easily painted her as a hawk on Israel-Palestine, while Clinton achieved several boos from the crowd.
On speaking fees: The moderators asked Clinton the same question THREE times as to why she would not “release the transcripts of her Wall Street speeches”. She, once again, did not give an actual answer and Sanders hammered her on it.
On healthcare: Clinton asserted that the “numbers just don’t add up” for Sanders’ single payer health care proposal and then prompted to cite a bogus Washington Post article claiming that Sanders’ single payer would be a “trainwreck for the poor”. When Sanders fired back that there was more than enough money to pay for his single payer proposal and that studies have shown that it would actually save people money, Clinton hid behind the President and touted the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
On the minimum wage: Clinton made a good point on raising the minimum wage to $12 an hour but Sanders drew big applause for reiterating his support for $15 an hour and drew parallels to the fast food workers who have been striking for it.
On the Supreme Court: Clinton pledged support for moving forward with President Obama’s pick (Merrick Garland) as the Supreme Court nominee. Sanders disagreed, citing that Garland has not taken a clear position on Citizens United and stated that any supreme court nominee of his would be solidly against Citizens United.
On Racial and Criminal Justice: Clinton more or less apologized for some of the effects of the 1992 Crime Bill and both candidates pledged to do more to reduce incarceration rates (especially for minorities) and demilitarize local police forces. Sanders called ‘superpredator’ a “racist term”.
Politifact’s ratings on Statements by the Candidates:
Clinton: Claims Bernie Sanders “has been largely a very reliable supporter of the NRA”, Mostly False
Sanders: "U.S. pays 75% of NATO's budget", True
Sanders: “I remain one of the poorer members of the United States Senate”, Mostly True
Clinton: “We have tougher standards holding toy gun manufacturers to account than we do for real guns”, Half True
Sanders: “When this campaign began, I said that we’ve got to end the starvation minimum wage of $7.25, raise it to $15. Secretary Clinton said let’s raise it to $12.” Mostly True
Clinton: Claims that in nine Democratic debates “We’ve not had one question about a woman’s right to make her own decisions about health care, not one question.” True
Sanders: Claims Clinton supported and continues to “support fracking” Mostly True
Clinton: States that the Republicans “still want to privatize (Social Security). In fact, their whole idea is to turn over the Social Security trust fund to Wall Street.” Mostly False
Overall, Sanders was far more aggressive this time around and was not afraid to come out swinging when Clinton attempted to slam him, so it’s entirely possible he made a very positive impression on the New York voters who watched it. Whether or not the debate itself will change the state of the race in New York to any meaningful degree has yet to be seen, but there is no question that Sanders can speak competently on any issue... even foreign policy.