Sanders and Clinton are both getting a lot of buzz right now. Sanders' defense of democratic socialism and his defense of Clinton on the email issue will be discussed for weeks. Clinton's command of the issues and depth of knowledge have the word "presidential" on the tips of a lot of tongues. Clinton's injection of the Republican's war on women, and the failure of the four men on stage to follow up on it, also stuck out as an opportunity taken and an opportunity missed.
But there was one exchange that was heard by exactly the audience to which it was directed, and I don't see a lot of people talking about it. Yet.
I want to enhance the benefits for the poorest recipients of Social Security. We have a lot of women on Social Security, particularly widowed and single women who didn't make a lot of money during their careers, and they are impoverished, and they need more help from the Social Security system.
How many women spent 20 years in a marriage, raised a family, and then got divorced, before entering the work force for the first time?
How many women spent 40 or 50 years working for 3/4 the pay of men?
How many women had their careers cut short, or interrupted, by child-rearing?
Every single one of those women, including plenty of Independents and Republicans, heard it.
Every single one of those women knows she spent a lifetime watching a government program help men put away more money than women.
Every single one of those women knows the same percent came out of a smaller paycheck, for the same work, for a smaller pay-out at the end.
And a very large number of those women knows that the sacrifices they made for family will be punished when it's time to try to support themselves in their retirement.
If you're a man you might not have heard it.
If you're a younger woman, you might not have heard it (though your probably did - women still don't earn the same money for the same work).
But if you're a woman born more than 40 years ago, you heard it loud and clear. And even if you're not a Clinton supporter, you cheered at least a little bit.