After once more criticizing Sanders for promising too much, Clinton argued that her plans -- for making health care universal, for paid family leave, for rebuilding our infrastructure, for tuition-free college and more -- would only cost $100 billion a year. If so, she's violating her own pledge about against making promises that don't add up.
When asked what they would cut in government, both talked vaguely about waste and inefficiency. But the examples they used were revealing. Clinton talked about streamlining and combining various education and training programs. Sanders went after the Pentagon budget, the largest source of waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, with books in such a mess, as he noted, that they still cannot be audited.
Foreign Policy: Still Foreign
We still haven't seen a sensible foreign policy debate. Once more, foreign policy was defined as terrorism, the Middle East, and a dash of cold war with Russia. No mention of climate change -- which will disrupt more societies and pose far greater threat than ISIS can imagine -- or of looming global recession, or of our ruinous global economic strategy.
Sanders did a bit better expanding his critique of Clinton's interventionist history and predilection, bringing in Libya and Syria. But he failed to make the obvious point that she was a consistent force for intervention and escalation inside the administration, and has criticized Obama for not being interventionist enough since she got out.
Sanders sadly joined Clinton in supporting Obama's decision to ratchet up forces and tensions on the Russian border. He surely mystified millennial voters by attacking Clinton for embracing Henry Kissinger. He's right about Kissinger's record, but these days, we only wish Clinton would listen to him on Russia and China.
Corruption: Our Money Politics
Clinton's worst moments in each of these debates are around big money in politics. Last night, the commentators didn't go after her speeches or the convolutions of the Clinton Foundation, focusing instead on why big money is OK for her but Koch money is corrupting for Republicans.
Clinton's response is always to start dancing. She presents herself as immaculate -- her super PAC isn't her's, it's Obama's. She touts her small donors, as if the big money weren't there. She wraps herself in Obama: he got Wall Street money and still did Wall Street reform. (Not mentioned is the glaring reality that under Obama, not one banker got prosecuted for what the FBI called an "epidemic of fraud." And all the billions that the banks were fined were paid by shareholders (and taxpayers), not by individual bankers.)
It doesn't fly. Sanders doesn't attack her personally, he simply asks that we "not insult the intelligence of the American people." "Why in God's name does Wall Street make huge campaign contributions? I guess just for the fun of it; they want to throw money around. Why does the pharmaceutical industry make huge campaign contributions? Any connection maybe to the fact that our people pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs?"
This was Sanders' strongest moment in the debate. Clinton may want to dismiss his critique of our corrupted politics and rigged economy as a "single issue," but more and more Americans are coming to understand that this is the heart of the matter. Now we will see if that message resonates with communities and states where Sanders is just beginning to introduce himself.
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