David Michael Miller
In the Nov. 14 Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton’s two remaining opponents apparently decided that they had nothing to lose by taking the gloves off.
Both Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley attacked Clinton in a civil but tough way. It wasn’t personal; it was politics. And it demonstrates why a good primary and these debates will be good for the ultimate nominee — presumably Clinton.
If she thinks she got knocked around by Sanders and O’Malley, wait until she meets the Republicans in the general election. There was nothing that came out Saturday that she won’t hear again, only more loudly, in the fall.
As a rule I thought Clinton did well and that she handled the attacks skillfully — with one significant exception. She blew the response to Sanders’ challenge on donations to her campaign and other connections to Wall Street.
In response to that she actually gave three bad answers. First she said that most of her donors were small. Actually, a Washington Post fact check found that only 17% of her money came in amounts of $200 or less, while 80% of Sanders’ money came in that way.
Second, she said that 60% of her money came from women, which is true, but it’s lost on me why she would want to emphasize that. She will already do well with women. She needs more men to vote for her. In the last Wisconsin gubernatorial election Mary Burke won white women voters by 9% while she lost white men by 24%. Democratic women candidates can count on a decent margin with women. They need to find ways to reach white guys. Essentially proclaiming herself as the women’s candidate will not help her become the first woman president.
But her biggest gaffe was her convoluted reference to 9/11. Summoning all of the faux indignation she could muster, Clinton basically said that Wall Street hedge fund managers were giving money to her campaign because they appreciate her support after the World Trade Center was destroyed.
No, I don’t think so. I think Bernie Sanders is right on this one. Hillary Clinton gets money from Wall Street because folks there expect access to the Clinton White House so that they can blunt or slow down the kind of reforms that a candidate like Sanders or maybe O’Malley would impose on them. They are paying to play, betting on who they assume will be the winner. And Clinton knows it. She’s talking tough for the benefit of Democratic primary voters while winking and nodding to the big money guys all the while.
So, not only was her answer less than truthful and not exactly respectful of her audience’s intelligence, but it had the uncomfortable overlay of wrapping herself in a national tragedy to mask an ugly side of politics that the Clintons are all too good at.
It wasn’t fatal. Hillary Clinton remains the most qualified person to serve as president, and the rest of her performance on Saturday was fine. But her Democratic opponents are doing her the favor of attacking her now so that she’ll be better prepared for the much more fierce attacks to come.
And the Wall Street issue is particularly significant because this is an angry electorate, distrustful of the establishment whether that’s in Washington or New York. On her ties to Wall Street, she needs to come up with a better answer.
