Sanders vs. Clinton: what to expect in upcoming debate

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will go head to head on the national stage for the first time during the Oct. 13 Democratic presidential debate.

|
Michael Dwyer, Jose Luis Magana/AP
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, shown in this composite photo, are expected to go head to head on the national stage for the first time during the Oct. 13 Democratic presidential debate.

In next week's Democratic debate, all eyes are on Sanders vs. Clinton.

Though the October 13 Democratic presidential debate will include a handful of presidential hopefuls, it’s the Bernie and Hillary show that’s most highly anticipated.

In this first Democratic debate, the former first lady, secretary of State, and one of the party's most experienced debaters, Hillary Clinton will take on Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, her biggest rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.

But the über progressive Senator Sanders is no slouch either, say his former Vermont political rivals from both parties. They say the combative Sanders will be a formidable challenger to Mrs. Clinton.

"There is nobody better at delivering a message than Bernie," Republican Richard Tarrant, a wealthy businessman who lost a 2006 Senate race to Sanders told Reuters.

"His style is a little gruff. You can poke at him and get him angry, but he's good at rolling out of it," Mr. Tarrant said. "He's got numbers, he's got facts, and if he gets caught by surprise, he'll shift really quickly to his stump message. I don't think Hillary stands a chance against him."

To outshine Clinton would be a major boon for Sanders, who’s already narrowed the gap with her in fundraising and in opinion polls. Sanders has been leading Clinton in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, according to a CBS poll conducted in September.

But next week’s debate in Las Vegas will put Sanders on the biggest political stage to date, though he has drawn massive crowds at rallies and town halls around the country. Besides Clinton, he will face former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, and former US Sen. James Webb of Virginia.

"He may not have been on the national stage before, but I do not think it will faze him in the slightest,” John MacGovern, a Republican who challenged Sanders unsuccessfully in 2012 told Reuters. “He will say what he believes and it will be very easy for him," he added.

Sanders’ spokesman Michael Briggs said the Senator views the debate as an "opportunity to talk about the issues he's been talking about for decades," according to Reuters. He told the news service that he expects questions about campaign finance and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, which would liberalize trade in a region stretching from Vietnam to Canada.

But the one thing he won’t talk about, says Mr. Briggs, is Clinton’s e-mail troubles, referring to the controversy over her use of a private email server instead of her government account while she was secretary of State.

"He thinks there are more important things to talk about," Briggs said.

This report contains material from Reuters.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Sanders vs. Clinton: what to expect in upcoming debate
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2015/1005/Sanders-vs.-Clinton-what-to-expect-in-upcoming-debate
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe