Democratic debate in Flint: what we learned

What we learned from the sixth Democratic debate, held in Flint, Michigan, just days before the state votes in a key primary for Bernie Sanders’ hopes to compete with Hillary Clinton for their party’s presidential nomination:

• In the most aggressive of any Democratic debate, Clinton and Sanders fought most over bailouts, Wall Street and controversial trade agreements, which the former secretary of state said were necessary and the leftwing Vermont senator described as deals with the devil. Perhaps feeling the pressure of Clinton’s enormous lead in the race, Sanders sharply interrupted her several times, and occasionally joked bitterly about their differences. “I’m very glad,” he said at about Clinton’s dithering over one trade deal, “that Secretary Clinton discovered religion on this issue.”
• But on bailouts for banks and the auto industry during the 2008 financial crisis, Clinton and Sanders could not agree. The senator said the government should never have rescued the banks who helped destroy the economy, while the former secretary of state argued that it was a “hard choice” but necessary to save the collapsing auto industry.
• The candidates battled over whether the 1990s really were as dreamy as many people think. Clinton conceded that parts of a tough-on-crime law signed by her husband were “a mistake” that left a legacy of injustice for African Americans, and Sanders walked back some of his old stances on gun control. “So when we talk about the 90s, you’re right, a lot of good things happened,” he said, “but a lot of bad things happened.”
  
• Sanders also urged Clinton to release copies of the speeches she gave to Wall Street, for which Wall Street gave her millions of dollars. Clinton said she would release transcripts when everyone did, to which Sanders threw his arms in the air: “Here it is! There ain’t nothing! I don’t give speeches on Wall Street.”
• In a sign of the wonkish quality of the debate, one of the angriest moments came during an argument over the Import-Export Bank, which Sanders denounced as “corporate welfare” to major corporations such as Boeing and Caterpillar. Clinton pitched herself the pragmatist; she argued that the bank also helps small businesses, and gives American companies a necessary edge abroad.
• The rivals waxed thoughtful on race and religion, with Clinton saying she “can’t pretend to have the experience” of black Americans, but that conversations in the last year had helped her “think about what it is to have to talk with your kids, scared that your sons or daughters even could get in trouble for no reason”.
• Asked about his faith, Sanders said a moral compulsion drove him to public office. “Being Jewish is so much of who I am,” he said. “Look, my father’s family was wiped out by Hitler in the Holocaust. I know about what crazy and radical, and extremist politics mean.”
• Clinton for the first time called for Michigan governor Rick Snyder to resign, and said anyone implicated by a full investigation into Flint’s lead-tainted water crisis should similarly lose their job. She also said federal and state money should go not just to emergency water supplies but to repair infrastructure and train residents about safe water.
• Climate change appeared only briefly – Sanders opposes all fracking, Clinton wants stringent regulation – and immigration went unmentioned. But Donald Trump got airtime, and was promptly repudiated by both candidates. Clinton said she would not “get into the gutter” with Trump’s “bigotry” or that of anyone else, and Sanders joked that Republicans needed treatment for their mental health.
• Sanders won the Maine caucuses by double-digit margins over Clinton, delivering 15 delegates to the senator and seven to the former secretary of state. Clinton now has 1,129 of 2,383 delegates necessary to secure the nomination, while Sanders has 498.
  
• And on the Republican side of the ballot, Senator Marco Rubio swept all 23 delegates in Puerto Rico – but still trails Donald Trump and Ted Cruz by more than 200 and nearly 150 delegates respectively.