Story highlights Tim Stanley: On style, command of foreign policy, Hillary Clinton won debate, but Sanders won on the substance of his one really good issue: money in politics

He says Clinton left impression on issue of hefty speakers fees that she's too tied to Wall Street-- a weakness that plays to Sanders' strength

Timothy Stanley, a conservative, is a historian and columnist for Britain's Daily Telegraph. He is the author of "Citizen Hollywood: How the Collaboration Between L.A. and D.C. Revolutionized American Politics." The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) What a great debate. Bernie Sanders vs. Hillary Clinton is turning into a genuine philosophical contest -- between the senator's populist radicalism and the Secretary of State's gradualist reformism. The policy difference is narrow but the approach to politics is hugely different.

On style, many viewers will judge that Clinton won the faceoff in Durham, New Hampshire. She was certainly, to borrow a Trumpism, "high energy." She artfully shot down Sanders' attacks on her progressivism and quite convincingly displayed her knowledge of foreign policy.

Timothy Stanley

On the latter subject, Sanders suddenly seemed parochial and out of his depth. He should've dismissed a silly invitation to rank various regimes in order of evilness. Instead he gave a halting description of North Korea that suggested he was trying to visualize it on a map. At times, it sounded like he only has one issue. Happily for him, it's a darn good issue.

An undecided voter who watched the debate had to come away with the impression that Clinton is the handmaiden of Wall Street. Sanders hit the subject of money in politics so hard and so convincingly that even this conservative viewer was punching the air with a clenched fist.

We know that liberal legislation gets killed because of Wall Street lobbying. We know that Clinton takes a lot of money from Wall Street -- she was paid $675,000 from Goldman Sachs just for delivering three speeches. So it's reasonable to infer that Clinton is at the epicenter of the economic forces stopping social change.

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