Purple’s coverage of the Democratic debate

If the rest of the Democratic debates were college football games, they would have been ACC games. This one was an SEC game. Sanders went into this debate majorly leading Hillary in the New Hampshire polls (the NH caucus is Feb 9) but Clinton was insanely prepared. It was a tossup, but it’s clear that Hillary had a really strong performance.

Hillary Clinton was much more willing to attack her opponent in this debate. And Bernie continued to focus on his policy agenda rather than Hillary.

The funny thing is, the 2 of them voted together 93% of the time when they served in the Senate together…

This debate was definitely about the difference between progressive and moderate within the Democratic party. Bernie said the other day that Hillary is not a true progressive. She was pretty damn prepared to answer that question tonight:

In 2000, Bernie voted for the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, a bill that deregulated credit default swaps, the complex financial instruments that helped lead to the financial crisis. He has since hammered the bill, and the rest of his voting record is strongly anti-Wall Street

Among voters 17–29, Bernie won 84% while Hillary won 14% in the Iowa caucuses.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade agreement between 12 countries representing 40% of global economic output. The deal has to be approved by Congress, most of which doesn’t like the deal, so Obama is about to have a fierce battle over that.

Many believe trade agreements hurt American workers because it lets cheap goods made in countries like Thailand in, helping Thai workers instead. Opponents also argue goods are allowed into the U.S. from countries with crappy environmental and health regulations, which jeopardizes fighting climate change and protecting customers.

Reasons to support the TPP: It would promote trade in knowledge intensive services where U.S. companies have a strong advantage. Killing the TPP would do little to bring factory work to America. And because China is not part of the TPP, enacting it would give us leverage on China to meet international trade standards.

This is what Bernie had to say on the issue:

Hillary’s criticism of Bernie’s lack of foreign policy experience

The debate ended on a nice note 😃