By Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns
CHARLESTON: The Democratic presidential candidates delivered a barrage of criticism against their party’s emerging front-runner, Sen.
Bernie Sanders, at a debate on Tuesday night, casting him as a divisive figure with unrealistic ideas, even as they continued to batter
Michael Bloomberg for his extreme wealth, his record on policing and behavior toward women.
In a messy South Carolina forum, characterized by frequent interruptions, angry cross talk and theatrical hand-waving, Sanders faced the most serious test so far of his bid to lead the
Democratic Party into the general election. His rivals charged at him on multiple fronts, including his history of opposing certain forms of gun control, his plans for single-payer health care and, most of all, his odds of beating President Donald Trump.
But the mood of combat enveloped candidates besides than Sanders, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts again castigating Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, in vivid terms about his past support for Republicans and allegations that he had pressured an employee to have an abortion, a charge Bloomberg vehemently denied. And in an explosive manifestation of a bitter rivalry for South Carolina’s voters, former Vice President Joe Biden rebuked Tom Steyer, a billionaire spending heavily in South Carolina, for having invested in the past in private prison companies.
It was Sanders, however, who had the roughest night: Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, warned that nominating Sanders would not only cost Democrats their chance to capture the White House, but also jeopardize their majority in the House and their chance of taking the Senate.
Pointing to the congressional Democrats elected in 2018, Buttigieg told Sanders, “They are running away from your platform as fast as they possibly can.”
Bloomberg joined in, saying of Sanders: “Can anybody in this room imagine moderate Republicans going over and voting for him?”
Biden, fighting for survival in the state on which he has staked his candidacy, delivered perhaps the most searing critique of Sanders, invoking the 2015 massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church here in Charleston to confront Sanders for his mixed record on guns.
“Nine people shot dead by a white supremacist,” Biden said, rebuking Sanders for his past opposition to waiting periods for gun purchasers: “I’m not saying he’s responsible for the nine deaths, but that man would not have been able to get that weapon if the waiting period had been what I suggest.”
On display, too, was Warren’s dual challenge as she fights for national momentum ahead of next week’s Super Tuesday contests: On the one hand, she is plainly eager to keep up a battle against Bloomberg that has delighted her supporters and reinvigorated her candidacy. At the same time, she must contend, perhaps more urgently, with the fast and formidable rise of Sanders on the left — a force she tried to counter by casting herself as a more accomplished progressive.
She pointed to their shared history of battling Wall Street: “In 2008, we both got our chance,” Warren said, “but I dug in, I fought the big banks, I built the coalitions and I won.”
For the second consecutive debate, Bloomberg visibly sighed and rolled his eyes as Warren assailed his variegated political history and demanded fuller disclosure from Bloomberg’s company about its treatment of women. Citing his history of giving large campaign contributions to Republicans, Warren said, “The core of the Democratic Party will never trust him.”
Bloomberg tried to pivot away from Warren’s criticism to make an argument about his own experience, alluding to his role taking over New York City after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “I have the experience, I have the resources and I have the record,” Bloomberg said, “and all of the sideshows that the senator wants to bring up have nothing to do with that.”
But as in the last debate, Bloomberg’s loose phrasing offered Warren the chance to throw a hard counterpunch: What Bloomberg called a “sideshow,” she said, involved matters as serious as pregnancy discrimination.
Still, Bloomberg was clearly the secondary target of the night. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Buttigieg confronted Sanders, boring in on him over his expansive policy proposals and the risk they said he would pose.
“The math does not add up,” said Klobuchar, arguing that Sanders’ agenda amounted to “a bunch of broken promises that sound good on bumper stickers. Inserting himself, Buttigieg pointed out that the front-runner had no support from the freshman lawmakers who gave House Democrats their majority in 2018.
Soon, though, the debate devolved into something of a rhetorical melee, the candidates talking, and nearly shouting, over another.
In a sign that Steyer is making inroads with South Carolina’s black voters, the former vice president also took on the billionaire and first-time candidate, noting that Steyer had invested in private prisons that “hogtied young men.”
Stung by the attack, Steyer said he sold his stock in private prisons and sought to highlight Biden’s support for the hard-line 1990s crime bill. But Biden interrupted him and tagged him with a new nickname for changing his mind on private prisons: “Tommy Come Lately.”
This debate, the 10th of the primary season, was the first time that the Democratic candidates gathered with a measure of clarity about who was in command of the race. Coming off his landslide win in Nevada, and successes in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders is the clear front-runner for the nomination. What is less clear is who may emerge as his most formidable opponent.