In one of the controversial highlights of the night at Tuesday’s first Democratic Party Presidential debate in Las Vegas, Nevada, 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton claimed that she is an outsider because she is a woman.
“I can’t think of anything more of an outsider than electing the first woman president,” Clinton heralded of her sex. Upon return from a debate break, she made another reference to her gender when she said, “It does take me a little longer,” referencing using the toilet and taking longer to return to the stage than the male candidates.
Moderator Anderson Cooper asked candidates, beginning with Clinton, how they would be different from President Barack Obama.
“Well, I think that’s pretty obvious. I think being the first woman president would be quite a change from the presidents we’ve had up until this point, including President Obama,” Clinton said. Earlier in the night, Clinton touted her status as a female, saying that people could tell their daughters that those girls too could be President someday.
Clinton referenced President Obama, the first black President, suggesting that she would do “a lot” to build on Obama’s efforts. She additionally suggested that she wasn’t running only on her sex, but also her record.
“I have the experience of a lifetime,” Clinton told the crowd.
“I think there is frustration all over this country,” candidate Bernie Sanders said, drawing on the popular anti-establishment sentiment in America.
“I’m not raising money for millionaires and billionaires,” Sanders added. “Four thousand house parties watching this debate around this country that want real change,” he said.
Cooper asked Clinton how she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, could credibly represent the views of the middle class, as they are part of the one percent.
Clinton shifted the attention from herself to say, “The economy does better when you have a Democrat in the White House, and that’s why we need to have a Democrat in the White House in January 2017.”
Candidate Martin O’Malley followed with “Secretary Clinton, I was proud to support you eight years ago, but something happened in between, and that is, Anderson, a Wall Street crash that wiped out millions of jobs and millions of savings for families.”
Anderson posed to Clinton, “Senator Sanders wants to break up the big Wall Street banks. You don’t…Why is your plan better?”
Clinton claimed her “plan is more comprehensive” and “tougher.” She then referenced “shadow banking,”which “the experts tell me the next potential problem could come from.”
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