www.dailymail.co.uk
Bernie Sanders cited his head-to-head polling lead over Trump as evidence he should win nomination, hinting at how much the Democrats fear The Donald Martin O'Malley attacked Trump's call to temporarily ban non-citizen Muslims from entering the country'If Donald Trump wants to start a registry, in our country, of people by faith,' O'Malley boomed, 'he can start with me!' Sanders claimed Trump believes 'climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese'For more on the Democratic debate visitwww.dailymail.co.uk/DemDebate
Republican presidential front-runnerDonald Trump drew less than one-half as much interest from debating democrats Sunday night, compared with their last on-stage contest in December.
But he was still the only GOP contender who drew any fire by name as Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley tussled in Charleston, South Carolina.
Clinton, the presumptive favorite to win the Democratic nomination, left Trump out of her rhetoric. But Sanders and O'Malley launched broadsides as his positions on Islamic terrorism and global warming.
SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEOS
GLOBAL WARMING WARRIOR: Vermont's Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders took a climate-change shot at Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Sunday during the Democrats' debate in Charleston, South Carolina
'IT'S A HOAX': Trump had claimed in late December that the climate change movement was a 'hoax' and a 'money-making industry'
SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT: The South Carolina debate brought bitter rivals Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders within spitting distance of each other, and included Martin O'Malley as a feisty third wheel
'The debate is over. Climate change is real. It is already causing major problems,' Sanders said in the second half of Sunday night's contest. 'And if we do not act boldly and decisively, a bad situation will become worse.'
'It is beyond my comprehension,' he added moments later, 'how we can elect as President of the United States somebody like Trump who believes that climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese.'
That line brought laughter from a partisan audience gathered downtown at the Gaillard Center.
Trump indeed said during a December 30 rally in Hilton Head, South Carolina that the modern climate change movement is 'a hoax. I mean, it's a money-making industry, okay? It's a hoax, a lot of it.'
He insisted that 'we don't have to destroy our economy' in order to protect the natural environment.
Trump never said during that appearance that China invented the purported hoax, but did point a finger at Beijing for failing to abide by the same rules the United States agreed to follow in a recently inked multinational climate change deal.
'They're buying all of our coal. We can't use coal anymore, essentially. They're buying our coal, and they're using it,' he said.
In 2012 The Donald tweeted – in a moment he later called a 'joke,' that '[t]he concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.'
O'Malley, a former Maryland governor, said Sunday night that he objected to Trump's call for a temporary ban on non-citizen Muslims entering the United States until the federal government can determine 'what is going on' in the wake of a deadly Islamist attack in San Bernardino, California.
DRUNK IN LOVE WITH HILLARY: A Clinton supporter advertised her support from Beyonce during a rally outside Sunday night's debate site
He spoke of a 'political front' in the war against the ISIS terror army.
'If Donald Trump wants to start a registry, in our country, of people by faith,' O'Malley boomed, 'he can start with me!'
'And I will sign up as one who is totally opposed to his fascist appeals that wants to vilify American Muslims. That can do more damage to our democracy than anything.'
Sanders had already drawn the billionaire's blood, saying earlier that all three Democrats on stage had 'denounced Trump's attempt to divide this country, the anti-Latino rhetoric, the racist rhetoric, the anti-Muslim rhetoric.'
The focus on Trump to the exclusion of all the other Republicans may indicate that Democrats fear the real estate tycoon more than the establishment candidates who want to unseat him at the top of the GOP pyramid.
ROUNDING UP CATHOLICS? Martin O'Malley (left) said that if Donald Trump (right) wants to segregate Americans by religion – meaning Muslims – 'he can start with me!'
IT'S GO TIME: The lawn of Charleston's Gaillard Center became a forest of yard signs Sunday night
Sanders made a point of emphasizing his poll numbers in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup with The Donald when he made his case that the Democratic Party should nominate him instead of Clinton.
'In terms of polling, we are running ahead of Secretary Clinton in terms of taking on my good friend Donald Trump,' Sanders said.
In the December 19 Democratic debate there were no fewer than nine separate mentions of Trump's name – including a controversial claim from Clinton that her league-leading Republican counterpart 'is becoming ISIS' best recruiter. They are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.'
That contention was never backed up, although propaganda videos introduced later featured both Trump and Clinton.
O'Malley said that night that the United States 'must never surrender our American values to racists, must never surrender them to the fascist pleas of billionaires with big mouths.'
THE 2016 FIELD: WHO'S IN AND WHO'S OUT
A whopping 15 people from America's two major political parties are candidates in the 2016 presidential election.
The field includes two women, an African-American and two Latinos. All but one in that group – Hillary Clinton – are Republicans.
At 12 candidates, the GOP field has already lost two current governors, two former governors and a sitting senator, but is but still deeper than ever.
A much smaller group of three Democrats includes a former secretary of state, a former governor and a current senator.
DEMOCRATS IN THE RACE
Hillary ClintonFormer sec. of state
Age on Election Day: 69
Religion: United Methodist
Base: Liberals
Résumé:Former secretary of state. Former U.S. senator from New York. Former U.S. first lady. Former Arkansas first lady. Former law school faculty, University of Arkansas Fayetteville.
Education: B.A. Wellesley College. J.D. Yale Law School.
Family: Married to Bill Clinton (1975), the 42nd President of the United States. Their daughter Chelsea is married to investment banker Marc Mezvinsky, whose mother was a 1990s one-term Pennsylvania congresswoman.
Claim to fame: Clinton was the first US first lady with a postgraduate degree and presaged Obamacare with a failed attempt at health care reform in the 1990s.
Achilles heel: A long series of financial and ethical scandals has dogged Clinton, including recent allegations that her husband and their family foundation benefited financially from decisions she made as secretary of state. Her performance surrounding the 2012 terror attack on a State Department facility in Benghazi, Libya, has been catnip for conservative Republicans. And her presidential campaign has been marked by an unwillingness to engage journalists, instead meeting with hand-picked groups of voters.
Bernie Sanders* Vermont senator
Age on Election Day: 75
Religion: Jewish
Base: Far-left progressives
Résumé:U.S. senator. Former U.S. congressman. Former mayor of Burlington, VT.
Education: B.A. University of Chicago.
Family: Married to Jane O’Meara Sanders (1988), a former president of Burlington College. He has one child from a previous relationship and is stepfather to three from Mrs. Sanders' previous marriage. His brother Larry is a Green Party politician in the UK and formerly served on the Oxfordshire County Council.
Claim to fame: Sanders is an unusually blunt, and unapologetic pol, happily promoting progressivism without hedging. He is also the longest-serving 'independent' member of Congress – neither Democrat nor Republican.
Achilles heel: Sanders describes himself as a 'democratic socialist.' At a time of huge GOP electoral gains, his far-left ideas don't poll well. He favors open borders, single-payer universal health insurance, and greater government control over media ownership.
* Sanders is running as a Democrat but has no party affiliation in the Senate.
Martin O'Malley Former Maryland governor
Age on Election Day: 53
Religion: Catholic
Base: Centrists
Résumé:Former Maryland governor. Former city councilor and mayor of Baltimore, MD. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
Education: B.A. Catholic University of America. J.D. University of Maryland.
Family: Married to Katie Curran (1990) and they have four children. Curran is a district court judge in Baltimore. Her father is Maryland's attorney general. O'Malley's mother is a receptionists in the Capitol Hill office of Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski.
Claim to fame: O'Malley pushed for laws in Maryland legalizing same-sex marriage and giving illegal immigrants the right to pay reduced tuition rates at public universities. But he's best known for playing guitar and sung in a celtic band cammed 'O’Malley’s March.'
Achilles heel: O’Malley may struggle in the Democratic primary since he endorsed Hillary Clinton eight years ago. If he prevails, he will have to run far enough to her left to be an easy target for the GOP. He showed political weakness when his hand-picked successor lost the 2014 governor's race to a Republican. But most troubling is his link with Baltimore, whose 2016 race riots have made it a nuclear subject for politicians of all stripes.
DEMOCRATIC DROPOUTS
Jim Webb, former Virginia senator
(withdrew Oct. 20, 2015)
Lincoln Chafee, former Rhode Island governor
(withdrew Oct. 23, 2015)
COMMENTS
No comments:
Post a Comment