Clinton cruises to big win over Sanders in South Carolina

A decisive victory over her challenger Senator Bernie Sanders in South Carolina brought back momentum into former First Lady Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Two narrow victories and one massive loss to Mr. Sanders over the last month had eroded the aura of invincibility that surrounded her and Saturday’s landslide victory in South Carolina, where she won three fourth of the votes, restores that in good measure.

Awaiting 'Super Tuesday'

On March 1 – 'Super Tuesday' as it is called – 11 states will have primaries or caucuses, and could cumulatively reward her with an irreversible lead. Mr Sanders will have to keep the contests on Super Tuesday as close as possible to carry the race forward even as his efforts to make inroads into the black base of the party have had only limited success so far. Five out of six black people voted for Ms. Clinton in South Carolina, according to exit polls.

“Tomorrow, this campaign goes national,” Ms Clinton declared after the results. “We are not taking anything, and we are not taking anyone, for granted.” “This campaign is just beginning…. Our grass-roots political revolution is growing state by state, and we won’t stop now,” Mr Sanders said, after congratulating Ms Clinton.

Big boost for Clinton?

Both Ms Clinton and Mr Sanders criticised Republican front-runner Donald Trump in their responses, keeping their eyes firmly on the November general elections. "Together we can break down all the barriers holding our families and our country back,” Ms Clinton said, in a reference to Mr Trump’s promise to a build a wall along the U.S border with Mexico. “When we come together, and don’t let people like Donald Trump try to divide us, we can create an economy that works for all of us and not just the top 1 percent,” Mr Sanders said.

“We won a decisive victory in New Hampshire. She won a decisive victory in South Carolina. Now it’s on to Super Tuesday. In just three days, Democrats in 11 states will pick 10 times more pledged delegates on one day than were selected in the four early states so far in this campaign,” Mr Sanders said in a statement.

Ms Clinton has the support of a host of black leaders and has also placed herself close to President Barack Obama’s policies. Mr Sanders has been critical of Mr Obama on many occasions. The former secretary of state has also mounted a campaign against Mr Sanders, charging him with ignoring gender and race in his single-minded focus economic inequality. Mr Sanders has been trying to explain his positions in the context of his critique of the prevailing economic order. He is indeed getting a lot of traction too, but the question remains whether he can manage to pull in enough numbers to defeat Ms Clinton whose organisational network and financial strength are formidable.

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Hillary leans on Obama, Bill in Iowa pitch

Democratic presidential aspirants made their final pitch to party members in Iowa, the state from where the candidate selection process will begin on February 1, by projecting their respective strengths — Hillary Clinton her foreign policy experience and Bernie Sanders his fight against inequality. Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, a distant third in the race, made a spirited case for his candidature too.

Ms Clinton repeatedly invoked President Barack Obama, and her husband and former president Bill Clinton, to buttress her claims for a job that she said required handling several things simultaneously. And she dwelt deep into comments made by Mr. Obama in a fresh interview that were interpreted — tenuously perhaps — by some commentators as favoring her.

“Bernie came in with the luxury of being a complete long shot and just letting loose,” Mr. Obama told the Politico. “I think Hillary came in with both privilege and burden of being perceived as the front-runner. … You’re always looking at the bright, shiny object that people haven’t seen before — that’s a disadvantage to her.” Mr. Obama characteristic Mr. Sanders as a principled outsider seeking to change the “terms of the debate that were set by Ronald Reagan 30 years ago.”

The Obama interview setting the backdrop, all three candidates hailed him as the model to emulate but Ms. Clinton anchored her arguments in her association with Mr. Obama. Ms. Clinton detailed her role in laying the ground for the Iran nuclear deal and bringing about a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine in 2012.

“She has experience. But can’t say she has good judgment,” Mr. Sanders said, citing Ms. Clinton’s vote in favor of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 when George W. Bush was the President. Mr. Sanders said all that he feared about the invasion has come true. “It does not give me great pleasure.”

“President Obama trusted my judgment and invited me to be the Secretary of State,” she countered.

Mr. Sanders countered the charge that he lacked experience in foreign policy with the argument that it was his assessment of the situation in West Asia that turned out to be valid in subsequent years than Ms. Clinton’s. “The vote (favoring the Iraq war) was a mistake,” Ms. Clinton admitted.

Ms. Clinton countered the charge that her track record of fighting inequality was weak by offering a wider definition of the word itself. She said, beyond the “narrow definition of economic inequality,” she had been fighting against inequality based on race, gender, religion, and sexual preference all her life. “I have taken on the status quo all through my career,” she said. Specifically on the question of economic inequality, she said it was during Mr. Clinton’s time that “Americans never had it so good.”

Mr. Sanders, who laced his arguments with humor and charm to underplay his combative image, said, as Senator, he has worked with Republicans numerous times on legislative issues. Asked to define his idea of ‘democratic socialism,’ Mr. Sanders said: “In essence, we cannot have a government that is dominated by the interests of a few billionaires. We need to have a system that works for all of us.”

Mr. O’Malley, who agreed with most things that Mr. Sanders said on inequality, would call the remedy by a different name — “fair market capitalism.”

Mr. Sanders will have to work around the stigma associated with the word ‘socialism’ in American politics before he could make further progress.

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