Hillary
Clinton was questioned about the wealthy financiers who have donated to
her presidential campaign during the Democratic primary debate at the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Thursday evening. The query led to a
lengthy exchange between Clinton and her rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders,
D-Vt., who has made campaign finance reform a cornerstone of his
campaign.
Moderator
Judy Woodruff noted that Clinton has claimed “There’s no quid pro quo”
involved in these donations. Woodruff, one of the co-anchors of “PBS
NewsHour,” asked Clinton whether this also holds true of contributions
Republicans receive from megadonors, including the billionaire Koch
brothers.
“I can’t speak for the Koch brothers,” Clinton responded.
Clinton
went on to address the question of her own campaign contributions. In
her question, Woodruff specifically referred to the financiers Donald
Sussman and George Soros, who have given over $9 million this election cycle to the super-PAC Priorities USA Action.
Clinton
described Priorities USA Action as “a super-PAC we don’t coordinate
with, that was set up to support President Obama that has now decided
they want to support me.” She also emphasized the fact that
approximately 750,000 smaller donors have backed her campaign.
After
Clinton spoke, Sanders was asked to weigh in on the issue of
megadonors. Sanders, who regularly describes the campaign finance system
as “corrupt,” pointed out that he is not backed by a super-PAC.
Clinton
responded that Sanders was suggesting that candidates could not be
“independent” if they “take donations from Wall Street.” She argued that
President Obama’s example demonstrates this is not the case. Clinton
noted that Obama took many contributions from people in the financial
industry and still “passed the Dodd-Frank regulations,” which she
characterized as “the toughest regulations since the 1930s.”
“Let’s
not in any way imply here that either President Obama or myself would
in any way not take on any vested interest,” Clinton said.
This
was one of many moments during Thursday’s debate where Clinton
attempted to link herself to Obama, while highlighting differences
between Sanders and the president. Obama is popular among Democrats and
African-American voters in particular. Clinton currently has a strong
advantage over Sanders with African-Americans, who represent a large
segment of the electorate in South Carolina, one of the next states on
the primary calendar.
Sanders
argued that Dodd-Frank “doesn’t go anywhere near far enough.” He also
said there is no question that megadonors wield influence.
“Let’s
not insult the intelligence of the American people. People aren’t
dumb,” Sanders said. “Why in God’s name does Wall Street make huge
campaign contributions? I guess just for the fun of it, they want to
throw money around.”
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