[W]ith exactly one week left until Iowans fill into high schools and community centers to caucus, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton dove deep into corn country to find kernels of undecideds during a town hall meeting broadcast on CNN.
The forum took place following a flurry of polls that describe an Iowa contest within the margin of error. A CBS News poll released Sunday showed Sanders edging Clinton, 47 percent to 46 percent.
CNN’s Chris Cuomo, who moderated the forum from Drake University in Des Moines, said all of the audience members planned to caucus on Feb. 1, and added that many had not made up their mind.
The Democratic candidates took their time answering questions from undecided Iowans in the audience, hoping to make a few converts.
Sanders, for his part, went into explicit detail after a young woman who said she hadn’t decided asked about his history on reproductive and women’s rights.
“Give me a shot, here,” Sanders said to the woman before launching into his “100 percent pro-choice voting record.”
After Cuomo interrupted Sanders during his lengthy answer on congressional actions to support Planned Parenthood, Sanders shot back at the moderator: “I’m trying to win her vote, leave me alone here.”
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley also spoke in the forum, but most of his proposals didn’t offer much beyond what Clinton and Sanders were offering.
O’Malley’s time left in the election seems short. The CBS poll Sunday gave the former mayor of Baltimore just 5 percent in the Hawkeye State, and his campaign is struggling to raise money.
The most interest around O’Malley concerns his Iowa supporters, many of whom could defect to Sanders or Clinton and put one of them over a key 15 percent threshold a candidate needs in individual precincts.
O’Malley refused to direct supporters to either of the other candidates, instead insisting that Iowa’s history of surprise results meant he was still in the game.
“One of the reasons why the polls back East can never figure out how the caucuses work is because it’s a very organic thing,” O’Malley said. “So my message to the O’Malley supporters across the state is this: hold strong at your caucus.”
Sanders answered questions in a voice strained by nearly every word, the outcome of a speaking schedule that has been intensified as time ticks closer to caucus night.
He had quick answers to most questions, as he fields similar queries and criticisms during campaign stops from Iowa to New Hampshire. As he does during campaign events, Sanders said “good, good” and nodded following especially wonky policy questions during the forum.
Sanders fielded a wide range of questions from the tenets of democratic socialism to women’s rights. Clinton pushed hardest against his health care proposal, which would increase income taxes for all Americans.
“It’s demagogic to say, ‘Oh, you are paying more in taxes’,” Sanders said.
“We are going to eliminate — eliminate — private health insurance premiums and payments, not only for individuals, but for businesses as well,” the Vermont senator added.
Sanders also received pushback on other progressive policies, including free public college tuition, that have little chance of passage in today’s polarized Congress.
In one exchange, Cuomo asked: “What about the idea that you are bringing back the era of ‘Big Government’ and making it bigger than ever?”
“The ‘era’ of protecting the middle class and working families is certainly something I will make happen,” Sanders responded.
There were few questions about foreign policy. When war and international stability were raised, Sanders pointed to past foreign policy positions he has taken, including his opposition to the Iraq War, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Keystone XL pipeline.
“Experience is important, but judgement is also important,” Sanders said, distilling what has become his main talking point on international matters.
Just before the forum, Politico released an interview with President Barack Obama who praised Clinton.
Calling Clinton “wicked smart” and proclaiming she “knows every policy inside and out,” Obama’s words were interpreted by many as a gift to the former secretary of state. Clinton referred to the interview multiple times throughout the forum.
“He knows how hard the job is, and he knows it firsthand,” Clinton said about Obama. “So I really appreciated what he said, and how he said it, because it was a positive reflection on what we have to get done, and how hard it’s going to be.”
Clinton acknowledged her lost ground to Sanders in the polls, saying “it’s a tough campaign, and it should be.”
But she reinforced her position as the most qualified president and a “proven leader.”
She went deep when talking about her 2012 efforts as secretary of state to de-escalate tensions between Israel and Palestine following missile missile attacks from the Gaza Strip.
In the answer to one question, Clinton detailed the complexity and consternation surrounding the crisis and referred to talks with leaders in Iran, Israel, Palestine and Egypt.
“The Israelis are telling me: ‘Look, we got to go back in, we have to have a ground invasion again in Gaza.”
“I’m saying, ‘No, please don’t do that, let’s try to figure out how do we resolve it,” she continued.
Nearly 30 seconds later, after Clinton had described a set of tense meetings in a number of countries, she got to the punchline:
“They got a ceasefire, there was no invasion,” Clinton said. “That’s what you have to do.”
On domestic issues, Clinton referred to her work on universal health care efforts in 1994, when her husband, Bill, was president.
“I think it’s fair to say I have a 40-year record of going after inequality,” Clinton said. “And not only economic inequality, racial inequality, sexist inequality, homophobic inequality.”
In quick pauses from questioning, both Sanders and Clinton were shown each other’s most recent political ads.
Clinton’s ad featured images of her work as secretary of state, and highlighted her time spent “leading the diplomacy that keeps us out of war.”
In reaction, Sanders said “this calls for a standing up response,” and he rose up to defend his foreign policy judgement quickly before transitioning to domestic issues, specifically the ills of Wall Street.
After being shown Sanders’ most recent ad, an uplifting message set to Simon & Garfunkel’s “America,” Clinton said she loved the feeling and energy in the ad, but she added a caveat.
“Look,” Clinton said, “you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose.”
