The last time Democrats met on a debate stage, it was a Saturday before Christmas, and we wrote that Hillary Clinton was sitting comfortably atop the field.
Now, as Democrats get ready to debate for a fourth time, in South Carolina on Sunday -- in the middle of a three-day holiday weekend -- there are signs Clinton's lead is evaporating. A Quinnipiac University poll out Tuesday shows her rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) ahead in Iowa by five points. A Selzer & Company poll showed Clinton up just two -- down from wider previous leads.
It's all raising questions among Democratic elite whether Clinton's once-seemingly inevitable nomination will slip away from her like it did in 2008
.It's notable that Clinton still has a tactical advantage since the national debate has shifted away from economic issues and zeroed in on national security and terrorism -- especially with news Saturday that Iran freed four Americans, including The Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, in a deal that provided clemency for seven Iranians charged or imprisoned in the U.S. for sanctions violations. A December Washington Post-ABC News poll showed more than 3 in 5 voters trust her more than her opponents to handle issues related to terrorism and national security. But her main opponent has found ways to chip away at that, too.http://adf.ly/1Venxm
As the Democratic primary gets more muddied than most would have predicted, here are the eight top issues for Sunday's Democratic debate.
In exchange, the U.S. released the seven Iranians imprisoned or charged related to violating sanctions against Iran. A U.S. official in Vienna told The Post that no Iranians charged with crimes related to terrorism were freed.
Upon news of the exchange, most Republican presidential candidates immediately criticized the Obama administration. Some, like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), said the deal sets a bad precedent for future relations.
Others, like Ben Carson, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), praised parts or all of the prisoner release while still offering harsh words for the nuclear deal Obama and five other nations signed with Iran in 2015.
Democratic presidential candidates appeared to have a different take on the news. In a statement Saturday, Sanders said the exchange shows "diplomacy can work." Late Saturday, Clinton issued a statement welcoming the release, but adding, “We shouldn’t thank Iran for the prisoners or for following through on its obligations. These prisoners were held unjustly by a regime that continues to threaten the peace and security of the Middle East.”
All three Democratic candidates will have a chance to offer more thoughts on the complicated U.S.-Iran relationship -- and its latest development -- on Sunday night.
2. Sanders's general election viability
Sanders's momentum is raising the possibility among the Democratic elite in Washington that the socialist who wants to give all Americans Medicare, provide tuition-free public college, break up the big banks and tax the heck out of Wall Street actually has a shot at winning the nomination.
The Washington Post's Paul Kane notes that many of Sanders's proposals go beyond the Democratic Party's official agenda and are far to the left of the nation as a whole. But Sanders's success so far could be offered up as proof that the socialist's ideas are being embraced by a growing populist -- and even socialist -- wing of the party.
(A new Seltzer & Co. Iowa poll found that more Iowa Democratic voters identify as "socialist" than "capitalist.")
Clinton and the Democratic establishment are trying to make the case that Sanders is too far left to be the party's standard-bearer in November. But Kane reports they're trying to tread carefully so as not to alienate Sanders's growing voter base.
It's back. Director Michael Bay's movie about the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including a U.S. ambassador, came out in theaters on Friday. The movie is based on a book written in collaboration by surviving members of the CIA's security team, and already there's no shortage of controversy about what it portrays.
In an interview with The Post's Adam Goldman and Greg Miller, the former CIA officer in charge of Benghazi that night disputes the movie's storyline, saying one of the most pivotal moments in the film -- a CIA order to “stand down” rather than rush off to rescue U.S. diplomats a mile away -- never happened.
Whether fact or fiction, the action-packed drama actually avoids politicizing the incident, writes Post reviewer Michael O'Sullivan.
But Clinton, who was secretary of state during the time and whose response afterward has consistently been called into questions by conservatives, is being done no favors by having a re-telling of that deadly night brought to life for Americans less than three weeks for the first votes in the race are cast. Even if you don't think Clinton did anything wrong with regard to Benghazi, it's clearly not helpful to have it front-and-center again
.This is Clinton's strong suit, and it's a topic she's dominated in the past three debates.
As she balances how to come across as hawkish as possible with a base that is increasingly worried about terrorism but also wary of military intervention in the Middle East, Clinton has not recommended undoing or changing in a major way any of President Obama's efforts to prevent the flow of would-be fighters to the Islamic State.
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