Clinton walking fine line for debate
She is repositioning for general election
Hillary Clinton looks increasingly like a general-election candidate performing from a primary stage.
The challenges that come along with that, both for her and her Democratic competitors, will be clear at the party’s third debate Saturday in New Hampshire.
Clinton, who’s maintaining more than a 20-point lead in national polls over her nearest competitor, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, has focused less on mirroring his progressive positions — with the exception of a pledge Wednesday to raise taxes on the wealthy — and more on positioning herself for the general election.
With much of the 2016 spotlight focused on the GOP battle and Donald Trump's provocative statements and proposals (such as his recent call to temporarily ban non-citizen Muslims from entering the U.S.), the debate is a chance for the Democrats to get some media exposure. Clinton and Sanders will be joined on stage by former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley.
The last debate, held in Iowa the day after the Paris terrorist attacks, was punctuated by hits on Clinton’s foreign policy record, including her vote as a U.S. senator to authorize the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Now, the question is whether O’Malley and Sanders sharpen those attacks with polls showing the race largely stagnant since October.
Nowhere is Clinton’s message for a general election audience clearer than in her policy pronouncements in recent months, from a hawkish speech on Iran in September to her speech Tuesday in Minnesota, where she reiterated her view that the Islamic State must be destroyed.
At the debate, her challenge is to maintain some distance from President Obama without alienating the party’s base, with whom the president remains popular.